The Dutch and English East India Companies were formidable organizations that were gifted with expansive powers that allowed them to conduct diplomacy, wage war and seize territorial possessions. But they did not move into an empty arena in which they were free to deploy these powers without resista…

This book project explores the changing dynamics of marriage and family life in postwar Japan based on an examination of the life histories of single mothers.

ASLU 28 Michalis Karambinis (2015)

Drawing on a broad array of sources, this project examines modern retrievals of Bacon’s idols, thereby testing Justus von Liebig’s intriguing observation, back in 1863, that Bacon’s name lived on mainly in mottos or stereotypical phrases. More importantly, it examines the rhetorical purposes served…

The Iseum Campense, the impressive sanctuary for Isis and the Egyptian gods on the Campus Martius and arguably one of ancient Rome’s most notable absent presences, is a monument central to various debates.

On Friday April 24th, after a day of festivities in honor of his 60th birthday, Hendrik Lenstra was awarded the distinction of `Ridder in de Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw' by the mayor of the city of Leiden.

igraph development focused on improving the most-used interfaces, which are Python, R, and Mathematica. Additionally, the developers aim to make the library and the interfaces easier to maintain, focusing on long-term sustainability. This ensures that igraph continues to be a useful tool for network…

Imaging and Imagining Palestine is the first comprehensive study of photography during the British Mandate period (1918–1948).

Sonic Modernities situates Southeast Asian popular music in specific socio-historical settings, hoping that a focus on popular culture and history may shed light on how some people in a particular part of the world have been witnessing the emergence of all things modern.

Who were the main artists and producers who generated new forms of popular music? What was the music like that was produced by artists in particular urban settings? How were particular lifestyles articulated to identify new audiences and what does this reveal about the way popular music contributed…

This study discusses the position of the monasteries in pre-1950s Tibetan societies and how that position was informed by Buddhist monastic ideology.

Paul van Enckevort defended his thesis on 3 June 2020.

By the end of the sixteenth century, stories about the Revolt in the Low Countries (c. 1567-1648) had begun to spread throughout Europe. These stories had very different authors with very different intentions.

This dissertation the role of the English dissenting minister Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) as a grammarian is studied.

This comparative study investigates court politics in four kingdoms that succeeded the south Indian Vijayanagara empire during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries: Ikkeri, Tanjavur, Madurai, and Ramnad. Building on a unique combination of unexplored Indian texts and Dutch archival records, this research…

The Discovery of El Greco: The Nationalization of Culture Versus the Rise of Modern Art (1860-1915)

One way for governments to conduct foreign policy and promote national interests is through direct outreach and communication with the population of a foreign country. This is called public diplomacy. Historians such as Helmer Helmers and William T. Rossiter have shown that printed media were already…

A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914)

This research deals with the royal houses of the Vijayanagara Empire and four of its successor states: Ikkeri, Tanjavur (under both the Nayaka and Bhonsle rulers), Madurai, and Ramnad. This study is thus concerned with dynastic politics and imperial legacies in south India between the 14th and 18th…

Choong-Yeol Kim defended his thesis on 14 November 2019

This project aims to revisit the ways in which religious minorities in the Middle East participated in, contributed to, and opposed the Arab nationalism of the post-war years, when the British and French ruled the region via the Mandates. Research question: How did religious minorities in the Middle…

A Twenty-First Century Guide

On 24 October 2023 Jurre Knoest successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

In Nature researchers at Leiden University and Utrecht University show how 47 teeth from Southern China indicate that anatomically modern humans where present at least 80,000 years ago in the region. This is 40,000 years earlier than in Europe.

The University’s Executive Board (College van Bestuur) has decided to continue the Leiden University profile area Asian Modernities and Traditions for another four years, from 2015 to 2018. By 2018, AMT2 commits itself to achieve demonstrable results in enhancing the visibility of Asian research both…

The aim of the project is to contribute to the process of archive formation ongoing in Post-Apartheid South Africa through the inclusion of photographs that have been either unacknowledged or excised from the national canon.

China wordt steeds assertiever in zijn relaties met andere landen, maar achter dit beeld gaat een opmerkelijk diverse maatschappij en politieke realiteit schuil die tal van aanknopingspunten biedt voor samenwerking en verdere integratie van China in de wereld. In China een gids voor de 21e eeuw past…

Neanderthals and modern humans in Belgium, a bone story

Barbarism: from the 18th century to the present.

This book bij Hasan Çolak is based on rigorous research on unpublished and unexplored Ottoman correspondence between the Ottoman central administration and the Eastern Patriarchates, published Greek patriarchal documents, and French missionary and diplomatic sources.

Providing a valuable overview of regionalism throughout the entire continent, Regionalism in Modern Europe combines both geographical and thematic approaches to examine the origins and development of regional movements and identities in Europe from 1890 to the present.

This study offers a new view on public services in the early modern Low Countries and answers the following questions: who provided public facilities in urban communities and in which ways did public amenities change in the period between 1500 and 1800?

Join-in courses are MA-courses in medieval topics given in set MA-programs of the six participant universities of the Research School. On request, such courses are accessible for MA-students from other (Dutch) universities. Course loads and number of credit points to be obtained are usually between…

Scientist looked for the genetic footprint of fire use in our genes, but found that our prehistoric cousins - the Neanderthals - and even the great apes seem better at dealing with the toxins in smoke than modern humans.