Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

The first biennial symposium Environmental History in the Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries is scheduled for October 25 and 26, 2024. This event aims to facilitate the exchange of recent research, ongoing projects, and key discussions within the realm of environmental history among scholars from…

On 27-29 June, 2023, Leiden University's Institute for History will host a summer school on Global History in the 2020s, in collaboration with the Huizinga Institute-Research School for Cultural History, the Research School Political History, and the Flying University of Transnational Humanities (FUTH).…

Turkic nomadic rulers established large empires in the Middle East and Asia between the 11th and 14th centuries. This project will explore the link between their political ideology and the production of art and literature, via the cultural heritage of five cities along the Silk Road: Kashgar, Samarkand,…

From colonial times through to the present day, large numbers of Javanese have left their homes to settle in other parts of Indonesia or much further afield. Frequently this dispersion was forced, often with traumatic results.

In Uprooting the Diaspora, Sarah Cramsey explores how the Jewish citizens rooted in interwar Poland and Czechoslovakia became the ideal citizenry for a post–World War II Jewish state in the Middle East. She asks, how did new interpretations of Jewish belonging emerge and gain support amongst Jewish…

This thesis studies the relationship of the town al-Fusṭāṭ, located at the southern end of the Nile delta in Egypt, and its hinterland in the period between the town’s foundation in A.D. 641 and the arrival of the Abbasids in 750.

Making extensive use of primary source materials this study contributes to existing scholarship in the field of eighteenth-century grammars and grammarians by providing an in-depth study of Ash’s Grammatical Institutes and its influence on other popular grammars for children.

This article assesses Russian rhetoric toward Ukraine from 2004 to 2019 by analyzing statements by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This workshop intends to bring together early-career researchers from different fields working on international organizations, to discuss methodological challenges together with peers and established scholars. A combination of a master class, keynote lectures, and roundtable discussions aims at providing…

Museums have long focused on power, wealth and a few famous figures. But that is changing, says Valika Smeulders, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum. What this change comprises and how it has come about is the subject of her keynote speech at the D&I Symposium on 11 January.

The History of Art section at Radboud University is looking for a Full Professor of History of Art and Architecture between 500-1500 CE (1,0 FTE). Apply before: May 2, 2023.

Marion Anker is a junior curator at the Rijksmuseum, the National Museum of the Netherlands. She studied History in Leiden and Amsterdam. Together with her team, she organised the controversial exhibition ‘Revolusi! Indonesië onafhankelijk!’ What did studying History teach her?

On 25 and 26 October 2024, the first biennial symposium Environmental History in the Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries, is scheduled to take place at Leiden University.

The Roosevelt Chair in New Diplomatic History is sponsored by the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS) in Middelburg, and the new position further strengthens the connection between the RIAS and Leiden.

In 2018, Megan Griffiths, then a student of the MA North American Studies, won the Theodore Roosevelt American History Award for her master’s thesis ‘Radicals, Conservatives, and the Salem Witchcraft Crisis: Exploiting the Fragile Communities of Colonial New England’.

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

Five research projects of the Institute for History have been selected for the Research Traineeship Programme 2016-2017. The programme was initiated by The Faculty of Humanities to offer motivated students the opportunity to develop themselves in academic research. In December the research trainees,…

As a graduate of the MA Linguistics, with a specialisation in Linguistics, you will have developed a range of analytical and problem-solving skills that can be applied to many careers, in growing areas like speech technology, artificial intelligence, education, language documentation, language policy,…

This subproject of 'From Homo Economicus to Political Animal' analyzes Greek economic thinking in late 5th- and 4th-century philosophical circles.

How can the importance of the image in late medieval spirituality be understood in the context of the love mysticism inspired by the imagery of the Song of Songs?

King Willem-Alexander has commissioned independent research into the role of the House of Orange-Nassau in Dutch colonial history. The research will take three years to complete and will cover the period from the late 16th century to the postcolonial present. The research will be carried out at Leiden…

Master studies History, Classics, Russian Studies and Dutch Studies have received the label ‘top programme’ in the Keuzegids Masters of March 2018. The study guide bases its results on the opinion of students (through the National Student Survey) and experts (NVAO).

How can we understand the material instability of photographic (mixed media) artworks (1960s - present) from an integrated approach of Art History, Conservation Science and Chemistry in order to preserve these works for the future?

The main question I want to answer is about the mutual influence between the cultural and settlements changes that occurred between the Bronze and the Early Iron Age in Margiana and the management of water resources.

Modern receptions of Graeco-Roman Antiquity are important ideological markers of the ways we envisage our own twenty-first-century societies. An urgent topic of study is: what kinds of narratives – sometimes controversial – about Antiquity do people create for themselves at this moment in time, and…

The sixth issue of Ex Novo explores how ‘peripheral’ regions currently approach both the practice and theory of public archaeology placing particular emphasis on usually underrepresented regions of Eastern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean and beyond.

You’ve been accepted! Leiden University looks forward to welcoming you as a new student. Your next step is to prepare for your studies. Below you can find some tips to help you get a head start as you embark on your studies at Leiden University.

Come and meet us at the Leiden University Master’s Open Day!

Learn the newest insights from established scholars.

Political scientists Rebekah Tromble and Michael Meffert (Leiden University) address the question why certain frames persist over time in the media while others fade away and still others disappear very quickly. They suggest an approach based in event-history methodologies for assessing the causes of…

History and Religious Studies in Leiden rank # 17 and #32 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject. With this, History in Leiden ranks as the best in The Netherlands and Religious Studies ranks as second best.

In QS’s World University Rankings of 2016, Leiden University’s History and Linguistics programme rank #19 and #28, respectively. This makes the History programme the best of its kind in the Netherlands, and Linguistics the second best.

The key subject of the research programme Cities, Migration and Global Interdependence 1500-now (CMGI) is Inequality (at local, national and global levels). We study this from an intersectional perspective: gender, class, ethnicity or race, religion, sexuality, age, ability/disability, citizenship and…

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo

Despite the wealth of historical literature on the Second World War, the subject of religion and churches in occupied Europe has been undervalued.

Peter Webb is one of the four young Leiden Humanities researchers to receive a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Webb will use the funding for his project EPIC PASTS: PRE-ISLAM THROUGH MUSLIM EYES, to reevaluate the ways in which Muslims in early Islam remembered…

Call for Papers: Imperial Artefacts. History, Law, and the Looting of Cultural Property

Fondazione 1563 launched a call for the Summer School of the Turin Humanities Programme, that will take place in Torino from September 6 to September 8 2023. The theme is: Writing global medieval history: comparative and connected approaches. Deadline for applications: June 25.

In July 2021 the Leiden Empowerment Fonds (LEF) awarded a research grant of €13,500 for research into the history of maritime law in early modern times.

European integration is under pressure. At the same time, the notion of a European administrative space is being explicitly voiced. But does a shared idea of the public servant exist in Europe?

Over the last few years, human Rights have become subject of intense debates in historiography. Sam Moyn’s provocative book The Last Utopia (2010) made in particular clear how important it is to investigate precisely which meaning human rights have been given in a particular context. During the research…

This project aims to study the Aesopian fable from 1500 to the present day in its complex relationship between text, illustration and education, adopting a broad, transnational perspective.

Nobuaki Murai defended his thesis on 24 January 2018.

How did nineteenth century scholars evaluate each other and each other’s work through more or less informal practices of peer review?

This study presents a re-evaluation of Malay adventure stories.

The Patriot behind the pot tells the story of pottery, people and politics in the Netherlands during a time of great revolutions -revolutions both in a political and industrial sense.