How old is the phenomenon of states attempting to control migrations on external borders? What were the motives and outcomes of these policies? In his dissertation, Jovan Pešalj examines how migration control on the southern Habsburg border emerged, how they functioned, and what impact they had on migrations.…

In January 2014, the research project The Promise of Organization hosted a fruitful three-day conference:

Viola Müller is a PhD candidate at the Leiden University Institute for History. Her research focuses on slave refugees in the US South, 1800-1860.

The physical features of twelfth-century manuscripts from the Flemish abbey of Ter Duinen – such as script, page layout, and reading aids – show how their readers organized, interpreted, and transmitted knowledge.

In August 2014 Stefano Bellucci started working as Senior Lecturer in African History at the Institute for History.

Women confined to the kitchen? Not in Scheveningen around 1900. There, some women ran entire shipping companies. This is according to new research by history student Sjors Stuurman. He compiled the results in a book he wrote for Muzee Scheveningen.

The History programme has been working for several years to make the curriculum more diverse and inclusive. With a Comenius grant, university lecturer Kim Beerden wants to take the next step.

Margarida Borges has been working as a PhD candidate at the Leiden Institute for History since September 2011.

In January 2014, Irial Glynn started a two-year Marie Curie Fellowship in Leiden. His project will compare the migration experiences of Ireland and Italy since 1945.

In January 2014, I began working as a postdoctoral researcher in History at Leiden on the NWO project “Democratization and political terrorism: The formation and destruction of the two-party system in the Red River Valley of Louisiana, 1865-1878,” where I am studying with Professor Adam Fairclough.

When did the Mali Empire disintegrate? What does the Sunjata heritage demonstrate about the political situation after 1600?

Joris van den Tol spent three months doing archival research in Albany in the USA. Read on how he experienced his stay.

The Department of History of Art in Oxford has appointed Leiden University professor Caroline van Eck as Slade Professor of Fine Art for the second semester of academic year 2016-2017. As Slade Professor Van Eck will spend a semester in office at Oxford University and deliver eight public lectures and…

Emeritus professor Willem Otterspeer received a royal honour from mayor Henri Lenferink on Tuesday 20 September. The university historian was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

The Institute for History of Leiden University, in collaboration with the N.W. Posthumus Institute, is organising a Masterclass by Dr. Arthur Weststeijn on Friday 13 November 2015.

In November 2013, three PhD students started in Herman Paul’s VIDI project ‘The Scholarly Self: Character, Habit, and Virtue in the Humanities, 1860-1930’. In this newsletter they introduce themselves.

Lecture

With a recently published major research project and an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, the struggle for independence in Indonesia has been thrusted back into the spotlight. Leiden University is devoting attention to this topic as well. History students Sander van der Horst and Melle van Maanen joined…

The Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference was founded in 2013 to publish a selection of the best papers presented at the biennial LUCAS Graduate Conference, an international and interdisciplinary humanities conference organized by the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). The…

This proposed research uses ego-documents from visual artists that were not intended for publication to reassess the scholarly debate on the demise of the Russian Avant-garde aesthetic in the twenties and early thirties of the 20th century.

If idioms employed in codes of conduct could be as idiosyncratic as examples suggest, then to what extent did early modern language of vice, too, persist in this genre?

This PhD research aims to trace the impact of the Arab conquest, both immediate and long-term, on the material and social organization of Central Asia from 651 to 821 through an “urban change” perspective in four cities: Merv, Paikent, Balkh and Samarkand.

This project analyzes to what extent hodegetical textbooks relied on each other in warning their readers against vicious habits, how much continuity their catalogs of vice displayed, and to what extent vices that persisted throughout the 18th and 19th centuries were associated with easy-to-remember…

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…

What evaluative languages (errors, mistakes, vices, etc.) did book reviewers employ? To what extent and on what occasions did they invoke early modern vices? And to what extent did this differ across fields or change over the course of the century?

This book contains the first three Leiden-Aramco Lectures on Arabic Language and Culture delivered by Petra Sijpesteijn, James E. Montgomery and Geert Jan van Gelder.

Since August 2013, Alanna O’Malley is the new Assistant Professor for International Studies at the Institute for History, Leiden University.

Erik Odegard is the third PhD-student who's joining Cátia Antunes' 'Challenging Monopolies' project.

Kaarle Wirta is one of the four PhDs in Cátia Antunes’ ERC Research Project 'Fighting Monopolies'.

Showing your face at dinners and parties at court: it was the way to get noticed by the king in William I's time. Joost Welten's latest book reveals how, during the reign of William I, the elite danced around his throne both literally and figuratively.

On the occasion of the retirement of Robert Ross, Professor in African History at Leiden University, his successor and former student Jan-Bart Gewald wrote a valedictory note.

Cambridge History of South Africa, volume 1: From early times to 1885 (edited by Carolyn Hamilton, Bernard K. Mbenga, and Robert Ross) made Choice magazine's list of Outstanding Academic Titles for 2010.

Alice Twemlow has been named professor by special appointment in the Wim Crouwel chair in the History, Theory and Sociology of Graphic Design and Visual Culture at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam.

As of 1 February 2015, dr. David Napolitano is postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for History. He is particularly interested in the figure of the medieval city magistrate.

Pieter Houten is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

Chrissoula Tzanetea is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

Diner | Dialoog

Damjan Donev is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

Esther Baakman is a PhD-candidate at Leiden University Institute for History.

Lecture, Global Questions Seminar

How did colonial law work to turn people into property? This project argues that colonial ideas about households and domestic authority were critical to legal processes of enslavement in the early modern Dutch empire. Using colonial court records from Dutch Brazil, Suriname, and the Moluccas, the project…

Lecture, Annual Leiden Terra Incognita Lecture

Political scientists Tom Louwerse, Simon Otjes & Cynthia van Vonno introduce the Dutch Parliamentary Behaviour Dataset, a record of parliamentary (voting) behaviour in the Dutch Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber, House of Representatives) since 1945.

Long into the 19th century, seascapes were considered an expression of patriotism. Artists who painted in a 17th century style were valued more. This tradition stifled innovation in the genre, Cécile Bosman has concluded. She will defend her PhD thesis on 13 October.