Lecture, Faculty Lecture

The master’s programme in Colonial and Global History at Leiden University offers the most in-depth and comprehensive programme on the history of colonialism and globalisation currently available in Europe.

Inaugural lecture

This book examines the critical role of information and knowledge in early modern Europe's global pursuits, exploring challenges in trusting distant information, the development of doubt in intercultural encounters, and the impact of misinformation.

The project aims to explore Eurasian elk's role in the ecosystems of the past and its relationship with humans through analysis of its distribution and habitat in the Netherlands.

This book examines the history of The Netherlands in a way that connects global processes to local developments.

In the study of West-East relations, difference often takes centre stage. This holds for both culturalist and postcolonial perspectives. By contrast, in my investigation of Netherlands-Iran political relations in the 1960s and 1970s, I will focus on the role of SIMILARITY. What lay at the root of the…

Telders Case 2025

Migration imposes special pressures on the meaning, experience and organization of lifecycle rituals. These pressures are felt most strongly by Muslim migrants to Western Europe. In this innovative study, Nathal M. Dessing examines the effects of migration on the life cycle rituals of Moroccan, Turkish…

The process of unification and the character of the union are the central topics of Magnanimous Dukes and Rising States. Robert Stein mirrors continuity and modernisation in Burgundian times with the bankruptcy of the former dynasties and the decline of feudal government. The powerful towns played an…

This dissertation, Layered Loyalties: The Natuurkundige Commissie in the Netherlands Indies (1820-1850), studies the Natuurkundige Commissie.

On 23 January 2020, Paula Kemp defended her thesis 'Enforced performance of commercial sales contracts in the Netherlands, Singapore and China'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. H.B. Krans and Prof. M.H. Wissink (RU Groningen).

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.

A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914)

Mining the unusually rich diaries, memoirs, and poems written by Netherlandish Catholics, Judith Pollmann explores how Catholic believers experienced religious and political turmoil in the generations between Erasmus and Rubens.

Integrating life cycle assessment (LCA) with life cycle costing (LCC) offers the opportunity to simultaneously analyze the environmental and economic aspects of product alternatives, for the integration of which a unified computational has been proposed by Heijungs et al. (2013) [1]. The project aims…

Adoptees in the Netherlands generally do not use more medication than their non-adopted peers.

This research sets out to answer the following questions:

Debates on political legitimacy in Dutch parliament in the 1880s, 1930s, and 1960s

What makes a pension scheme sustainable? Most answers to this question have revolved around expert assessments of pension schemes’ affordability or adequacy. This study shifts focus from the financial or social sustainability of pension scheme designs to their political sustainability. The key question…

The illegal use of hand grenades has generated a lot of public interest over the last few years but very little is known about the nature and extent of these incidents. This research project is trying to fill that gap.

People from the Dutch islands of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius say that violence (mainly verbal) is fairly common in families. This is according to research by Leiden University, the University of Curaçao and UNICEF Netherlands. The researchers make recommendations for preventing such violence over…

The Colonial and Global History (research) programme at Leiden University offers the most in-depth and comprehensive programme of European expansion and globalisation currently available in Europe.

Subproject of

The project XAIPre (pronounce “Xyper”) aims to develop predictive maintenance system for the maritime industry using sensor technology and artificial intelligence. The project aims at developing Explainable Predictive Maintenance (XPdM) algorithms that do not only provide the engineers with a prediction…

How did rulers in the Netherlands and in adjacent smaller German territories adapt their regimes to ongoing change in legitimacy and decision-making during the transition period 1780-1820?

On 10 June 2021, Merinda Stewart defended her thesis 'Freedom of Overflight: A Study of Coastal State Jurisdiction in International Airspace'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. P.M.J. Mendes de Leon en Prof. J.J. Rijpma.

The marine shipping industry is one of the strongest emitters of nitrogen oxides (NOx), a pollutant detrimental to ecology and human health. Over the last 20 years, the pollution produced by power plants, the industry sector, and cars has been decreasing.

In 2015 the division ‘Migration and Crime’ of the Dutch Society for Criminology has been established to bring together academic researchers that are active in this diverse field with each other and relevant persons and organisations. On March 10 it will organise its first seminar on labour exploitation,…

Teachers of English as a foreign language in China and the Netherlands have different notions of themselves as teachers in relation to cultures associated with the English language.

This monograph, written by dr. Dennie Oude Nijhuis and published by Cambridge University Press, discusses the postwar development of the welfare state.

Homicide followed by the suicide of the perpetrator often leads to shock and incomprehension. It has been suggested that media reporting on such cases could lead to an imitation effect.

Ineke Smit defended her thesis on 17 September 2019

Fighting for the faith, caring for the sick, and praying for the soul of their benefactors were the main tasks of the military orders, who since the time of the crusades were well represented in the Netherlands in the Middle Ages, including the Frisian lands. Especially the Hospitallers and the Teutonic…

The decades around 1800 constitute the seminal period of European nationalism. The lin­guistic corollary of this was the rise of standard language ideology, from Finland to Spain, and from Iceland to the Habsburg Empire. Amidst these international events, the case of Dutch in the Netherlands offers…

Historical geo data are gaining in importance. Provided that they are exactly geo referenced, they can be stored into a GIS and thus be combined with all kinds of maps (topographical, pedological, etc.) and datasets. This makes it possible to analyze historical developments in space and time on a detailed…

Leonard Blussé, emeritus Professor in the History of European and Asian relations, will receive the prestigious Japanese Academic Fukuoka Prize. Blussé receives the prize for creating a new academic field: 'The Maritime History of early modern East/Southeast Asia'. He will receive the Prize in September…

With her Veni research, investigator Rosanne Baars from the Institute of History aims to demonstrate that women played a role in the eighteenth-century diplomatic circles of the Ottoman Empire. ‘We already know that one woman led the entire embassy.'

A big performance by André Rieu, food trucks in The Hague and more contact with the Royal Family: grand plans were announced in April to make the State Opening of Parliament (Prinsjesdag) a real ‘crowd puller’. For this year, however, we will just have to make do with slight differences in emphasis.…

The main aim of this project is to provide a full analysis of the actual influence of French on Dutch in The Netherlands during the period of 1500 - 1900.

Relevant safety issues are associated with hazardous materials transportation, especially when transport routes cross populated areas. This article for the Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process of Industries analyses a 2015 accident with a freight train in Tilburg, comparing it to the Viareggio…

Ömer Gürlesin defended his thesis on 28 November 2018

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University’s Faculty of Science with National University of Kyiv, National University of Lviv, Odessa National Maritime University, Odessa National University, and V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in Ukraine.

What representations of Protestant moderns by Roman Catholics, and vice versa, are reflected in 19th-century ‘casual’ media published between 1840 and 1910, and can we see a development over that period?

Khadija Kadrouch-Outmany defended her thesis on 16 September 2014.

In which way was literary celebrity constructed in the nineteenth century and what forms of fandom were there?