The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages.

Jessica Barr and Barbara Zimbalist invite essays that examine any aspect of race and religion in medieval culture and society for a special issue on race and religion in the Middle Ages. Deadline for submission: 1 February 2021.

Landen om ons heen laten zien: als burgers mogen meedenken, komt er beweging in vastgelopen politieke discussies. Zou een dergelijke derde kamer ook de oplossing kunnen zijn voor Nederland, waar samenleving en overheid elkaar steeds verder uit het oog lijken te verliezen?

There are approximately 60 million skateboarders worldwide. And yet in the academic world, this culture is not always looked upon seriously. Visual anthropologist Sander Hölsgens believes that this has to change. Last summer his book 'Skateboarding in Seoul' and the accompanying film 'Reverberations'…

There is a crisis in the law concerning the accommodation of religious practice. The legal profession is demanding that the law be changed because it does not want religious institutions to have the 'right to discriminate'. The profession holds that evolving societal sexual norms can render lawful religious…

On January 19, a masterclass on the theme of religious imagination will take place in the Lorentz Center in Leiden. This masterclass for MA and PhD students will focus on the religious imagination as a spiritual skill in the late medieval Low Countries, and the role of religious texts, images, and objects…

Religions involve belief in the unbelievable: in evil spirits causing disease, in souls surviving death, and in gods punishing wrongdoers and blessing the just. Cognitive studies suggest that humans are predisposed to speculate about fate and divine agency, but support from so-called ‘plausibility structures’…

This publication aims at the analysis of the performance of a corpus of Fongbe stories that I collected in three villages in the south of Benin in 1976 and 1977. The corpus consists of 37 stories (57.000 words). The stories aim at children’s education.

The bachelor program Religious Studies has, besides also Linguistics and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, been awarded by the 'Keuzevakkengids Universiteiten 2019' with the predicate top program.

It is becoming increasingly common for large Dutch municipalities, including the Municipality of Amsterdam, to allow special enforcement officers to wear religious symbols such as the kippah and headscarf. Dutch Minister of Justice Dilan Yesilgöz and PVV party leader Geert Wilders are opposed to this…

A selected group of unpublished amulets from various collections in the world will be studied and edited.

Leiden’s Religious Studies ranks 40th place in the QS World University Rankings by Subject.

This project explores the religious lives of a Surinamese Hindu community practicing in Amsterdam at the Sri Radha Krishna Mandir from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Program for postgraduate research master seminar 'Current Issues in Religious Studies and Western Esotericism' 2024–2025 is online

Jifeng Liu defended his thesis on 2 February 2017

Sharia Incorporated: A Comparative Overview of the Legal Systems of Twelve Muslim Countries in Past and Present

Since my master's thesis on the landed property of the Frisian monasteries in the Middle Ages I am highly interested in the do ut des-aspects of the relation between religious houses and the lay world. Key words here are: property, power, patronage and the role of religious institutions in the 'salvation…

Ideology and Christianity in Japan shows the major role played by Christian-related discourse in the formation of early-modern and modern Japanese political ideology.

Contemporary Maya Calendars

The portal for prospective Indonesian Students contains information about the possibilities to study at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

During the one-year master’s programme in Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present you will be studying an academic field that is an entirely new research area, putting you at the forefront of a new way of thinking about European history.

This programme starts from the idea that cultural discourse is one of the main engines of intellectual history and the history of ideas.

Muhammad Adlin Sila examines the range of ways Bima Muslims constitute their Islamic identities and agencies through rituals and festivals. In response to their surroundings, what it means to be a Muslim is constantly being negotiated.

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The master's programme in Philosophy: Moral and Political Philosophy at Leiden University offers an excellent opportunity to explore fundamental issues in moral and political philosophy.

Yuxi Nie defended her thesis on 15 October 2019.

If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

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

How do religious narratives persuade their readers to believe their message? And how can it be that some readers even come to treat fantasy and science fiction as authoritative religious texts? These are the core questions treated in Markus Davidsen’s new book Narrative and Belief: The Religious Affordance…

What forms does religiosity take among Muslims in Europe today? How are answers to the question of what it means to be a Muslim in Europe reached in institutions of Islamic higher education, Muslim student organizations, and women’s organizations? What is the relation between the individual and religious…

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.

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The BA Religious Studies programme has been awarded the label 'Topopleiding' (Top Education) in the Keuzegids 2021.

ARC is a new platform for the artistic-academic discourse in the Netherlands and is an initiative of the Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA).

In this dissertation, the life account is constructed of of the founder of Bon Religion, Shenrab Miwo.

A project aimed at understanding the complicated process of religious transformation in one of the centres of the early Muslim world.

Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam organises a postgraduate seminar on current issues in religious studies and western esotericism. You can find the programme for the year 2023-2024 below.

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.

Cody Bahir defended his thesis on 1 June 2017.

This book underscores the interplay between religion and politics (local and global) in the production, escalation, management, mitigation, and resolution of conflict.

Thirteen Centuries of Creed, Conflict and Coexistence

This study elucidates a critical facet of modern global Buddhism that has escaped the attention of the scholarly community by exploring the life, teachings and influence of Master Wuguang 悟光上師 (1918-2000).

Three students in Elpine de Boer’s class “Practicing Religious Studies” have been working together on a “Leren met de Stad” (“Learning with the City”) project with community centre Morschwijck, located in Leiden. The students were asked by the organization Incluzio to investigate to which extent cultural…

‘Internationale Politiek’ is a specialisation in the BSc programme in Political Sciences. It combines the core political science subjects with the study of international and global processes and institutions. This specialisation is partially taught in Dutch and based in Leiden.

On October 11, the Austria Centre Leiden teamed up with the Leiden Jewish Studies Association to welcome Dr. Lena Sadovski for a lunch time talk. Fifteen colleagues from across the university, including retirees and graduate students, attended Dr. Sadovski's fascinating lecture entitled “When religion…