Before coming to Leiden, Dr. Grossmann worked at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She first did her PhD and then she joined the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History and the Jacob Robinson Institute for the History of Individual and Collective…

Political scientist Claire Vergerio (Leiden University) has made it to the final stage of the selection process for Central European University’s annual European Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences and Humanities. As the 2019 Casimir Prize winner, Vergerio was nominated by the Faculty…

PhD defence

PhD defence

The decolonisation war in Indonesia was violent partly because the Dutch military operated on the conviction that ‘an uprising had to be forcibly suppressed.’ This what historian Christiaan Harinck from the KITLV discovered in his PhD research.

The success of Dutch radio astronomy in the last century was largely due to Leiden astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort. He made astute use of circumstances in the post-war period. Historian Astrid Elbers' research focuses on this golden period.

When we think of unethical medical experiments, we tend to think first of Nazi Germany. What is less well known is that experiments were also carried out in colonised areas without the explicit consent of the test subject. University lecturer Fenneke Sysling has received a European grant to research…

For too long the Dutch collective memory has judged the Jewish Council too harshly. This perspective needs to be adjusted, Bart van der Boom argues in his new book ‘De politiek van het kleinste kwaad’ (lit. ‘The Politics of the Lesser Evil’).

On 10 May 1940, the Netherlands was taken completely by surprise by the attack of the German army. Wasn’t it? In his dissertation, Wouter Linmans debunks the idea that the Second World War took the Netherlands by surprise. ‘From 1935 onwards, all major political parties wanted to invest in the military.’…

Complex research with a generous sprinkling of jargon: PhD defences can be difficult for non-experts to follow. In the compulsory new lay talk, PhD candidates begin by explaining their dissertation in words of one syllable. And it’s not just the PhD’s family and friends who appreciate this.

Lecture, Histories Connected: Work-in-Progress

Four promising young researchers will be able to conduct two years of research at a university abroad thanks to a Rubicon grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The Leiden laureates are Renske Janssen, Girija Josh, Anne van der Meij and Yana van der Weegen.

Lecture, Global Questions Seminar

Who is welcome as a refugee, and who is not? And how is that decided? What role do humanitarian organisations play in the debate surrounding refugees? Doctoral candidate Teuntje Vosters is investigating the influence Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) exert on European policy on migration and ref…

For a new food-related exhibition in the Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam, archaeologist Dr. Joanita Vroom has cooperated in creating the Taste Lab, where one can look, listen, taste and cook. Moreover, she designed a series of food workshops.

Rebekka Grossmann awarded Gerald Westheimer Career Development Fellowship for research on the effects of migration on visual codes of global solidarity

Lecture, Online webinar

It is undeniable that the public is central to the practice and study of public diplomacy. Indeed, this field is known as *public* diplomacy.

We are delighted to welcome Arun Sukumar as Visiting Fellow of The Hague Program for Cyber Norms at Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs from 30 October - 30 November.

The International Institute of Air and Space Law (IIASL) has always been proud of its network, and most notably its alumni. These unprecedented Corona times mean that the students have not had the same opportunities as in past years to meet and engage in personal relationships with that alumni-base,…

Multi-channel sound and video installation of the on-going project: Decomposing Landscape (2014 -).

You can eat for charity in 2017 at Happietaria in Leiden. This pop-up restaurant, located in the New Energy building, is run by volunteers from different Christian student associations.

Are you interested in meeting Bede Sheppard, Human Rights Watch’s Deputy Director of the Children’s Rights Department? Bede will be at LUC on Thursday the 26th of May for the #WatchOurSchools event in the auditorium, and we are giving our students the chance to meet with him before. In order to win…

The Leiden Law Blog has been completely renewed. It is now more interactive and blogs can be more easily shared.

Can you still remember the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, or the Dutch royal state visit to Indonesia in 1971? These are only a few of the dramatic events covered by Hans Beynon, whose archive of 7.000 photos was recently donated to the Leiden University Libraries (UBL) by his family.

Umberto Selva, a Leiden graduate of the Research MA program of Linguistics, has received for his thesis the international award for best MA thesis in the field of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics of the year 2015.

A research team of fifteen people – representing domains such as political economy, international relations, law, history and public administration - will work on the interdisciplinary programme Citizenship, Migration and Global Transformation. Leiden University has granted 3.5 million euro's to the…

Lecture

At the end of the fifteenth century, two intriguing Christian epics were written in Virgilian Latin by the poets Sannazaro and Vida. They did so in accordance with the wishes of the pope. These epics, both praised and criticized by contemporaries, are often seen as innovative for their specific combination…

Herta Mohr was a promising Egyptologist who died in Bergen-Belsen. Lawyer Amandus Wolfsbergen died in Auschwitz, without knowing that the his work would continue to be a respected authority for many years. Thanks to research by PhD candidate Adriënne Baars, some more personal information has been added…

Over a decade ago the then foreign minister Abdullah Gül awarded me the “Medal of High Distinction” of the Republic of Turkey. I received the award, consisting of a diploma and a gigantic gold medal, during a festive ceremony at the Turkish embassy in The Hague. The reason I was deemed worthy of the…

Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad and Prof.dr. Peter Akkermans have been awarded with the NWO Free Competition Grant for their research project 'Landscapes of Survival: Pastoralist Societies, Rock Art and Literacy in Jordan's Black Desert, c. 1000 BC to 500 AD'. Together, they study settlements, burials and inscr…

Korea specialist Koen De Ceuster has combined 1200 posters from North Korea in one database. He believes the posters are extremely valuable for researchers who want to make a more in-depth study of this closed country. The database will be launched on 15 June in Leiden.

Katarzyna Cwiertka, Leiden Professor of Modern Japan Studies, was already the recipient of a VENI and a VIDI grant. Now she has also been granted a VICI, worth 1.5 million euro, for her research project Garbage Matters: A Comparative History of Waste in East Asia. ‘I want to do something that hasn’t…

Ten Leiden museums and heritage institutions have curated the online exhibition ‘Carel’s Universe’. They selected objects from their collections that symbolise retiring Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker and the research in Leiden. With direct references, playful associations and the odd nod and wink.

Lecture, Studium Generale

Lecture, COGLOSS Masterclass

Lecture

Lecture

Lecture, LIAS Lunch Talk Series

On Monday, April 24 the Austria Centre Leiden and the Leiden Jewish Studies Association hosted a special seminar with Prof. Edyta Gawron entitled “Politics and the Holocaust in Modern Poland.” Gawron is a historian and professor of Jewish Studies at Jagiellonian University in Kraków and a noted expert…

Each year, the Institut français and French Embassy award the Bourses Descartes, which are designed to support students or PhD candidates who intend to study at a French educational institution or would like to finance a research partnership. In February, the Institut announced that part of a scholarship…

'Consider languages in their shared context.' That is the message of Professor and Arabist Beatrice Gründler, who will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on 8 February. ‘I would like people to learn that Arabic history has a close connection with Europe.’

The NWO has awarded Sara Polak a Rubicon grant. In September, she will start a 12-month period of research at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.

The powerful Dutch East India Company and West India Company were summoned before the High Court more often than historians have assumed. The complainants varied from competitors, to the Companies' own staff and even poor citizens. This is what Leiden historian Kate Ekama has discovered. PhD defence…