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…

Knowledge of Muslim societies is essential to function in a globalised world and to fully understand our own Dutch society. Leiden researchers explore the languages, cultures, religions, legal systems and history of Muslim societies and in this way contribute to a centuries-old tradition.

For more than 1500 years, Confucianism has played a major role in shaping Japan's history - from the formation of the first Japanese states during the first millennium AD, to Japan's modernization in the nineteenth century, to World War II and its still unresolved legacies across East Asia today.

Thanks to its early civilisation and continuous mix of influences, the Muslim world has a rich and varied culture. The study of material culture, books, stories, films and increasingly television series teaches us about the structure of modern-day Muslim societies.

Before 1936, musical practices in Palestine relied heavily on colloquial poetry, especially in rural communities, which constituted most of the population. In this dissertation, Issa Boulos has examined historical records that revealed many differences and similarities between Palestinian communities…

‘Islam and Muslims are not something that happened to Europe; they are part of Europe. In fact, Islam is one the biggest constants in European history,’ argues Professor Maurits Berger in the new eight-part Matters of Humanities: History of Islam in Europe podcast series of the Leiden University Faculty…

Muslims have lived in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe for centuries. Their arrival in Western Europe, the two Americas and Australia is however relatively recent. Studying how Muslims relate to their Western environment (and vice versa) and the mutual influences of Western and Islamic philosophies…

The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is one of the few research institutes in the world in which researchers in the field of literature, art, architecture, design and media studies come together to conduct research into the cultural production of the western world, from classical…

The |0100| Project studies the discourses, practices and imaginaries of Islamic information society’s most debated component- Artificial Intelligence- using multimodal and mixed methods and comparing and contrasting narratives and imagery of AI-religious-futures in Muslim Southeast Asia.

Harriet Hunter defended her thesis on 26 September 2018.

Mexico, between 500 B.C. and A.D. 900

On 5 February 2019, Alain Vannieuwenburg defended his thesis 'Pleidooi voor een lekenrenaissance'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. P.B. Cliteur.

Understanding the history of Islam and Muslim societies sheds a clear light on the complex and changing social structures of the Middle East, including the current trouble spots whose effect spreads all the way to Western Europe.

Your time at Leiden is about more than just studying. Some of your best experiences will stem from being a part of our lively and diverse student community, as well as from life in the beautiful city of Leiden.

Lecture, COGLOSS

Renske Janssen started her PhD project at LUCAS and LUIH in October 2015. Her project is part of the research field ‘History and Culture of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity’, supervised by Jürgen Zangenberg.

Research at the BPOC/SSNMR group is comprised of the following research themes:

‘Visibility and secrecy are both valuable tactics and should not be antagonized in LGBT movements, ’ says Jingshu Zhu. Zhu defended her dissertation on Wednesday 21 February.

As a virtually inexhaustible source, solar energy plays a major role in future global energy scenarios.

Aesthetic formations and cultural repertoires give meaning to our reality in ways that are never neutral. Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its global interlocutors, this project brings together a team of scholars from Leiden University who bring in inter-disciplinary, inter-area…

The electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is an essential half-reaction for the utilization of hydrogen as a sustainable fuel, via the conversion of hydrogen to electrons and protons facilitated by the ORR. In the most common fuel cells, the ORR is requires high loadings of non-abundant platinum…

Promotor: Prof.dr. T.J. Aartsma, Co-promotor: R.N. Frese

Gianclaudio Malgieri, associate professor of Law & Technology and board member at eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, met with Swedish and Dutch inspiring academics on 13 November at the Europe House in the Hague, to have an “unrehearsed, spontaneous and eye-opening conversation” on current…

Experts and initiatives related to Academia in Motion (AiM) regularly appear in the media. Below are some examples of news coverage to date.

Prince, Pen, and Sword offers a synoptic interpretation of rulers and elites in Eurasia from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. Four core chapters zoom in on the tensions and connections at court, on the nexus between rulers and religious authority, on the status, function, and self-perceptions…

More on the Dutch webpage.

Our recent excavations have focused on the more recent New Kingdom/Late Period (ca. 1500-332 BCE) material.

ERC Starting Grant: The Van Manen Project. This five year project (2023-2028) is made possible with an ERC Starting Grant. It aims to (digitally) reunite all parts of the Van Manen Collection. This enables us to study it as a whole, helping us to understand the process of collection formation. More…

Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period. It inspired people to strive for social and political change, including sometimes by violent means, and prompted in return strong reactions against their religious activism.

Are you a student from Indonesia, planning to study in Leiden?

In the Brill series Intersections a new volume has been published, entitled Ronsard and Du Bartas in Early Modern Europe.

Paul van Enckevort defended his thesis on 3 June 2020.

On 18 December 2019, Mikhail Antonov defended his thesis 'Formalism, Realism and Conservatism in Russian Law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. W.B. Simons.

Kuba funerary art from the Congo River Basin

Viviana Massa defended her thesis on 16 December 2018.

The nineteenth century truly was an age of transformation. Throughout Europe processes of industrialization and urbanization, nationalization and centralization, changed the structures of society. It was an age in which the number of people living in urban communities grew substantially.

In African societies today, growing inequality and continued exclusion due to ethnicity, gender, religion, disability or sexual orientation give rise to both contestation and cooperation for social change. How does the written or spoken word lead to collaboration and contestation in areas of social…

This dissertation provides a detailed description of the interaction between verb semantics and the two grammatical voice categories in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda.

El Chorro de Maita, Cuba

Neil Young and Philosophy, edited by Douglas L. Berger, explores the meanings, importance, and philosophical dimensions of the music, career, and life of this prolific singer/songwriter over the past five decades.

It is integral to many cluster members’ research to use Medieval and Early Modern Arts as a lens for studying the medieval and early modern periods at large:

Nirajan Kafle defended his thesis on 15 October 2015

Books, prints or photographs, they exist to be read or viewed. But they are so much more.

The Heritage and rights of indigenous peoples focuses on the living heritage of indigenous peoples and its safeguarding, connecting the past and the present in local communities.

Central to the research of several cluster members are the social function and contexts of the production and consumption of medieval and early modern art, literature and media:

Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR) studies religion as human activity, in all its diversity.

Proceedings of the Vth International Conference of Isis Studies, Boulogne-sur-Mer, October 13-15, 2011

From the smallest level of interaction among families and close friends, over the meso-level of schools, shops, churches, religious communities and companies, to the highest level of nation-states and international organisations: Language Policy and Planning (LPP) is everywhere!

This publication by Cornelis van Tilburg, will be published at Sidestone Press on September 28, 2022. It discusses various aspects of city gates in the Western Roman Empire: Italy, Spain, Gaul, Germany and Britain.