LIAS aims to advance the globally conscious vision of area studies, both within and outside the academic community. Focusing on Asia and the Middle East, the institute is a meeting place of multiple fields of inquiry, theories and methods, historical periods, and areas.

Leiden University’s two-year MA Japanese Studies offers a unique opportunity to conduct graduate-level research on various aspects of modern and pre-modern Japan, and to spend a full academic year in Japan.

In the Bachelor's programme Japanese Studies at Leiden University you will study the rich history and age-old traditions of Japan. Discover the fascinating country of haiku, samurai, geishas and manga.

Andrea Giolai defended his thesis on 3 May 2017.

Alumnus Anoma van der Veere did Japanese studies and talks in this interview about his studies in Leiden and his work as a researcher at the Leiden Asia Centre and as Japanese correspondent in Tokyo.

We offer General Language Courses and Custom-made language training and In-company training.

The aim of this research was to establish if Ebeling's semiotactic theory and method of semiotactic analysis, as described in his works Syntax and Semantics (1978), Een Inleiding tot de Syntaxis (1994) and Semiotaxis, over Theoretische en Nederlandse Syntaxis (2006), could be applied to Modern Japanese…

Mari Nakamura defended her thesis on 14 March 2017

On the 12th of September, Lorenzo Nespoli successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Lorenzo on this achievement!

This thesis investigates the historical development of Japanese pitch accent.

The Academic Language Centre Leiden offers Arabic language courses at various levels, an intensive summer course and tailor-made Japanese language training. The courses are practical in nature: focusing on the use of the language. More information can be found here >

On 30 January 2024 Jurre van der Meer successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On Wednesday 14 February 2024 Yorum Beekman successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Thomas Mes defended his thesis on 9 January 2018.

This thesis investigates the processing of words written in Japanese kanji and Chinese hànzì, i.e. logographic scripts.

This PhD project investigates the different ways in which honorific forms are used in Japanese other than to express politeness, and how different factors affect perceptions about these uses.

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

Ruobin Han defended her thesis on 21 March 2017

Nichiran kankei-shi o yomitoku [Revisiting the History of Dutch-Japanese Relations] is a new, two-volume Japanese publication with a chapter written by Wulan Remmelink. Both volumes offer a new look on the historical relations between Japan and The Netherlands during the Edo period by examining various…

Japanese was not always the language spoken in Japan. Researchers link the arrival of the language in Japan with the migration of farmers around 400 BC. Linguist Elisabeth de Boer has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to carry out research on the further spread of the language in Japan.

Since the disaster in Japan, professors, staff and students of the department of Japanese Language and Culture at Leiden University have regularly been contacted by the media asking for their opinion about the events taking place there. Ivo Smits and Kasia Cwiertka, Professors of Japanese, give their…

‘There is no such thing as a timeless Japanese soul,’ says newly appointed Professor in Modern Japan Studies Katarzyna Cwiertka. The first month of her professorship turned out to be a crucial test: Japan was hit by a destructive earthquake and tsunami, and Cwiertka had to keep her head in the midst…

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.

The Linked In profile of alumnus Arne Driessen describes him as a ‘serial entrepreneur’. After studying Japanese he ended up working for a translation agency, after which he founded his own online marketing company, which he later sold to enable him to do something different again: making offices more…

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…

Modern Japanese culture can best be described in one word: cute. Hello Kitty, the most important symbol of cuteness, can be found in all layers of society. Leiden Japanologists Ivo Smits and Kasia Cwiertka put together a volume of articles on this curious phenomenon.

This edited collection brings together canonical texts on intermedia and expanded cinema in 1960s Japan, most of which translated into English for the first time, in hope to introduce the local critical discourse on this subject to international readership.

On March 12th, Jonathan Brown succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Jonathan on this great result.

In 1968 Japan was shocked by student protests and even today, exactly fifty years later, their effects can still be felt. An interdisciplinary group of researchers recently met to discuss them at Leiden University.