Historicising Art and Literature is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

The MA Arts and Culture at Leiden University offers two specialisations: Art History and Museum Studies.

The eighth issue of the JLGC explores the diverse and interdisciplinary research on our multifaceted relationship with animals which is currently taking place, re-examining the relationship between humans and animals, and the definitions involved.

Explore the intersection of arts, literature, and media in this interdisciplinary research master’s programme. Whether you're interested in medieval manuscripts or modern digital culture, this programme offers the flexibility to tailor your studies to your interests.

The center studies the many ways in which issues of law and justice are dealt with in art and literature with a focus on liminal issues and cases. These are issues and cases where law comes to the limits of what it is capable of dealing with and art and literature explore the implications of what is…

The aim of the Indonesian-Dutch Literature Collective (which is allied to the Society of Dutch Literature (MNL)) is to support research into the literature of and about the Dutch Indies, from the era of the Dutch East India Company to the present. Starting in 1986, the collective has published its own…

Knowledge and culture subproject 3:

Visit an exhibition, a concert or learn to paint.

Subjects Barbarian, Monstrous, and Wild responds to a contemporary political climate in which historically invested figures of otherness—barbarians, savages, monsters—have become common discursive currency.

This research cluster centres on regional, national, and global intersections and interactions between a variety of artistic expressions and society. It focuses not only on objects (artistic, literary, cinematic, and medial), but also on practices (aesthetic, political, and cultural).

Are you thinking about studying Arts and Culture: Art History and Museum Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

How are contemporary art practices from Southeast Asia negotiating notions of art and tradition?

Are you thinking about studying Arts, Literature and Media? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

From as early as classical antiquity there has been an interplay between literature and medicine.

Subproject of

The recent rise in global migration movements and the simultaneous attempts to prevent migrations to the Global North in general and Europe in particular have produced numerous images and narratives that try to record and convey these events and their actors.

How does contemporary art and culture represent nuclear contamination in post-nuclear landscapes?

Musical instruments are multiple things: they are objects but also means of communication; they are technological and also deeply connected to embodiment through the player; and they leave certain cultural traces (Ricoeur 1975/1984). This research project explores how literary texts from the 19th century…

This research intends to study the why, what, how and the possible outcome of internationalisation in higher education institutions of fine art and design.

Exploring cultural production in Europe, Latin America and Africa, the institute’s research programme focuses on the continuous interconnectedness of the Arts and Society in both the textual culture of literature, learning and public debate and the visual culture of art, architecture, film, photography…

Today, globalization makes us all aware of how closely we are connected to, and often dependent upon, the actions of people who are distant from us. Human migration and economic liberalization have confronted local communities with changes happening on a global level. How can we devise ways to share…

The World Politics Major at Leiden University College The Hague examines the big ideas and the powerful forces – political, military, economic, social and cultural – that shape the world at every level, from the global to the local and everything in between. Political conflict is a key driver of many…

Questions of justice are not only the concern of legal professionals, politicians and activists, they also permeate culture at large. Literature, Cinema, Music and Artworks often revolve around questions about rights, justice and fairness, raising a wide range of issues, such as: how do we understand…

Leiden University College The Hague: Liberal Arts & Sciences, Global Challenges.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

The first of the two volumes of this co-authored study has just been published by Metzler. The study explores the history of the concept ‘barbarism’ from the 18th century to the present and illuminates its foundational role in modern European and Western identity.

Wrenching poverty, global inequality, violent political and ethnic strife, deadlocked, unresponsive or even collapsing governments, growing dissatisfaction with democracy and missed opportunities for innovation – these are merely some of the challenges of governance and development with which our programme…

On 1 September 2022 Afke van Ewijk successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Although the world has made tremendous progress in health, education, sanitation and hygiene, global public health challenges still exist. Disparities in health exist between and within nations as evidenced by inequalities in disease burden, mortality, nutrition and environmental well-being. How does…

At the start of the 20th century there were fewer than 2 billion people. Now at over 7 billion, Earth’s population is on target to reach 8 billion by 2027. How has this dramatic increase in human population impacted Earth’s life support systems and natural resources? How should we understand the meaning…

Home to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, The Hague is the perfect backdrop to explore conceptions of justice in our global society. Questions of human rights, peace, security and the environment present legal and policy challenges for governmental and non-governmental…

How to understand the simultaneously dis- and reappearance of letters in contemporary culture, and how does this Neo-Epistolarity relate to media-technological change?

The master’s programme in Arts and Culture at Leiden University is uniquely positioned at the intersection of Art History and Museum Studies. Informed by leading interdisciplinary research, this degree provides you with a strong academic foundation for a variety of careers in museums, galleries and…

This project will study the cultural meaning of the mythological figure of Orestes within the ancient Greek imagination, as it emerges from various literary sources from the archaic and classical periods.

The one-year, English-taught master's programme in English Literature and Culture focuses on the interaction between literature and key political and social issues such as identity, migration, memory and the metropolis, but also between literature and the literary tradition, and literature and film.

'The Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia' explores the nature and implications of civil society across the region, engaging systematically with both theoretical approaches and empirical nuance for a systematic, comparative, and informative approach.

In what ways can visual art play a vital role in countering the discriminating stigma experienced by transgender communities?

On Tuesday 3 December 2024 Shuang Liu successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The second and final volume of this co-authored study has just been published by J.B. Metzler. This second monograph explores the history of the concept of barbarism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The purpose of LENS is to foster, coordinate and support research of visual media of analog and digital photography, film, and video, and the visual arts.

Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is dedicated to ground-breaking and interdisciplinary research dealing with the relations between culture and society.

The Dutch Center for Travel Writing Studies s a scientific center that develops and coordinates initiatives to promote research into travel writing. It actively seeks contact with external (scientific and social) partners to collaborate on issues surrounding cultural / national identity, cultural contact…

This project examines the intriguing relationship between Greek literary criticism and Latin literature in Rome (first centuries BC and AD).

The Leiden Lectures in Media | Art | Politics (MAP) is a series of talks organized by Pepita Hesselberth and Yasco Horsman. Speakers from various academic backgrounds and in different stages of their careers reflect on diverging ways in which technological and social changes challenge and transform…