What is the history of the humanities? What does this new field look like? How does it relate to the history of science or to the history of individual disciplines (linguistics, history, media studies)? And how can you participate?

Why does the history of dogmatism deserve our attention? This open access book analyses uses of the term, following dogmatism from Victorian Britain to Cold War America, examining why it came to be regarded as a vice, and how understandings of its meaning have evolved.

More than half of the Indonesian population lives in cities. What does this mean for public health? How sustainable are these megacities? This is the subject of the ‘Urban Transitions’ Summer Academy on West Java. This summer course is also the kick-off for a renewed interdisciplinary partnership…

This study aims to provide a long time perspective of human landscape manipulation. Studying the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems is of great importance to establish the character of past 'natural' landscapes and to enhance the management of current ones.

What are the humanities? As the cluster of disciplines historically grouped together as “humanities” has grown and diversified to include media studies and digital studies alongside philosophy, art history and musicology to name a few, the need to clearly define the field is pertinent.

This volume examines how the history of the humanities might be written through the prism of scholarly personae, understood as time- and place-specific models of being a scholar.

How can Indonesia’s Ombudsman in the Regions be strengthened?

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

Show People offers a comprehensive history of the film star from Mary Pickford to Andy Serkis, traversing more than one hundred years and drawing on examples from America, Britain, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

Cwiertka wants to investigate how waste is produced and disposed of in modern East Asian society. With her research group she will be carrying out a comparative analysis on two levels: the international level (between China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) and the inter-regional level (between East Asia…

The main aim of this project is to reveal and unravel the invisible histories of the UN, transcending the dominant Western perspective to recover the historical agency of Global South actors. The research will investigate how the UN has both facilitated and limited their role in shaping global order…

Promotor: P. T. de Zeeuw, Co-promotor: N. Neumayer; G. van de Ven

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.

By analysing neglected (continental) spy centres and integrating these groups of female intelligencers into the traditional, male-orientated historical narratives, this project will proceed towards a gendered history of early modern espionage.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute published Annemarie Samuels' article on the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. It's a detailed ethnographic account of the experiences of three Indonesian survivors.

How can legal education in Indonesia become more relevant for supporting the rule of law and providing legal services that common citizens need?

A political-legal study of rights invocation by pollution victims in China and Indonesia

On 24 April, Feby Kartikasari defended the thesis 'Mining and environmental protection in Indonesia: regulatory pitfalls'. The doctoral research was supervised by Adriaan Bedner and Bernardo Ribeiro de Almeida.

This PhD research sets out to unravel and explain the socio-structural and cultural impacts of oil-industrialization on the local Bakhtiari community in general and the industrial laborers it provided in specific.

On the 6th of July, Anthony Jakob successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Anthony on this achievement!

What does it mean to live in an era of ‘posts’? At a time when ‘post-truth’ is on everyone’s lips, this volume seeks to uncover the logic of post-constructions – postmodernism, post-secularism, postfeminism, post-colonialism, post-capitalism, post-structuralism, post-humanism, post-tradition, post-Christian,…

Zeynep Sarlak defended her thesis on 25 August 2020

Surreal Geographies recovers a forgotten archive of Holocaust representation. Examining art, literature, and film produced from the immediate postwar period up to the present moment, Kathryn L. Brackney investigates changing portrayals of Jewish victims and survivors.

The narrow but long stretched stript of Frisian land along the North Sea was already occupied before Roman times. However, man repeatedly suffered setbacks when he tried to extend his living space, both in the tidal marshes and the peat area south of them.

Wijayanto defended his thesis on 17 January 2019

Press freedom in Indonesia is still under pressure, despite the demise of Soeharto’s regime in 1998

On the 26th of May Sudarmoko successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On Thursday 20 May 2021, Tania Li delivered the annual Van Vollenhoven Lecture.

Lecture, Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar

This project looks at the current practices of marriage law in Indonesia. It examines the often ambiguous views different groups hold of marriage, from local villagers in Bengkulu to women’s activists in Jakarta, and how these relate to the development of national law on the one hand and local practices…

Labour is back as a significant social and political force in Indonesia, as was shown in the recent 1 May trade union demonstrations in Jakarta. Over the past years major changes have taken place in Indonesian labour law, leading to new forms of judicial and political resolution of labour disputes.

From William Shakespeare to Marilynne Robinson, A Literary History of Reconciliation is the first study to examine representations of interpersonal reconciliation in work of literature across a long-term period, from the early seventeenth century to the present day, focusing on how these representations…

A new book about Villa Isola in Indonesia reveals some of the shared history of the Netherlands and Indonesia. The book was presented on Thursday to Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board, and Mr Mayerfas, ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia in the Netherlands.

The first comprehensive and authoritative history of work and labour in Africa; a key text for all working on African Studies and Labour History worldwide.

This collaborative project aims to explore the history of the concept “barbarism” in Europe from the 18th century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the role of literature and art in the concept’s shifting functions.

The acquisition and administration of the possessions of the “Teutonic House” in Utrecht, and its dependencies, in the Middle Ages until c.1600.

Unlike most city histories, this book focuses exclusively on the city’s connections with colonialism and slavery.

How did digital intermediality symbolise and facilitate the transfer of content from popular culture into policy statements and vice versa in the period between 1945 and the new millenium?

On 20 September 2023 Mark van de Water successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On Thursday, the 4th of November 2010, a joint celebration took place in the Great Hall of the Gorleaus Laboratoria of the Faculty of Science of Leiden University on the occasion of the 65th Anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Indonesia on invitation by H.E. Dr. Umar Hadi, Vice-Ambassador…

On 21 January 2021, Fachrizal Afandi defended his thesis ‘Maintaining Order: Public Prosecutors in Post-Authoritarian Countries, the case of Indonesia’. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.W. Bedner and Prof. J.H. Crijns.

Fanny Wonu Veys was appointed Professor of Art and Material Culture of Oceania on 1 August. Time for an introduction.

How has democracy’s decline affected law making processes, enabling powerful stakeholders’ influence while minimalizing the protection of public interest and the environment?

This study has been carried out in the community of Sukamiskin, a kelurahan (‘village’) in Bandung, the Capital of West Java Province, located in the Sunda Region of Indonesia.

Wenxin Wang defended her thesis on 26 October 2016

Considering the ways in which the ‘global turn’ is changing the theory and practice of historical disciplines, Explorations in History and Globalization engages with the concept and methodology of globalization, challenging traditional divisions of space and time to offer a range of perspectives on…