Throughout the twentieth century, scholars, artists and politicians have accused each other of “historicism.” But what exactly did this mean? Judging by existing scholarship, the answers varied enormously. Like many other “isms,” historicism could mean nearly everything, to the point of becoming mea…

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 Common Market Law Review has an internationally composed Editorial Board and Advisory Board.

How do Nepalese exiles in England celebrate their festivals? What are North Korean monuments doing in Zimbabwe? The ‘Heritage on the Move’ exhibition shows what happens to cultures under the influence of migration. From 3 December to 7 January in Leiden University's Oude UB.

How do we define the works of a film director whose films cross many established boundaries at once?

Vietnam’s record of expanding access to education, and especially its performance on international assessments such as PISA, has raised questions about what Vietnam got right, how, and why and what insights Vietnam’s experiences might offer for efforts at improving the performance of education systems…

Throughout history, a large portion of the world's population has lived under imperial rule. Although scholars do not always agree on when and where the roots of imperialism lie, most would agree that imperial configurations have affected human history so profoundly that the legacy of ancient empires…

The main aim of this research is to understand the dynamics of identity within indigenous Caribbean communities as expressed through the practice of intentional cranial modification. A multidisciplinary approach will be applied to achieve this aim, combining current anthropological and sociological…

Links to related organisations, institutes, journals and archives.

As museums face more scrutiny and are being demanded to decolonize, there are opportunities for Dominican museums to adopt a critical perspective and turn their collections and exhibitions into connections to our cultural past, present, and future.

The past, present, and future for local people and archaeologists in Sudanese Nubia

Oxidation is a common degradation pathway that affects therapeutic proteins and peptides during production, purification, formulation, transportation, storage and handling of solid and liquid preparations. In the present work we review the scientific literature about structural and biological consequences…

This book provides a long-term historical analysis, exploring the roots of the low levels of corruption existing in Chile, going back to the 16th century and examining Chile’s institutional evolution until today.

NTER-SECTION is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal focusing on contributions from junior archaeological researchers at Leiden University. The journal offers an accessible platform for the publication of individual research by undergraduate and graduate students. The Editorial Board consists of PhD…

The cry for decolonization has echoed throughout the museum world. Although perhaps most audibly heard in the case of ethnographic museums, many different types of museums have felt the need to engage in decolonial practices. Amidst those who have argued that an institution as deeply colonial as the…

Of jars and gongs deals with the traditional ritual art of Ot Danum Dayak subsistence farmers from a stretch of tropical rainforest in the heart of Borneo. Together with the Ngaju, their neighbours to the south, they gloried in one of the most elaborate secondary mortuary rites in the world.

Chapter by Fabio Cristiano and Emilio Distretti for the volume The Aesthetics and Politics of the Online Self, edited by Donatella Della Ratta, Geert Lovink, Teresa Numerico, and Peter Sarram for Palgrave Macmillan.

V.S. Srinivasa Sastri was a celebrated Indian politician and diplomat in the early twentieth century. Despite being hailed as the ‘very voice of international conscience’, he is now a largely forgotten figure.

From the beginning of Galileo’s career, well before the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius, his contemporaries took pains to shape his reputation and fame. They were fully aware that their efforts would shape the course of his career; they also knew that they would profit from helping him.

The figure of the ‘politician’ occupies a central yet fraught position in the media landscape of contemporary Europe.

Arie van Steensel and Ariadne Schmidt (eds.)

This special issue of Media History (22-3/4, 2016), co-edited with Helmer Helmers (University of Amsterdam), develops a new perspective on the early modern communication revolution. It discusses news as a specific kind of information – by its nature continuous, unreliable, and diffuse – which needed…

The Revolt in The Netherlands erupted in 1566 and tore apart the Low Countries. In Memory Wars in the Low Countries, 1566-1700 Jasper van der Steen explains how public memories of the Revolt in the Habsburg Netherlands in the South and the Dutch Republic in the North diverged and became the objects…

This project investigates language choice and language use among Swiss mercenaries in the VOC and in the Dutch Colonial Army.

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…

Across the early modern Atlantic world, news and information were commodities just as valuable as sugar, tobacco or cotton.

The Faculty of Archaeology proudly presents the research brochure Perspectives on the Past, featuring passionate, dedicated researchers introducing a dazzling scala of research topics: from present-day traditional knowledge in Africa to the power of glue in Palaeolithic Europe. In addition to these…

Stories of resistance in the Second World War are widely covered in Dutch historiography: Hannie Schaft, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, and Professor Cleveringa are some of the best known. But these accounts largely focus on the Dutch domestic perspective. On the other side of the world, a complex colonial…

Five research projects of the Institute for History have been selected for the Research Traineeship Programme 2016-2017. The programme was initiated by The Faculty of Humanities to offer motivated students the opportunity to develop themselves in academic research. In December the research trainees,…

Lecture, Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar

PhD defence

By working together with external social partners, the knowledge of our scientists finds its way into society.

Lecture, Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar

In a speech on Keti Koti the Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, apologised on behalf of the royal family for the Netherlands’ historical role in slavery. What is the significance of this?

Meike de Goede has received a research grant of €14,600 from the Gerda Henkel Foundation for her research on the post-colonial silencing of anti-colonial resistance in Congo-Brazzaville.

Global Interactions sponsors a number of research projects of Leiden University researchers.

In an unpredictable environment bacteria evolve the same strategy as shareholders who try to protect themselves against unpredictable swings in the stock market. Experimental evolution biologist Dr Bertus Beaumont published an article on this discovery on 5 November in the journal Nature.

Numismatic research of Roman coin hoards in the Netherlands. The use of numismatic sources is incorporated in Claes’s research project “Dialogues of Power”. This project aims to analyse the legitimising dialogue between Roman emperors and their Germanic legions during the so-called “crisis of the third…

In 2023, many of our students and staff won great prizes and secured important research grants.

Carolien Stolte has received an Early Career Award from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). She received this award for her research into the role of informal Afro-Asian networks in the Cold War. For this innovative research she received the award, an amount of 15,000 euros, and…

Subproject of the NWO Smart Culture Grant research project 'The Critical Visitor'.

1) How natural cycles and activities are interconnected for building the time in one community? 2) What perceptions of Ñuu Dzaui peoples about their landscape can be connected with precolonial times?

Organisation of settlement space and residence rules among the Taino, the indigenous people of the Caribbean encountered by Columbus

Leiden and The Hague are home to many museums with large numbers of artefacts and archives. Leiden University also and the Leiden University Library also house special collections. Museums, Collections & Society stimulates research and education and raises ethical questions regarding the collections’…

The project ‘Founding an Inclusive Space’ investigates the histories of various LGBT+ archives in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Subproject of the NWO Smart Culture Grant research project 'The Critical Visitor'.

Doctoral research on the history of the critical visitor and their efforts at founding alternative archives including LGBT+-focused, feminist, disability and digitizing projects, resulting in a traveling exhibition on findings (with audio-guides), popular and scholarly article, and a dissertation.