The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo is an academic centre providing services for scholars and students from the supporting universities.

The main focus of this research project is to investigate why people in Eastern Arabia chose to reuse ancient tombs and how this can be linked to collective memory.

A measured yet theoretically innovative exploration of how Islamophobia and radicalisation intersect and reinforce each other.

This centre brings together the research of the members of the Institute of Philosophy and affiliated academics whose work focuses on the history of philosophy broadly conceived. Research interests range from ancient to near-contemporary philosophy in various regions of the world, and cover all subdisciplines…

Stella Morgana defended her thesis on 31 March 2021

Leiden’s Faculty of Humanities is one of the broadest of its kind, offering courses in no fewer than 80 different languages and a very broad spectrum of academic disciplines.

What is the impact of Indonesia’s democratization process on everyday state-citizen relations?

Leiden University Centre for Intercultural Philosophy (LUCIP) is a centre housed in the Institute for Philosophy at Leiden University.

The conquest by Rome brought profound changes to large parts of Europe. Unprecedented infrastructural works were created, towns sprang up, a ribbon of fortresses was laid out along the frontiers.

Otrar as a Case Study for a 6-10th century Transition Zone

This book is the first comparative study of estimative intelligence and strategic surprise in a European context, complementing and testing insights from previous studies centred on the United States. It does extensive empirical analysis of open-source material and interviews in relation to three cases…

Study information

If you are interested in an academic programme, but do you not wish to complete the entire programme? Then, you can choose one of the many à la carte courses the Faculty of Humanities offers.

Are you interested in studying South and South East Asian Studies at Leiden University? To have an impression of the student life, see the overview of a typical day out of the life of Yaska Sahara, first-year student.

In this article, Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn and Edwin Bakker provide a big picture reflection on two decades after 9/11 in Western Europe.

The programme consists of 60 EC, to be completed in one year.

The NVIC library is a public, academic reference library. Entrance is free—no membership needed—and offers access to our book collection and two reading rooms, which have a WiFi connection. It is not possible to borrow books from our library.

Dr Jake Benson, who completed his PhD in Persian Studies at Leiden University in 2024, has been awarded a prestigious international prize for the best dissertation in manuscript studies.

On Monday 23 January 2023 J.T.P. (Hans) de Bruijn passed away at the age of 91. Until 1995 he held the Chair of New Persian Language and Culture at Leiden University.

The gripping story of a collective passion for freedom that shook the world.

This thesis attempts to interrogate post-1991-2015 political development in Ethiopia, focusing on the political discourses espoused by the government and opposition, using the discourse analysis method and securitization theory.

The principle aim of the project is to study the genesis and the quantitative properties of the Early Roman urban network of the Balkan and the Danube provinces.

In 2025 hebben medewerkers en studenten van de Universiteit Leiden veel mooie prijzen ontvangen en belangrijke onderzoekssubsidies binnengehaald.

Conferences, Workshops and Lectures showcasing research and tools in Digital Humanities.

This book connects labour history, global history and the institutional or political history of international organisations.

Supervisor: S.F. Portegies Zwart Co-Supervisor: A.G.A. Brown

Aristocratic dynasties have long been regarded as fundamental to the development of early modern society and government. Yet recent work by political historians has increasingly questioned the dominant role of ruling families in state formation, underlining instead the continued importance and independence…

This book examines how gender relations were regulated in ancient Near Eastern and biblical law. The textual corpus examined includes the various pertinent law collections, royal decrees and instructions from Mesopotamia and Hatti, and the three biblical legal collections. The book explores issues beginning…

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…

Leiden University has locations in both Leiden and The Hague.

Teachers of English as a foreign language in China and the Netherlands have different notions of themselves as teachers in relation to cultures associated with the English language.

Lecture

Recently, Ingrid Leijten’s book Core Socio-Economic Rights and the European Court of Human Rights was published with Cambridge University Press. The monograph was published in the series Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy (edited by Laurence Gormley and Jo Shaw) and deals with the protection…

Dario Fazzi

Malte Riemann examines the evolution of the mercenary concept. He suggests that notion of mercenary emerged in 19th-century Europe.

A new paperback edition of Brian Heffernan's book Freedom and the Fifth Commandment. Catholic priests and political violence in Ireland, 1919-21 was published by Manchester University Press in September 2016.

This book explores the lasting legacy of the controversial project by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, funded by the CIA, to promote Western culture and liberal values in the battle of ideas with global Communism during the Cold War.

On 29 June, Erwin Dijkstra defended the thesis 'Discrimination and the foundation of justice: hate speech, affirmative action, institutional opinions'. The doctoral research was supervised by Paul Cliteur and Bastiaan Rijpkema.

National and international actors have attempted to provide accountability for the events at Srebrenica in July 1995. This research project aims to draw lessons learned from those multiple efforts in assessing whether securing a measure of ‘justice’ for the victims has been successful and how national…

In this policy paper, Joachim Koops and Christian Patz are discussing Germany’s comprehensive assessment of Protection of Civilians readiness at the national level.

This book presents an archaeological overview of the presence and development of Egyptian material culture in the context of Augustan Rome.

Recent years have seen a vibrant scholarship on health policy and politics. While much is now known about changes to health policies and institutions over time, this study finds that scholarship still lacks research on the linkages between health policies and health outcomes (Marmor & Wendt, 2012).…

Organic molecules in interstellar space are important as they influence the structure of galaxies and star formations. Studying catalytic processes in space allows us to understand how molecular species are formed and chemically evolved in the interstellar medium and solar system objects.

Promotores: W. Th. F. den Hollander, M.O. Heydenreich

Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums is a large-scale research project funded through the Dutch National Research Agenda, and led by Wayne Modest and Susan Legêne (Vrije Universiteit). Work Package 3 on “Value” phrases its main research question as follows:…