An Honours Class about the ostensibly unrecognisable worlds of insular Southeast Asia teaches students a fundamental piece of wisdom:

The Hortus botanicus Leiden connects science with the public. Through our research, we explore how people experience and appreciate nature while addressing key societal challenges.

The Museums, Collections & Society (MCS) group consists of staff members, all of whom have a strong link to the Museums and Collections programme of the Faculty of Humanities and the Heritage and Museum programme of the Faculty of Archaeology.

Are you curious about why people are the way they are – and how they change? At Leiden University, you’ll explore social behaviour, ideas and cultures, from the past to the present and from local to global. From major cities to world religions, from philosophical questions to education and upbringing…

Are you curious about why people are the way they are – and how they change? At Leiden University, you’ll explore social behaviour, ideas and cultures, from the past to the present and from local to global. From major cities to world religions, from philosophical questions to education and upbringing…

Grassroots heritage initiatives and community engagement

Are you thinking about studying Vitality and Ageing (name recently changed to Health, Ageing and Society)? Learn more and watch our video with a short introduction from junior lecturer Irie Timmer who explains what this master is all about.

Are you thinking about studying Vitality and Ageing (name changed recently to Health, Ageing and Society), and are you interested in our part-time programme? Learn more and watch our video with a short introduction from junior lecturer Irie Timmer who explains what this master is all about.

Laura van Broekhoven always knew she wanted to study archaeology, and that’s exactly what she did. Now this Leiden alumna is director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, one of the four museums of the University of Oxford.

Are you thinking about studying Literature and Society. Europe and Beyond? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Study information, Student-for-a-day

Study information, Student-for-a-day

LUCIS promotes high-quality research on Islam and Muslim societies and actively communicates the insights and findings of that research to the larger public.

Lecture

Museum Studies looks at museum practices from archaeological, historical and anthropological perspectives.

The 11th edition of Leiden Museum Night will take place on Saturday 18 May 2019. Nine museums will once again be opening their doors. As it is Leiden University’s 444th anniversary this year, we will be celebrating in style at the Academic Historical Museum.

Astronomer and Marxist Anton Pannekoek was a remarkable figure. This book aims to study the connections between his life as a socialist theorist and as a pioneering scientist through the prism of Pannekoek's biography.

A mosaic is the only image which can do justice to museums in the Caribbean. They are as diverse and plentiful as the many communities which form the cores of their organizations and the hearts of their missions. These profoundly social museums adopt participatory practices and embark on community engagement…

Learn about current approaches and ethical issues in heritage management and experience some of these in daily practice.

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…

Discover the HAS master at Leiden University – LUMC. Join the Experience Day and student for a day with a mini lecture, case study, and meet students and alumni.

Discover the HAS master at Leiden University – LUMC. Join the Experience Day and student for a day with a mini lecture, case study, and meet students and alumni.

Lecture

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…

The material and intellectual presence of Egypt is at the heart of Western culture, religion and art from Antiquity to the present. This volume aims to provide a long term and interdisciplinary perspective on Egypt and its mnemohistory, taking theories on objects and their agency as its main point of…

Ten Leiden museums and heritage institutions have curated the online exhibition ‘Carel’s Universe’. They selected objects from their collections that symbolise retiring Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker and the research in Leiden. With direct references, playful associations and the odd nod and wink.

How do museum visitors interpret the authenticity of museum objects? How can we support visitors' meaningful interactions with real objects?

On the occasion of the Workshop organized last July to officially launch the Leiden Chinese Queer Collection (LCQC), the National Museum of Taiwan Literature (NMTL) donated 30 titles of Taiwanese LGBTQ+ literature to support this initiative. These works where published between 1971 and 2022 by authors…

Marvel at our rare collections.

The master’s programme in Museum Studies 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 heritage…

The out of control ‘Project X’ event in Haren, hooligans who arrange to meet up to fight and beach riots at the Hoek van Holland: group violence is increasingly hitting the headlines. Are those who took part seasoned criminals? And what characteristics do group offenders have? PhD defence on 29 September…

Silk Road Virtual Museum - A virtual museum of the art and culture of the regions that lay on the trade routes between Europe and Asia, popularly known as the ‘Silk Road’.

Travel back in time and learn about how the University has changed over the centuries.

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…

Colonial art and artefacts were not necessarily looted. Pieter ter Keurs, Professor of Museums, Collections and Society, calls for more nuance in the debate on art and collectors’ items from a loaded past. Inaugural speech on 2 December.

Since my master's thesis on the landed property of the Frisian monasteries in the Middle Ages I am highly interested in the do ut des-aspects of the relation between religious houses and the lay world. Key words here are: property, power, patronage and the role of religious institutions in the 'salvation…

Conference

The plan was to research the years surrounding the creation of the signature H.P. Berlage building of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, but due to the lockdown, University Lecturer Laurie Kalb Cosmo has hardly been able to visit museums. Yet she succeeds in continuing her research for the Museums, Collections…

Diplomatica: A Journal of Diplomacy and Society addresses the broad range of work being done across the social sciences and the humanities that takes diplomacy as its focus of investigation.

Diplomatica: A Journal of Diplomacy and Society addresses the broad range of work being done across the social sciences and the humanities that takes diplomacy as its focus of investigation.

The master's programme in Heritage and Museum Studies at Leiden University focuses on the relationships between past and present, the role of heritage in our society, and how our heritage can contribute to improving the quality of life and the environment.

Essays in Honour of Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse

The World of the Fullo takes a detailed look at the fullers, craftsmen who dealt with high-quality garments, of Roman Italy. Analyzing the social and economic worlds in which the fullers lived and worked, it tells the story of their economic circumstances, the way they organized their workshops, the…

Museum Temporalities analyzes how museums relate to time. It explores the hidden temporal assumptions and practices that define museums. How might these assumptions help us to better understand and address museums’ often problematic and painful relationship to the colonial past?

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine re…

This study seeks to identify suitable local environments conditions for the objects displayed at the Jordanian museums using the proper methods in order to contribute to the stabilization of these objects.

The Museums, Collections and Society (MCS) research group of the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) and Faculty of Archaeology has grants available for collection-based research.