Rik van Gijn was appointed professor of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World from 1 December 2024. He is keen to use the position to set up research on language vitality. ‘People almost never give up their mother tongue entirely voluntarily.’

Ruben van Gaalen used a very unique approach for a course of the research master Colonial and Global History: instead of writing an essay, he went to Dublin and made a documentary about African rappers in Ireland.

How has migration affected Irish and Italy society since 1945?

This project looks at the ways in which youth in southern Nigeria navigate their lives in a context of experiencing long-term socioeconomic uncertainty and political insecurity (duress).

Pathogenic bacteria are increasingly resistant to today’s antibiotics. Professor Gilles van Wezel seeks new forms of antibiotics in good bacteria that live in the soil.

This research cluster explores processes of cultural creation, reception and transformation within a wide range of societal contexts from the early Middle Ages until c. 1800.

global challenges and possibilities

The significance of indigenous Amerindian knowledge has been marginalised in the history of the colonisation of the Americas. Wrongly, according to research by Leiden archaeologists. Indigenous knowledge and infrastructure were essential for the 'success' of the Spanish colonisers. Publication in the…

PhD defence

Studying hard at one of our locations? Doing research in the lab? Or enjoying the sun at a friendly pavement café? Record your summer in Leiden and/or The Hague and see your photo on our Facebook page. Who knows, you may win the top prize!

On 11 November 2021, Evelien Campfens defended the thesis 'Cross-border Claims to Cultural Objects'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. N.J. Schrijver and Prof. W.J. Veraart (VU Amsterdam).

In Indigenous Ancestors and Healing Landscapes Jana Pešoutová presents new interpretations of current healing practices in Cuba and the Dominican Republic juxtaposed against the European colonization of the Caribbean after 1492.

This book explores the relationship between the production of new urban spaces and illiberal community-making in contemporary India. It is based on an ethnographic study in Noida, a city at the eastern fringe of the state of Uttar Pradesh, bordering national capital Delhi.

On 16 November 2022 ms. Eftychia Mylona successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The book explores how ceramic studies illuminate interactions among ancient Mediterranean communities. By integrating post-colonial perspectives and network analysis, the volume transcends traditional

On Thursday 7 November 2024 Vaudine England successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This article presents a systematic review aiming to provide a comprehensive overview of cybersecurity training methods and assess their effectiveness.

Streptomyces are filamentous bacteria that produce more than two-thirds of known antibiotics.

Abbas provides an in-depth analysis of the complex interplay between Zionism, Jewish identity, power dynamics, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This dissertation, Layered Loyalties: The Natuurkundige Commissie in the Netherlands Indies (1820-1850), studies the Natuurkundige Commissie.

In this book chapter, Andrea Malaya M. Ragragio and Myfel D. Paluga unpack the indigenous category

This book closely analyses the rise and fall of Louis XIV's marine insurance institutions in Paris, which were central to the French monarchy's efforts to stimulate commerce, colonial enterprise and economic growth.

Much attention has been paid to the exchange of objects, ideas, and people in the Caribbean. Networks of interaction connected local communities across pan-regional scales, shaping indigenous socio-political integrations and their responses in colonial situations. This work examines the poorly understood…

This study seeks to partially fill the knowledge gap about national culture in Africa, basing its research on data on ethnolinguistic groups (instead of administrative regions).

This book explores the Indian tradition of liberalism through a critical intellectual biography of Valangaiman Sankaranarayana Srinivasa Sastri (1869–1946).

This article by Malte Reimann and Antonio Cerella explores how politics and medicine have become deeply intertwined, using the thought of Roberto Esposito to reimagine this relationship through the lens of an affirmative biopolitics.

The book reinterprets the role of the UN during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1964, presenting a multidimensional view of the organisation.

From the smallest level of interaction among families and close friends, over the meso-level of schools, shops, churches, religious communities and companies, to the highest level of nation-states and international organisations: Language Policy and Planning (LPP) is everywhere!

Songbirds as vocal learners learn their songs and song preference from social tutors⁠. Tutor choice for both song and preference learning are important to characterize for understanding individual learning performance and cultural transmission of song⁠.

El pueblo Kamëntšá en la encrucijada del patrimonio cultural

The book reinterprets the role of the UN during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1964, presenting a multidimensional view of the organisation.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caused immense destruction and over 170,000 deaths in the Indonesian province of Aceh. The disaster spurred large-scale social and political changes in Aceh, including the intensified implementation of shari‘a law and an end to the long separatist conflict. After the Tsunami…

On 27 January 2022 Tjahjono Prasodjo successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The project seeks to explore the interplay of valuation and inequalities in science, using the interdisciplinary and planet-critical field of forest research as empirical case. It examines which/whose knowledge is recognised on what grounds, and how social dimensions like gender and geographical location…

New perspectives from archaeology and ancient history

The Faculty of Humanities consist of various academic fields. What is the common ground of all these different academics and students? They tell their story and why it matters in today’s world in 'We are Humanities'.

Published on 26 February 2021.

Trajectories of social life in the yucayeque (community) of El Cabo, Higüey, Dominican Republic, AD 800 to 1504

On Wednesday 21 May Adrian Perkasa successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

In 'Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800', Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman, both of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and also affiliated with the History Institute of Leiden University, assemble an internationally acclaimed selection of authors,…

This special issue of Contemporary Levant critically explores, at a micro and macro level, the structural role and religious, cultural and political interactions of the Greek-Orthodox, Melkite and Syriac communities in late Ottoman and Mandate Syria and Palestine.

This volume challenges the idea that the development of ‘democracy’ is a story of rise and progress at all. It is rather a story of continuous but never completely satisfying attempts of interpreting the rule of the people.

The Uses of Justice in Global Perspective, 1600–1900 presents a new perspective on the uses of justice between 1600 and 1900 and confronts prevailing Eurocentric historiography in its examination of how people of this period made use of the law.

How did African actors engage with the idea of Eurafrica?

Debates on political legitimacy in Dutch parliament in the 1880s, 1930s, and 1960s

This project examines the meaning of this historical place, and the way it has been used by the political institutions that have had their seat there.

Mining the unusually rich diaries, memoirs, and poems written by Netherlandish Catholics, Judith Pollmann explores how Catholic believers experienced religious and political turmoil in the generations between Erasmus and Rubens.

For early modern Europeans, the past was a measure of most things, good and bad. For that reason it was also hotly contested, manipulated, and far too important to be left to historians alone.

This volume discusses practices of memory in early modern Europe.

This open access book explores the role of continuity in political processes and practices during the Age of Revolutions.