Bandura Witharana defended his thesis on 27 September 2018

At the heart of this study is a thorough inquiry of categorisations of social identity used in the VOC’s record-keeping bureaucracy. How were service, occupational and caste groups classified and shaped by the VOC?

This project explores the community of engineers in Sri Lanka and their role with regard to three domains of inquiry.

For hundreds of years, the island of Sri Lanka was a crucial stopover for people and goods in the Indian Ocean. For the Dutch East India Company, it was also a crossroads in the Indian Ocean slave trade. Slavery was present in multiple forms in Sri Lanka—then Ceylon—when the British conquered the island…

What was the function of the Dutch Protestant Church in Sri Lankan society? Why did people relate to the Church and how did conversion influence their life course?

What was the social function of the colonial civil law courts in eighteenth-century coastal Sri Lanka? Why did people choose to have their disputes settled by Dutch law courts?

This project focuses on Dutch registration of land and people in rural Sri Lanka. How did the practice of “fixating” the fluid social relations and dynamic daily practices into categories affect family strategies of reproduction and survival?

Colonialism Inside Out: Everyday Experience and Plural Practice in Dutch Institutions in Sri Lanka (c. 1700-1800)

A study of Dutch Fort at Galle, Sri Lanka

Nira Wickramasinghe, professor of modern South Asian studies at Leiden University, spoke to Al Jazeera about Sri Lanka's turbulent past:

'Find your way from the stars’, an online workshop on Nautical Astronomy, was one of the winners of The Netherlands Online Cultural Challenge 2020. The workshop was conducted in collaboration with the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach, Leiden University’s Astronomy & Society Group, and the Department…

Sri Lanka is experiencing unprecedented economic and political crises. Months of protests came to a head earlier this month when protesters occupied President Rajapaksa's palace.

Forgotten Lineages explores the paths through which generations of formally enslaved and their descendants gradually forgot their past of enslavement under Dutch and British imperial rule and became local subjects in Sri Lanka and South Africa. It explores why and how forgetting rather than memory became…

In the book 'Slave in a Palanquin: Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' Nira Wickramasinghe, professor of Modern South Asian Studies, uncovers the traces of slavery in the history and memory of the Indian Ocean world. She was interviewed about the book in the New Books in South East Asian…

Nadeera Seneviratne defended her thesis on 21 January 2016.

This programma, an initiative of the Institute for History in partnership with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta. Aims to study more than 20 kilometers of Dutch archival materials in The Netherlands, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and South Africa.

Master

Overview of the Leiden Asia staff per area or country.

This book explores the return of six outstanding Kandyan artefacts to Sri Lanka by the Dutch government in 2023. It captures numerous reflections of the international interdisciplinary research team that investigated the provenance of these artifacts and the remarkable layered history that the research…

In Sri Lanka, a prominent Singhalese Buddhist monk publicly proclaims that it is not a sin to kill Tamils. In Japan, the family register kept in a Buddhist temple and specifying the outcaste status of a lineage is provided to private detectives investigating the marriageability of a young woman. Throughout…

The Leiden Slavery Studies Association (LSSA) is dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of slavery and post-slavery in any period and any geographical region.

The research profile ‘Asian Modernities and Traditions’ (AMT) aims to raise the strength and visibility of research, teaching and dissemination on Asian studies at Leiden University.

Colonial and Global History combines a deep curiosity of transcultural processes such as imperialism, (de)colonization, and globalization with critical historical research on regional societies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

The remains of Dutch East India Company forts are scattered throughout littoral Asia and Africa. But how important were the specific characteristics of European bastion-trace fortifications to early modern European expansion?

The Colonial and Global History Research Programme of the Leiden University Institute for History combines a deep curiosity of transcultural processes such as imperialism, (de)colonization, and globalization with critical historical research on regional societies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

The colonial and slavery past is an important theme in education and research at Leiden University. Particular attention is also paid to structural abuses that arose from this history and that often still persist in the present day.

Most of the vast Tibetan literature was authored by monks. They were Buddhists par excellence, educated in a system in which Indic- and Indian-inspired texts played a pivotal role. What they wrote was primarily religious or philosophical in nature, but also extended to ‘secular’ topics. Through the…

Dr. Cátia Antunes and prof. Jos Gommans both edited and contributed to this interesting book, that consists of articles that offers a new insight into the macro and micro worlds of the global Dutchman in Asia.

Shifting the Compass: Pluricontinental Connections in Dutch Colonial and Postcolonial Literature

Which plants are depicted, described or collected in these century-old objects? Who made these objects, where and for what purpose? What is their scientific and societal relevance today?

Asian Studies at Leiden University is unparalleled in the Netherlands and combines the very best of Asia-related research in North-West Europe.

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe has won the American Historical Association John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History for her book Slave in a Palanquin. Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' (Columbia University Press: New York 2020).

From 23-25 April 2014, a conference will be held on the topic of Buddhism and Social Justice. This conference confronts the common perception of Buddhism as intrinsically a tradition of peace and justice, and explores the various ways in which historically Buddhist societies of Asia have shaped, transmitted,…

Leiden Asia Centres

Every year, the World Cultural Council grants special acknowledgements to five to ten young researchers or scholars of the host country who have achieved outstanding performance in the fields of science, education or arts.

Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State is a major multidisciplinary research project which aims to re-vision the history of Asia in one of its most significant periods. The project is based at the British Museum, British Library and the School of Oriental and African Studies, and…

Dr Sri Margana succeeded Bambang Purwanto last September as professor in the Faculty of the Humanities. Margana is a specialist in the early modern history of Indonesia. The appointment will run for five years.

How can historical archive sources by non-elite groups help us understand modern-day politics in South Asia? This is one of the main themes of Prof. Nira Wickramasinghe’s inaugural lecture on 14 March.

Alumna Nadeshda Jayakody (25) from Australia graduated cum laude in Human Rights Law. What did she learn in Leiden that has been most useful? ‘I had to pretend that I already worked for an NGO.’

Six projects from the Faculty of Humanities recently received grants of up to 750,000 euros from the NWO Open Competition. Researchers involved tell how they will spend this money.

The team of WIIS-Netherlands exists out of the board members and the advisory council.

Overview of the Asia Programmes offered at Leiden University.

The Institute for History is pleased to announce the second call for the research program Cosmopolis Advanced, an initiative of the Institute for History at Leiden University (LU) in partnership with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta.

From 23 to 27 January 2017, the Child Law Department and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden Law School organized the first regional edition of the Leiden University Frontiers of Children’s Rights Summer School. The Frontiers of Children’s Rights in the ASEAN Region was set…

The Netherlands returned 478 artefacts to Indonesia and Sri Lanka this week, on the advice of a Dutch committee. Rightly so, says Leiden professor Pieter ter Keurs from the Museums, Collections and Society interdisciplinary research programme. ‘But do make it clear why you are returning something.’