28 October 2025

We would like to call your attention to a faculty-broad elective that will be taught next semester (spring 2026), titled “Leiden Elective Academic Periodical” - Special Issue #6 - SPACE.

Are you interested in writing a peer-reviewed published text before you graduate? Would you like to collectively explore the ins and outs of publishing a journal and of working as part of an editorial team? Does collaborating with peers from different disciplines and programs within the Humanities sound like an exciting challenge to you? Then we hereby invite you to join this year's team!  

If you are interested, you are asked to briefly motivate (one paragraph) how a paper or thesis that you've written within your own programme could be rewritten and developed into an article, review, artistic paper or joint article (max 2 persons) that relates to this year's theme: space. We encourage you to engage with this theme in the broadest sense possible. The idea is for you is to take your own work as a point of departure and to think, associatively, of how it connects to the theme. Perspectives may include, but are not limited to, concepts as diverse as spatiality, areas, geography, place, position(ality), home(liness), distance, the universe, room, and emptiness. Writing skills are essential in this course, so we also ask you to send us the paper or thesis that you intend to work with.   

The maximum number of participants in this seminar is 15 students. The selection will be based on the quality of the motivation and of the writing sample. Moreover, we aim for a diverse group of students from different disciplinary backgrounds.  

Please note that students are expected to inquire in advance with their programme coordinator and/or the Board of Examiners whether they are allowed to take LEAP as an elective within their programme, or as an extracurricular course. 

Proposals (paper/thesis + motivation) should be sent to dr. Tsolin Nalbantian and dr. Mathijs Peters at leap@hum.leidenuniv.nl before 12 December 2025. 

For more info about the course, see the e-Prospectus. To get a better idea of what the journal looks and reads like, have a look at the first few issues of LEAP.

We look forward to receiving your applications and let us know if you have any questions at leap@hum.leidenuniv.nl.

Kind regards,