Aafje de Roest turned her hobby into her job. She went from a teenager who enjoyed listening to hip hop music to a PhD candidate who focuses on how Dutch hip hop music shapes the cultural identity of young people in the Netherlands.

Donororganen zijn er nooit genoeg. De organen die wel beschikbaar zijn, moeten vliegensvlug getransplanteerd worden. De geneeskunde zet daarom volop in op het langer goedhouden van organen. Marlon de Haan (24) onderzoekt hoe je nieren buiten het lichaam in leven kunt houden.

Recently, Dr Gül Aktürk Hauser took up the position as Assistant Professor at the department of Heritage and Society. Originally an architect, she got caught up in the study of historical vernacular buildings in northeastern Turkey. Now her focus lies on the impact of climate change on cultural heri…

Femke is a third-year student of Dutch Language and Culture. She was a board member for a year, did an internship in times of COVID-19, and above all has a passion for her mother tongue.

Conference

Festival

For hundreds of years, children in Ancient Egypt learned to read using The Satire of the Trades, a text in which a father gives advice to his son through descriptions of different professions. PhD candidate Judith Jurjens investigated how this worked in practice.

Due to technological and societal developments, we are being flooded with more information than our brains can process. How does this affect our decision-making, both as individuals and as a society? And can we learn to make better choices? This is what Lotte van Dillen will explore with her profess…

Organisation

Associate Professor Lettie Dorst has received a Vidi grant to research how machine translation programmes such as Google Translate and ChatGPT translate words and expressions used metaphorically. This still regularly goes wrong, resulting in far too literal, incorrect and sometimes incomprehensible…

The annual commemoration of the nation’s war dead on Dam Square and at Waalsdorpervlakte, the Dutch apologies for historical slavery and the Cleveringa Lecture itself: our relationship with history is often ritualistic, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree will say in his inaugural lecture on 27 Nove…

The incLUsion programme offers refugees who are not yet able to enrol as regular students the opportunity to take part in university education. Simon (IncLUsion secretary) and Sharon (exchange officer) reflect on the graduation and explain how the programme works.

Begin oktober vond de eerste Psychology Connected van dit nieuwe academische jaar weer plaats. Met de vallende herfstbladeren voelen velen zich ook somberder. Onderzoekers delen hoe je een winterdepressie verzacht, en hoe je als ouder het beste kunt omgaan met de depressieve klachten van je kind.

A deliberate attack on a tangible element of a culture, such as a temple, is often also an attack on intangible elements: the religion or religious customs. Equally, the intangible can be attacked without the involvement of the tangible, for example the brutal curtailment of rights. How are these reflected…

A team of Leiden researchers has won the Ammodo Science Award for innovative humanities research on perceptions of cultural heritage.

At the entrance of the Van Steenis building you may now visit an exhibition on material culture. Unexpectedly, it does not display pottery or tools, but building materials. And recent ones at that! Check out the exhibition on Legos lost at sea, conceived and assembled by PhD candidate Maia Casna. ‘These…

How can we best protect cultural heritage in times of war? In an interview with LeidenGlobal, cultural heritage law specialist Evelien Campfens talks about her current research project on cultural heritage protection in Ukraine for the European Parliament (EP).

Bookpresentation

Career and apply for jobs

Lars Brummel explains in The Conversation that Rutte is a good candidate to counter threats to NATO's cohesion.

Social

Skate legend Tony Hawk came to Antwerp. Belgium newspaper De Morgen published an article on the changing skate culture. Cultural Anthropologist Sander Hölsgens shines his light on this theme and talks about the democratisation of skate boarding, activism, public space and collective memory of skater…

Are you currently a first-year Cultural Anthropology student? We need your help! The Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology is evaluating the way we communicate with prospective students. What are we doing right, what can be done better, which information did you miss before the…

As a twelve-year-old girl, Nicky van de Beek became intrigued by the tomb chapels in Saqqara, Egypt. Now she is doing her PhD on them, just like another Leiden Egyptologist decades earlier. Herta Mohr persevered with her research during World War II. Now she is the namesake of the first Leiden building…

Professor Sarah de Rijcke will become the new Rector Magnificus on the Executive Board of Leiden University on 15 January 2026. She will succeed Professor Hester Bijl, who will become Rector Magnificus at Delft University of Technology.

Tycho de Graaf has been appointed Professor of Technology and Private Law at Leiden University as of 1 June 2022.

Ornately decorated head pieces and jewellery, images of imposing mosques and photos of local people. The 'Splendours of the Silk Roads' exhibition depicts life and different cultures along this important trade route.

Are you studying Cultural Anthropology at the Leiden University and are you also very enthusiastic about Instagram? Can you show prospective students how interesting, useful, fun and socially relevant Cultural Anthropology is? Then we would like to talk to you! We are looking for dedicated students…

Various guests with a background in human rights, law, politics and international relations will be taking part in the ‘Human Rights and the World Cup Qatar’ debate on Friday 30 September. Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) Secretary-General and Leiden alumnus Gijs de Jong will be there to provide…

Leiden University will continue to offer its BA in Italian Language and Culture. The Board of the Faculty of Humanities has reversed its decision to stop admitting new students as of the 2026/2027 academic year.