Early Modern Medievalisms: The Interplay between Scholarly Reflection and Artistic Production

The early modern and modern Europeanists at the Leiden Institute of History approach the past from comparative and transnational perspectives, frequently placing the history of our continent in global contexts. Our research covers the geographical and thematic breadth of Europe since ca. 1500, with…

On 1 September 2022 Afke van Ewijk successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

During the master’s programme in Modern Dutch Literature at Leiden University you will learn to scientifically analyse literary texts, as well as other Dutch cultural texts, such as those found in hiphop songs and diaries.

This volume discusses practices of memory in early modern Europe.

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 series of publications brings together new material on wellconsidered themes within the wide area of Early Modern Studies.

The ‘Locke drawings’ collection and the representation of Brazilian native peoples in global perspective

The Leiden Institute of History approaches early modern and modern European history from comparative and transnational perspectives.

In The Golden Mean of Languages, Alisa van de Haar sheds new light on the debates regarding the form and status of the vernacular in the early modern Low Countries, where both Dutch and French were local tongues. The fascination with the history, grammar, spelling, and vocabulary of Dutch and French…

Nadine Akkerman's book Invisible Agents is the very first study to analyse the role of early modern women spies. The book foregrounds the agency of early-modern women, offering a corrective to the gender bias implicit in modern historiography.

This project examines the intriguing relationship between Greek literary criticism and Latin literature in Rome (first centuries BC and AD).

The one-year, English-taught master's programme in English Literature and Culture focuses on the interaction between literature and key political and social issues such as identity, migration, memory and the metropolis, but also between literature and the literary tradition, and literature and film.

This MA programme offers an excellent qualification in Italian literature and culture on an advanced level through lectures and seminars led by specialists in the field.

Develop your knowledge of French and Francophone literary works and genres with the Master’s programme in French Literature and Culture at Leiden University.

The master’s programme in German Literature and Culture at Leiden University offers the largest number of German-language master’s courses in the Netherlands and covers the fields of literary and cultural studies from the Middle Ages to the present.

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.

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

Crime is men’s business, isn’t it? Women are responsible for 10 percent of crime in Europe. Yet, if we look at the Dutch Republic in the early modern period, we find that in the towns of Holland women played a much larger role in crime.

The central aim is to systematically study differences in crime patterns and social control between migrants and non-migrants in early modern Frankfurt am Main.

This MA explores contemporary literature and culture—art, film, pop music—through critical and theoretical lenses, including feminist theory, phenomenology, and ecocriticism. Key themes include diversity, interculturality, popular culture, and the intersection of culture, politics, and justice.

Are you thinking about studying Italian Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying French Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying Cultural Analysis: Literature and Theory? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying English Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Are you thinking about studying German Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

From ca. 1540 to 1600, thousands fled the war-stricken Southern Low Countries to the British Isles, Germany, and the Northern Low Countries. Research on this displacement crisis, central to the formation of the Netherlands and Belgium, reflects 21st-century debates on migration and language: language…

During the early modern period, many medieval manuscripts were cut up into strips of parchment which were reused to reinforce the bindings of newly printed books. Until recently, these reused pieces of medieval manuscripts only came to light when the early modern book binding was damaged and/or subjected…

This book examines the critical role of information and knowledge in early modern Europe's global pursuits, exploring challenges in trusting distant information, the development of doubt in intercultural encounters, and the impact of misinformation.

How did free agents in the Dutch Republic react to the creation of colonial monopolies (VOC and WIC) by the States-General? This project answers this question by looking at the role individuals played in the construction of an informal global empire parallel to the institutional empire devised by the…

In the Brill series Intersections a new volume has been published, entitled Ronsard and Du Bartas in Early Modern Europe.

Built Environment and Domestic Material Culture in the Medieval and Post-Medieval Cyclades, Greece (13th – 20th Centuries AD)

How did Anglo-Saxons reflect on the experience of growing old? Was it really a golden age for the elderly, as has been suggested?

This research cluster centres on regional, national, and global intersections and interactions between a variety of artistic expressions and society. It focuses not only on objects (artistic, literary, cinematic, and medial), but also on practices (aesthetic, political, and cultural).

The contributions in this volume seek to highlight the atypical features of the Hanse, and place them in a wider context of common roots, influences and parallel developments.

This programme adopts a new approach based on the paradoxical nature of these responses in early modern Italy: it draws on rhetorical discussions of lifelikeness and living presence, and it uses the anthropological theory of art as agency developed by Alfred Gell.

The aim of the Indonesian-Dutch Literature Collective (which is allied to the Society of Dutch Literature (MNL)) is to support research into the literature of and about the Dutch Indies, from the era of the Dutch East India Company to the present. Starting in 1986, the collective has published its own…

This project will study the cultural meaning of the mythological figure of Orestes within the ancient Greek imagination, as it emerges from various literary sources from the archaic and classical periods.

Huda Abi-Fares defended her thesis on 10 January 2017.

By analysing neglected (continental) spy centres and integrating these groups of female intelligencers into the traditional, male-orientated historical narratives, this project will proceed towards a gendered history of early modern espionage.

Musical instruments are multiple things: they are objects but also means of communication; they are technological and also deeply connected to embodiment through the player; and they leave certain cultural traces (Ricoeur 1975/1984). This research project explores how literary texts from the 19th century…

One way for governments to conduct foreign policy and promote national interests is through direct outreach and communication with the population of a foreign country. This is called public diplomacy. Historians such as Helmer Helmers and William T. Rossiter have shown that printed media were already…

The Dutch and English East India Companies were formidable organizations that were gifted with expansive powers that allowed them to conduct diplomacy, wage war and seize territorial possessions. But they did not move into an empty arena in which they were free to deploy these powers without resista…

This special issue of Media History (22-3/4, 2016), co-edited with Helmer Helmers (University of Amsterdam), develops a new perspective on the early modern communication revolution. It discusses news as a specific kind of information – by its nature continuous, unreliable, and diffuse – which needed…

Aristocratic dynasties have long been regarded as fundamental to the development of early modern society and government. Yet recent work by political historians has increasingly questioned the dominant role of ruling families in state formation, underlining instead the continued importance and independence…