The Leiden Research Profile Area Political Legitimacy organizes a public symposium on the 12th of May 2016 on the legitimacy and future of the Dutch Senate.

In an article by the New York Times, cultural heritage law specialist Evelien Campfens discusses the difficulties surrounding the ownership of looted art.

Lecture, CMGI Brown Bag Seminar

In the course 'From Ceramics to Plastics: The Mediterranean in 12 objects' students were taught to work with 3D scanning technologies. One of the underlying reasons to introduce students to this technology was to teach them to reproduce objects. ‘More and more archaeological information is stored in…

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

For decades it was thought that the family system of the ancient Egyptians was very similar to our own. However, PhD candidate Steffie van Gompel explains that the reality is somewhat different. ‘In Egyptian families, it was often the eldest son versus the rest of the children.’

The editorial board of the Leiden Elective Academic Periodical (LEAP) is proud to announce the release of the third edition , titled “Sense(s)”!

This year marks a special occasion because it was just ten years ago that the Georgian language was taught for the first time at Leiden University. It is even more exciting that its first professor, Ramaz Kurdadze, will return to Leiden this year to teach students interested in the language. Kurdadze…

A large group of researchers from Leiden University will convene a panel or present a paper at the 10th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), which will take place from 25 to 28 June in Prague.

Organisation

Lecture, Discussion

On Thursday 26 June 2025, the Pavilion of the Wereldmuseum Leiden featured the first joint meeting of Leiden University and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam around the shared research theme Collecting Global Heritage. Some 50 researchers, students and collection managers came together to share knowledge,…

Alumni event, Lezing

It was while wearing clogs at a Dutch theme park in Japan that Cindy Heijdra really got to know Japan. Over 20 years later, she is studying again: to be a primary school teacher.

Just as some people today dislike English influences on the Dutch language, in early modern times people also criticised the Frenchification of Dutch. But to what extent did French actually leave its mark in our language? PhD student Brenda Assendelft made a surprising discovery. PhD defence 24 May.

Dr. Andrew Littlejohn has been awarded a Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. The fellowship provides funds for early-career scholars to write and publish significant monographs that will impact the development of anthropology.

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…

Last semester, bachelor’s students in Religious Studies spent a lot of time in community centres in Leiden. The reason: field research into loneliness in the city.

Who was professionally involved in language between 1550 and 1650? And what were the financial returns of this language sector? Assistant Professor Alisa van de Haar has received an ERC Starting Grant to map out the situation in Northwest Europe between 1550 and 1650.

On November 16 a festschrift in honor of Dr Olivier Nieuwenhuyse was presented in a moving event at the Faculty of Archaeology. Professor Bleda Düring, a personal friend of Nieuwenhuyse, was one of the initiators. ‘If he had been here, he would have loved this book.’

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…

Bob de Brabandere discovered his deep passion for cinema through a minor in Film and Theatre Studies. He currently serves as Assistant Manager at Bioscopen Leiden and as a programmer for the Leiden International Film Festival, which commences on 9 October.

Presentations, city tours, themed cafés and information fairs − there was plenty to discover on the Bachelor’s Open Day last Saturday. Around 6,000 prospective students and 4,000 parents visited faculties in Leiden and The Hague to soak up the atmosphere and imagine how it would be to study at Leiden…

Back in 2020, Dr Maikel Kuijpers started to write for The Correspondent. His articles offered readers a unique long-term insight into the materials that shape our world, from concrete to glass and plastics. His innovative approach piqued the interest of a literary agent, and he was invited to write…

Assistant professor Carmen Van den Bergh has been nominated for the Leiden University Teaching Prize. ‘I combine literature education with social relevance and personal experience.’

In love, we like to use great words. We promise to love each other ‘forever’ and praise the beloved as nothing less than ‘the one’ . Meanwhile, we know very well that we don’t live eternally and that we may find our ‘true love’ one day on the opposite side of the divorce table. So why do we continue…

This year, an NWO PhD in the Humanities grant went to Mink van IJzendoorn, enabling him to investigate the disappearance of amphorae. ‘We take means of packaging and shipment for granted, but they are deeply ingrained in our daily lives; they are crucial.’

Sometimes fascination can lead to in-depth research. Such is the case with Wahyu Widodo, who came across the Islamic Walikutuban ritual in Java in 2019, on which he subsequently wrote his PhD dissertation. Widodo: ‘Besides community, it also breeds political loyalty’

A perfect world, who doesn't want that? But what is perfect is debatable. What is great for one person is disastrous for another. PhD student Zeynep Anli took a closer look at dreams for the future by looking at gender-separated utopias.

The Guggenheim Fellowship is a prestigious award for US nationals. There are more than 3,000 applications every year, and this year only 188 were honoured. Professor Jonathan Silk is one of these 188, the first ever at Leiden University, and he tells us more about the fellowship and what he will do…

If you missed the annual LUCDH Winter School Week of Digital Humanities workshops and Pilot Project Symposium (27 – 31 January 2025) this time around, you’ll have a chance to take part next year. Save the dates for the last week of January 2026!