This project uses archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence to investigate urban development in Roman-period North Africa, compiling this in a GIS-linked database in order to analyse the development of urban settlement spatially over time.

The debate about Africa’s changing relations with the world has rapidly evolved over the past decade. The initial emphasis on China’s role in Africa has given way to a more diversified approach, acknowledging that other emerging global players have also become important.

Volume 4 and 5 of the Leiden series 'Dutch Sources on South Asia' are now available, written by Markus Vink (vol.4) and Carolien Stolte (vol.5).

Former President Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa gave a public lecture on Campus The Hague on 7 July. His story was about the economic transformation of Africa.

This volume examines how the history of the humanities might be written through the prism of scholarly personae, understood as time- and place-specific models of being a scholar.

The emergence of new players on the world market such as India, Brazil, China, Turkey and the Gulf States gives Africans more choice in who they work with and under which terms. At the same time, African multinationals are choosing to work with regional partners and are thus furnishing old political…

If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

The Robben Island field school in January and February 2011 investigated and documented the tangible and intangible heritage of Robben Island, encompassing the remains associated with various political prisoners, the Muslim exiles, the lepers and lunatics, the WWII soldiers and Navy personnel, the prison…

Study information, Online Experience

Surreal Geographies recovers a forgotten archive of Holocaust representation. Examining art, literature, and film produced from the immediate postwar period up to the present moment, Kathryn L. Brackney investigates changing portrayals of Jewish victims and survivors.

This project is opening up the possibility of systematically studying research teams from a broad perspective, by developing specific bibliometric methodologies able to identify active collaborative research teams in Africa. Based on the extensive experience of CWTS and CREST, this project represents…

The jury of the Africa Thesis Award is delighted to announce that the 2025 prize has been awarded to Yonwaba Matshobotiyana of the University of the Free State, South Africa, with a thesis on Black women's poetry in South Africa.

How did digital intermediality symbolise and facilitate the transfer of content from popular culture into policy statements and vice versa in the period between 1945 and the new millenium?

Lecture, VVIK lecture

Africa is seen as a potential leader in green hydrogen production for domestic consumption, export and greening industry. One key barrier to realising this potential is the mismatch of skills between those required by industry and the capability of local workforces.

This project aims to improve transparency in the distribution of research funding in the world, with a focus on global inequalities. Through an analysis of funding flows, the project will identify inequalities and opportunities for more appropriate and fairer allocation, highlighting patterns that perpetuate…

Promotor: P. T. de Zeeuw, Co-promotor: N. Neumayer; G. van de Ven

How did our academic community position itself in relation to a system that deprived people of their freedom? What role did the university, as an educational institution, play with regard to colonialism and the system of slavery? How can we best engage with and manage our special collections?

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.

With the aid of the General History of Africa (GHA) series of books, PhD candidate Larissa Schulte Nordholt researched what it meant to decolonise the history of Africa. This proved to be a tricky process, which was hampered by politics and lack of funding. PhD defence on 1 December.

This research project seeks to understand the dynamics in the relationship between social media, mobile telephony and the social fabric under duress in Africa's mobile margins. It combines studies on mobility/migration, conflict and communication in an attempt to uncover these new dynamics, which have…

VODAN Africa started as a platform to enable access to critical data needed from Africa to fight the novel COVID-19. The initiative was inspired by the experience from the Liberia Ebola Virus outbreak in 2014: early detection requires contact tracing. Inclusion of the most vulnerable is critical to…

As Lila Abu Lughod pointed out in 1989, North Africa has been one of the geographical ‘zones of prestige’ for the development of canonical approaches and crucial theoretical debates regarding the comparative study of Islam.

Sea-ing Africa explores how infrastructure in Ghana and Morocco shapes development, blending geopolitics, economics, and culture, impacting local and societal dynamics.

In the eighties the Umhlatuzana rock shelter in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, was excavated. Results from this excavation led to an understanding when the Later Stone Age started in this area. This archaeological period is often associated with the structural presence of modern human behavior. Now a…

The authors in this volume explore how external innovations (products, technologies, services, institutions and processes) have been appropriated in African societies in order to be acceptable and relevant to local conditions, expectations and demands.

Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence, and Environment, vol.16. Edited by Noriyuki Shirai.

Why are professors still warning their students against dogmatism, prejudice, pedantry, and other centuries-old vices? What explains the persistence of these scholarly vices across the ages?

The acquisition and administration of the possessions of the “Teutonic House” in Utrecht, and its dependencies, in the Middle Ages until c.1600.

Global health governance is at a crossroads. As the world reckons with the existential threat of planetary crises (climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution), international policy frameworks struggle to keep pace with a rapidly changing landscape in global health and public health.

Considering the ways in which the ‘global turn’ is changing the theory and practice of historical disciplines, Explorations in History and Globalization engages with the concept and methodology of globalization, challenging traditional divisions of space and time to offer a range of perspectives on…

Study information

Study information

Research how ‘custom’, ‘traditions’ and ‘heritages’ take on new meanings in the uplands of South and (mainland) Southeast Asia.

Unlike most city histories, this book focuses exclusively on the city’s connections with colonialism and slavery.

GLOBALINT is a pioneering study of intelligence in the Global South. It asks ‘how do (un)democratic shifts in political governance impact intelligence services in contexts of violent conflict?

English The purpose of this research is to identify and examine the challenges faced by African States in the field of foreign investment with a view to contribute not only to the academic debate, but also to foster awareness and develop the capacities of these States with regard to the drafting, negotiation…

This collaborative project aims to explore the history of the concept “barbarism” in Europe from the 18th century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the role of literature and art in the concept’s shifting functions.

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

On the 11th of October, Micheal Swanton succesfully defended his PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Micheal on this great result.

From William Shakespeare to Marilynne Robinson, A Literary History of Reconciliation is the first study to examine representations of interpersonal reconciliation in work of literature across a long-term period, from the early seventeenth century to the present day, focusing on how these representations…

This book sheds new light on domestic forced migration by examining the experiences of American-born slave migrants from a comparative perspective.

What are the conditions under which coercive diplomacy can compel a State to abandon its controversial nuclear (weapons) program? Based on the experience of the US coercive diplomacy against the nuclear programs of three countries, namely Iran, Libya and South Africa, Jean Yves Ndzana’s PhD research…

‘Three books published within a year – that happens only once in a lifetime!’ This was the reaction of Katarzyna Cwiertka, Professor of Modern Japan Studies at Leiden University, on the publication of Cuisine, Colonialism and Cold War, one of her three new books. The book sketches the colonisation of…

Speeches and speech acts have been crucial in settling the question at the centre of every political debate: who gets what, when and where?

In A History of Plague in Java, 1911–1942, Maurits Bastiaan Meerwijk demonstrates how the official response to the 1911 outbreak of plague in Malang led to one of the most invasive health interventions in Dutch colonial Indonesia.

The narrow but long stretched stript of Frisian land along the North Sea was already occupied before Roman times. However, man repeatedly suffered setbacks when he tried to extend his living space, both in the tidal marshes and the peat area south of them.