Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is dedicated to ground-breaking and interdisciplinary research dealing with the relations between culture and society.

Ms. Monica Klasing Chen defended her thesis on 16 December 2020

How an initially valueless object becomes worth hundreds of millions. And vice versa.

How are contemporary art practices from Southeast Asia negotiating notions of art and tradition?

Deficiency of glucocerebrosidase (GBA) underlies Gaucher disease, a common lysosomal storage disorder. Carriership for Gaucher disease has recently been identified as major risk for parkinsonism. Presently, no method exists to visualize active GBA molecules in situ. We here report the design, synthesis…

'More than visual: The apprenticeship of skilled visions' is written by Cristina Grasseni and published in Ethos.

Located in the small Kingdom of Commagene at the upper Euphrates, the late Hellenistic monument of Nemrud Daǧ (c. 50 BC) has been undeservedly neglected by scholars

PhD defence

This thesis introduces a relational interaction model and a practical tool for describing, visualising and generating interactive dialogues.

In art history, performance is categorized as performance art and defined as live-act. However, performance is no longer conceived of by artists as live-act only.

The center studies the many ways in which issues of law and justice are dealt with in art and literature with a focus on liminal issues and cases. These are issues and cases where law comes to the limits of what it is capable of dealing with and art and literature explore the implications of what is…

'Politics of Withdrawal' considers the significance of practices and theories of withdrawal for radical thinking today.

A contextual approach to anthropomorphic figurines in the Pavlovian (Central Europe, 29-24 kyr BP) (2001)

This doctoral project by artist and educator Luiz Zanotello engenders a postcolonial understanding of time, space and movement by means of artistic research methods. The project examines the contradictory effects of the abyssal line of thought within the tropics as a starting point.

The minor Creative Strategies for a Society in Change (CSSC) creates a connection between gaining insight into creative making processes and exploring societal issues that characterize our time.

This project involves research into the oeuvre of the Sundanese sculptor Iko, who has worked for the Catholic mission in Java and has carved sculptures for a chapel and church in Ganjuran. The images were designed by the Catholic layman Jos Schmutzer and are characterized by a fusion in style and symbolism…

The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) of Leiden University and Art Institute West Den Haag are pleased to announce their close collaboration in the second season of the public series In the Making. This series, dedicated to the practice of research in the arts, will consist of seven public…

Sophie Ernst’s doctoral thesis is an artist’s contribution to media art theory.

Protestant missionaries have provided the earliest and most detailed sources regarding the ritual art of the Papuan peoples of the Geelvink Bay.

On Thursday 12 October 2017 Janneke Wesseling will give a lecture as part of the Studium Generale Programme at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is one of the few research institutes in the world in which researchers in the field of literature, art, architecture, design and media studies come together to conduct research into the cultural production of the western world, from classical…

This book examines how renewed forms of artistic activism were developed in the wake of the neoliberal repression since the 1980s.

Questions of justice are not only the concern of legal professionals, politicians and activists, they also permeate culture at large. Literature, Cinema, Music and Artworks often revolve around questions about rights, justice and fairness, raising a wide range of issues, such as: how do we understand…

This doctoral trajectory explores sound, its image and its role in relating humans and our technologies to the environment.

Appointment of three professors represents jewel in the crown of 15-year partnership between Leiden University and the University of the Arts The Hague.

Morality, mathematics, geometry, geography, music, navigation, and language are traditionally viewed as uniquely human cultural achievements and abilities. The study of their development and variation is classified as part of the humanities and social sciences. These fields have been mainly studied…

How digital technologies affect the way we conceive of the self and its relation to the world, considered through the lens of media art practices.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

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.

The purpose of LENS – to foster, coordinate and support research in the area of the visual arts and visual media of photography, film, video and digital media – is connected to the objectives of the Master program Film and Photographic Studies.

The Discovery of El Greco: The Nationalization of Culture Versus the Rise of Modern Art (1860-1915)

April 10 at 7 pm - April 12 at 8 pm

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

View our course and workshop program for Spring 2026 here. The courses will start from February 2026. Our courses are open for everyone aged 17 and older. Leiden University students get a special discount on the course fee.

On December 7th & 8th, visual artist Sophie Ernst will defend her thesis The Magic of Projection; Augmentation and Immersion in Media Art, to obtain her doctoral degree. The public defense takes place in two stages. On Wednesday 7 December 2016 at 4 PM Ernst will publicly elucidate the artistic work…

Connect art and academia at ACPA

At the Lak you can participate in a large variety of artistic and creative courses taught by our professional teachers. We offer courses in the following categories: theater and presentation, dance, visual arts, music, photography and writing (literature). All staged art courses come to a close with…

The publication Making Matters - A Vocabulary for Collective Arts marks the end of the NWO project 'Bridging art, design and technology through Critical Making', led by Janneke Wesseling and Florian Cramer. The book contains the outcomes of this project.

Leiden University computer scientists Yu Liu, Yanming Guo and Michael Lew are a step closer to their ultimate goal: search engines with visual recognition. Their publication of a new algorithm for fusing multi-scale deep learning representations has been received with great enthusiasm. No other algorithm…

LAK creative courses is part of Leiden University and can be found in the Lipsius building on the Cleveringaplaats. The abbreviation "LAK" stands for Leids Academisch Kunstcentrum (Leiden Academic Art Center)

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

The aim of the project is to contribute to the process of archive formation ongoing in Post-Apartheid South Africa through the inclusion of photographs that have been either unacknowledged or excised from the national canon.

Researchers within the cluster are committed to the close and expert analysis of the materiality and content of the arts, literature and media they study. Different types of media bring various aspects of this core interest to the fore.

Leiden University College The Hague: Liberal Arts & Sciences, Global Challenges.

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

Materials with strongly correlated electrons show some of the most mysterious and exotic phases of quantum matter, such as unconventional superconductivity, quantum criticality and strange metal phase.

D.P. Kok defended his thesis on 10 October 2017