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

On May 18 Janneke Wesseling gave a lecture at the conference

On 25 Februarry 2021 Hart Bloomsbury brings out a monograph by Frans-Willem Korsten: Arts as an Interface of Law and Justice: Affirmation, Disturbance, Disruption. Its working title was 'Annoyance' but that did not sell. A sign in itself; most struggles for justice have been considered as annoying.

The Animated Image addresses the entire range of contexts in which images were described by Roman authors as being animated, as well as the accounts that Roman writers produced to explain the animation of inanimate matter.

LENS is engaged in the drawing up a cartography of the mediascape, past and present, researching the dispositifs and ecologies of image production and presentation, which stretch across diverse geo-political areas as well as institutional, discursive and technological fields.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Indigenous Latin American artifacts have attracted the interest of Europeans since the earliest moment of contact between Europeans and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The ERC-funded BECACO project uses an innovative multidisciplinary framework to investigate the provenance of ethnographic and…

The eighth issue of the JLGC explores the diverse and interdisciplinary research on our multifaceted relationship with animals which is currently taking place, re-examining the relationship between humans and animals, and the definitions involved.

The first of the two volumes of this co-authored study has just been published by Metzler. The study explores the history of the concept ‘barbarism’ from the 18th century to the present and illuminates its foundational role in modern European and Western identity.

Today, globalization makes us all aware of how closely we are connected to, and often dependent upon, the actions of people who are distant from us. Human migration and economic liberalization have confronted local communities with changes happening on a global level. How can we devise ways to share…

Digitally Preserving Heritage at Risk

Subjects Barbarian, Monstrous, and Wild responds to a contemporary political climate in which historically invested figures of otherness—barbarians, savages, monsters—have become common discursive currency.

The Benelux Association for the Study of Art, Culture, and the Environment (BASCE) is a platform for all those who are actively engaged in ecocriticism to discuss their various endeavours with peers from different disciplines and an array of intellectual, creative, or activist pursuits.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

For the first time, physicists have visualized the ‘melting’ of electrons inside a special class of insulators. It allows electrons to move freely and turns the insulator into a metal and possibly later into a superconductor. Publication in Nature Physics.

On 14 September 2021, Bram van der Sar defended his thesis 'Fiscale geheimhoudingsplicht: art. 67 AWR ontrafeld'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.P. Boer and Prof. A.O. Lubbers.

'Dialogues Between Artistic Research and Science and Technology Studies', edited by Henk Borgdorff, Peter Peters and Trevor Pinch, will be published by Routledge on November 18

At the start of the 20th century there were fewer than 2 billion people. Now at over 7 billion, Earth’s population is on target to reach 8 billion by 2027. How has this dramatic increase in human population impacted Earth’s life support systems and natural resources? How should we understand the meaning…

Although the world has made tremendous progress in health, education, sanitation and hygiene, global public health challenges still exist. Disparities in health exist between and within nations as evidenced by inequalities in disease burden, mortality, nutrition and environmental well-being. How does…

The World Politics Major at Leiden University College The Hague examines the big ideas and the powerful forces – political, military, economic, social and cultural – that shape the world at every level, from the global to the local and everything in between. Political conflict is a key driver of many…

Home to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, The Hague is the perfect backdrop to explore conceptions of justice in our global society. Questions of human rights, peace, security and the environment present legal and policy challenges for governmental and non-governmental…

Alzheimer’s disease and cancer are two examples of diseases that are related to malfunctioning cellular patterns. The examination of cell tissue, however, takes a lot of time and generates a lot of data. To make the analysis of data easier, Antonios Somarakis of the Data Science Research Programme (DSRP)…

Wrenching poverty, global inequality, violent political and ethnic strife, deadlocked, unresponsive or even collapsing governments, growing dissatisfaction with democracy and missed opportunities for innovation – these are merely some of the challenges of governance and development with which our programme…

Students who also want to develop their artistic talents can take a year-long art class – Practicum Artium – at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. ‘I can express my creativity and am learning to approach subjects in a visual way.’

On November 6th PhDArts Co-Director Dr. Janneke Wesseling has given a keynote presentation, entitled “On Methodology”, at the Symposium Conversations on Artistic Research in Porto (PRT).

This thesis proposes multiple paths towards the development of a performance practice in Computer Music.

The Department of History of Art in Oxford has appointed Leiden University professor Caroline van Eck as Slade Professor of Fine Art for the second semester of academic year 2016-2017. As Slade Professor Van Eck will spend a semester in office at Oxford University and deliver eight public lectures and…

Sound & Score brings together music expertise from prominent international researchers and performers exploring the intimate relations between sound, score and notation, and the artistic possibilities that this relationship yields for performers, composers and listeners.

In this latest contribution to mimetic studies, Nidesh Lawtoo joins forces with leading international theorists of the posthuman to broaden the reach of the mimetic turn beyond human imitation.

Mexico, between 500 B.C. and A.D. 900

With tomography it is possible to reconstruct the interior of an object without destroying.

Research Experiments on Designing Objects with ‘Artistic’ Messages

This proposed research uses ego-documents from visual artists that were not intended for publication to reassess the scholarly debate on the demise of the Russian Avant-garde aesthetic in the twenties and early thirties of the 20th century.

Check our varied programme starting in May 2026

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

My artistic practice deals with documents and, more specifically, with the use and the exploration of their narrative potential.

An interdisciplinary cultural analysis of how the Hindustani double migration informs contemporary processes of identification and problematises the juxtaposition of tradition and modernity.

Memory and Identity is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

This doctoral dissertation explores classical music performance from a curatorial perspective, reflecting upon and challenging the traditional configuration of performance environments.

Subproject of

This book examines the role of memory in animation, as well as the ways in which the medium of animation can function as a technology of remembering and forgetting. By doing so, it establishes a platform for the cross-fertilization between the burgeoning fields of animation studies and memory studie…

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

The civilizations of ancient China and Mesoamerica, although not historically related and obviously different in many specific aspects (such as language and writing), show many interesting commonalities and similar tendencies in their cultural manifestations.

At the LAK, you can participate in a wide range of creative courses, supervised by passionate professionals. From drama and presentation to dance, visual arts, singing and music, photography, and writing – there's always something for you. You'll not only develop your talents but also meet like-minded…

The workshops are open to everyone aged 17 and over. Leiden University students receive a discount on the course fee. View the varied offerings below. (The visual arts workshops include use of materials.) Choose your workshop and sign up!

On 19 February 2019, Mirjam Sombroek-van Doorm defended her thesis 'Medisch beroepsgeheim en de zorgplicht van de arts bij kindermishandeling in de rechtsverhouding tussen arts, kind en ouders'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. A.G. Castermans en Prof. mr. C.J.J.M. Stolker.