The basic program comprises a total of twelve courses organized by the Research School, that have been purpose-developed for training and support of PhD students and Research MA students who specialize in Medieval Studies (history, art history, and literary history, in particular).

The African Studies Centre Leiden’s Research Programme for 2025-2029 is called ‘African Trajectories: Past Dependencies and New Directions’. Building on its former programme, it extends the recognition of Africa’s pivotal role in world affairs. The continent’s global significance has become increasingly…

Various coursework and training modules are offered at the level of the LIAS, the Faculty of Humanities, and the University. Some are available to PhD candidates for free, and some charge a fee. All modules offered by the LIAS are available for free, and are announced to all PhD candidates on email…

The Leiden Papyrological Institute is the only papyrological institute in the Netherlands. The members of our staff publish Greek (and Latin), Demotic (and Abnormal-Hieratic) and Coptic papyri from collections all over the world, including our own collection.

The project aims at contributing to the safeguarding of Palestinian cultural heritage and the enhancement of economic situation through tourism development, by presenting and managing one of the most important archaeological resources, the archaeological site of Tell Balata.

Dutch archaeologists are making three-dimensional virtual reconstructions of archaeological objects lost in the Syrian civil war.

In specialist organ literature a negative verdict is given on organs and organ specialists from the 1930’s. Did the same verdict apply to Johan van Meurs’ (1903-1986) work? Which role does Van Meurs’ collection of organ specifications play in the historical research on the organ?

This programme starts from the idea that cultural discourse is one of the main engines of intellectual history and the history of ideas.

Play and Media is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

- Case study of the Hungarian Archaeological Mission in Abdallah Nirqi in 1964 –

This project combines and reconsiders all the available evidence of the Scheurrak SO1, and use new archival databases and modern archaeological techniques to shed new light on the material culture of the Baltic grain trade and the Holland shipbuilding industry at the turn of the sixteenth century.

The starting point of Hermans' research is how both children's physical play and dance improvisation by professionals can be considered somatic practices where sense-making manifests itself in and between bodies, and through movement.

The Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) offers bachelor and master level education in computer science at Leiden University. We are known for our scientifically based education and for our open atmosphere.

Investigating the contribution of interpreters, informants, hunters and guides in the making of colonial scientific knowledge.

Travel back in time and learn about how the University has changed over the centuries.

In an age before GoogleDocs and LinkedIn, 19th-century scholars relied on letter-writing for collaboration, peer-feedback and the building and sustaining of academic networks. Letters were a quick, efficient way to share insights, data and discoveries. Scholarly correspondence thus allows a vital behind-the-scenes…

How did slaves in the eighteenth century manage to empower themselves and their kin, and why did this become all the more difficult in the nineteenth century?

The project interrogates the relationship between impartiality and power and asks whether impartiality as a cornerstone of global governance can – and ought to – be re-envisioned in the context of changing global governance power relations.

Seven large reproductions of works by Rembrandt on seven University buildings in the centre of Leiden reveal the relationship between the painter and the University. Rembrandt van Rijn enrolled in the University in 1620 and painted the portraits of various alumni of the University. The exhibition runs…

This film will be screened on Sunday, 23 November 2025 at 7:00 pm.

Emily Wolff, PhD candidate at Leiden University, wrote a paper about the inclusion of imperial citizens in the Dutch post-war welfare state.

This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’. Its members study the design and functioning of Dutch political institutions as well as attitudes and behaviour of political elites and citizens.

CADS researchers give methodology their own unique signature through two parallel engagements: (a) teaching and researching the full range of social science methods, from audio-visual engagements, through global ethnography, to statistical analysis; and (b) interrogating these multiple modalities employing…

Read on these pages all about the history of Leiden University, the oldest university in the Netherlands. The Academia Lugduna Batava was founded in 1575 and its motto is: Libertatis Praesidium ('Bastion of Freedom').

Aesthetic formations and cultural repertoires give meaning to our reality in ways that are never neutral. Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its global interlocutors, this project brings together a team of scholars from Leiden University who bring in inter-disciplinary, inter-area…

In the South African context, certain iconic images have been a dominant source for public understandings of historical events. The emphasis given these images tends to overshadow the historical value of other more personal photographic sources – like studio or amateur photography. This project looks…

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Thursday 21 November 2024

Landscapes of mobility in the northern Chilean altiplano: from chiefly networks to colonial markets (AD 1100-1800).

The project investigates the changing local context of crime dynamics and the responses by selected international organizations and national governments. It places a major emphasis on security management at the trans-national level by investigating intra-regional security cooperation between Latin America,…

How were war heroes and war criminals created, and how do these images relate to the historical context?

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.

LIAS PhD program activities include thematic coursework (the PhD Seminars), skills training, research talks, social events, and so on. Skills training sessions and research talks are moderated by the director of doctoral studies. All events are open to all LIAS PhD candidates, including visiting sch…

Leiden University was the first university to be established in the Netherlands. William of Orange gave Leiden Academia Lugduno Batava in 1575, it is said in recognition of the city’s courageous resistance against the seige by the Spanish invaders.

The Museums, Collections & Society research programme is led by the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Archaeology and aims to promote collection-based research, stimulate Leiden education in this field, and raise ethical questions regarding the collections’ origins.

Since the Middle Passage is in the North Atlantic, and the North Atlantic has a relationship with the arctic, what relationship does the Arctic have with the Middle Passage? How can this relationship be used to provide a space of healing by uncovering Afro/diasporic counter narratives?

This is the 2017 paperback release of William Michael Schmidli's The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, which won the 2013 Foreign Affairs Magazine Best Book of the Year.

In Leiden University’s master’s programme Literature in Society. Europe and Beyond you will develop your knowledge of the interactive relationship between literature and society, focusing on key political and social issues from a transnational perspective.

The project results and dissemination activities listed here below are the results at the closure of the ICM 2019 project (Summer 2022).

The LUCDH foster the development of new digital research by awarding a number of Small Grants each year. These are our past awardees.

Central to Nuranisa’s PhD project is the cultural diplomacy practiced by the Javanese courts of central Java (Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Pakualaman and Mangkunegaran) in response to the increasing Dutch colonial power in the 19th and early 20th century. The Javanese sultanates were incorporated into the…

Research conducted in this group aims at furthering our understanding of how communities and individuals deal with social change, conflict and trauma through remembrance and commemoration as well as forgetting in the arts.

This article explores an emerging “cultural turn” in intelligence studies, which, if fully realized, could entail the expansion of the discipline to include new methodologies and theories, and a more integrative understanding of historical causality that locates intelligence agencies within the widersocio-cultural…

Why did 'character', 'habit', and 'virtue' serve as key terms in late 19th and early 20th-century scholarly correspondences, biographies, and obituaries? Why did scholars around 1900 display so much interest in the working habits and character traits of what they called the 'scholarly self'?