Impartiality, objectivity, honesty, and accuracy are qualities that generations of scholars have regarded as necessary for the pursuit of scholarly inquiry. Philosophers call them epistemic virtues, because these virtues facilitate the pursuit of epistemic aims such as knowledge and understanding of…

In her new book, Dr Claire Weeda, cultural historian at Leiden University, investigates how racial stereotypes were created and used in the European Middle Ages (900-1250).

Dutch troops, judges and politicians collectively condoned and concealed the systematic use of extreme violence during the Indonesian War of Independence. Historians have now shown how this could happen. ‘It was scandal management rather than prevention,’ says Leiden historian and research leader Gert…

Associate Professor Dr. Ulrike Tanzer from the German Department, University of Salzburg (Austria) is working for a few months at Leiden University. In this short interview she will introduce herself.

Got an hour to spare over the long weekend? Then listen to an episode of the new podcasts that have seen the light of day at the faculty in recent months.

The University of Reading will host an online workshop on 27 April 2021. It is aimed at early career and postgraduate research historians focusing on the area of medieval finance. The deadline for submissions is: 19 February 2021.

Showing your face at dinners and parties at court: it was the way to get noticed by the king in William I's time. Joost Welten's latest book reveals how, during the reign of William I, the elite danced around his throne both literally and figuratively.

On January 28 and 29, 2021 the conference ‘Imperial Artefacts: History, Law and the Looting of Cultural Property’ took place online. This first of its kind event at Leiden University was an interdisciplinary online conference and brought together (post-)colonial historians, legal historians, curators,…

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries artists were fascinated by how the animal kingdom was classified. They were in some instances ahead of natural historians.

Criminals? They are always men. At least, that’s what we tend to think. Historian Manon van der Heijden wants to show, however, that between 1600 and 1900 in Europe, women were responsible for a substantial share of the criminal activity. She has been granted a VICI award for her research.

History can be found in utensils and in interviews with ordinary citizens. ‘With the reconstruction of everyday life, an anthropological approach works better,’ thinks historian Jan-Bart Gewald. Inaugural lecture on 6 June.

The Executive Board has appointed Herman Paul (Institute for History) as Professor of History of the Humanities. He will take up the role from 1 January 2019.

Italian historiographers in the 16th and 17th centuries wrote remarkably often about the Dutch Revolt, better known as the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648). Their works influenced public opinion both in Italy and in the Netherlands. This is the conclusion reached by historian Cees Reijner in his dissertation.…

On 2 December, the Municipality of Leiden will apologise for the role previous administrations played in colonialism and slavery. A further study will be carried out.

From August 22 to 24, 2024, the Royal Netherlands Historical Society (KNHG) is organizing the Historicidagen for the fourth time, this time in collaboration with Maastricht University. The Historicidagen offer three days of lectures, debates, and workshops to showcase the diversity and dynamics of historical…

For the project ‘Professionals and the People’ Tilburg University is looking for a historian with a PhD with passion for archival research. The postdoc will investigate the administrative culture and the functioning of urban civil servants in the Low Countries during the late Middle Ages and Early Modern…

The American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain (AARHMS) is organizing a panel at the 2023 International Medieval Congress in Leeds entitled "Relics and Reliquaries in Iberia, c. 1000-1400: Stories, Places, and Identities". Papers on any topic regarding the cult of saints, their material…

NVIC welcomes Ahmed Hassan, a PhD candidate at Indiana University as a guest researcher.

As part of her doctoral studies at the University of Copenhagen, Dr Rebekka Byberg explored the history of the Common Market Law Review from 1963 to 1993 in an engaging article which illustrates the evolution of European law as an academic discipline.

The powerful Dutch East India Company and West India Company were summoned before the High Court more often than historians have assumed. The complainants varied from competitors, to the Companies' own staff and even poor citizens. This is what Leiden historian Kate Ekama has discovered. PhD defence…

To cover up their deportation plans which targeted Polish Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Nazis re-opened schools. In her inaugural lecture, historian Sarah Cramsey demonstrates with examples how care was used ‘as a weapon’ during the Holocaust. She also stresses that care is a unifying cement in society…

Her book ‘Veel valse hoop’ (Much False Hope) about the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands was immediately hailed as a seminal work. German historian Katja Happe gave the Cleveringa Lecture on 26 November. She is fascinated by what makes people take a stand.

One way for governments to conduct foreign policy and promote national interests is through direct outreach and communication with the population of a foreign country. This is called public diplomacy. Historians such as Helmer Helmers and William T. Rossiter have shown that printed media were already…

The specialisation Museum Studies focuses on the art museum and places it in an artistic, cultural, social and political context. Our courses, taught by art historians and museum experts, reflect on the latest academic debates and the latest insights from the working field.

The central research question focuses on identifying shifts in the urban social network in terms of private, semi-public and public space by means of mapping the spatial distributions of wells and cesspits in the town of Haarlem in the course of the pre-industrial period (1200-1800). Shifts may be indicative…

The aim of this project is to study what makes an act or form of violence a specifically political reality.

An Investigation into the role of copper-alloy craft production in the early medieval economy of northwest Europe.

A new special issue on translation and the cultural Cold War sheds light on the understudied and yet important role of translation in cultural transfer.

How can the concept of Critical Making be expanded into a general approach that ties the critical methodology of artistic research, and the established concepts of artistic autonomy, together with contemporary creative-technological development?

Academic staff and students blog about their research and teaching.

Update : March 2020 A.J. Mills

The oldest university in the Netherlands has produced many well-known scientists. Some of them are known to the wider public; others are perhaps less well known, but their achievements are no less impressive.

This synthesis brings together strands developed in the four studies, sets out memories of the Revolt and presents the Low Countries as a case study.

Every semester, LUCIS invites a scholar to Leiden to provide a lecture series on a topic of their choice. With these lectures, we aim to present state-of-the-art research in Islamic studies to the Leiden academic community and beyond, and to offer students and junior researchers the opportunity to get…

Knowledge and culture subproject 3:

This PhD subproject concentrates on 16th-century ichthyology and takes Gessner’s Historia piscium (1558) (further HP) as its point of departure and focus.

Leiden University will be recording a brand-new series of podcasts in 2019: Science Shots. Our top scientists will talk about their research in less than 15 minutes. Tip: something to enjoy on the train journey between Leiden and The Hague, our two University cities!

The ability to create objects and structures with our hands has been essential to human development. This ability is something modern society is at risk of losing. Leiden archaeologists gather knowledge about ancient processes of ‘making and creating’ over the centuries, knowledge that helps our current…

Update : March 2020 Director: Professor Dr Harco Willems (KU Leuven), co-director Dr Marleen De Meyer (KU Leuven & NVIC)

The specialisations Art History and Museum Studies both engage in critical perspectives and in current practices and the development of a professional network. The specialisation Art History puts emphasis on the analysis of art works within a museal and curatorial context. Our courses, taught by art…

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 combination of global questions and a wide range of local sources characterizes the Leiden University Institute for History.

The NWO-funded Vidi project “American foreign policy and liberalism” challenges the idea that the United States has created and sustained a “liberal international order” since World War II. It instead explores the ways in which illiberal ideologies – such as those underpinning racial hierarchy at home…

Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) is the international Honours College of Leiden University and offers an innovative Liberal Arts & Sciences undergraduate programme to highly talented and motivated students from all over the world.

Emeritus professor Willem Otterspeer received a royal honour from mayor Henri Lenferink on Tuesday 20 September. The university historian was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

To increase the accuracy of climate models, it is crucial that they include past human land-use and human-driven vegetation changes. Here archaeology can make an important contribution. Current models are based on reconstructions of past vegetation. However, their accuracy is limited because it does…

For a new food-related exhibition in the Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam, archaeologist Dr. Joanita Vroom has cooperated in creating the Taste Lab, where one can look, listen, taste and cook. Moreover, she designed a series of food workshops.

A rare medieval bookmark emerged in Leiden University Library. Book historian Erik Kwakkel found the disk in an archive of manuscript descriptions called the Bibliotheca Neerlandica Manuscripta. It was likely put their in the early twentieth century by Willem de Vreese, who made the descriptions. The…