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.

By documenting lexical and morpho-syntactic patterns among P’urhepecha speakers in Mexico and the US diaspora, this project will investigate the sources of language variation. The ensuing online dialect atlas will serve as an online resource for speakers, learners and researchers of the language.

On 8 May, the memoirs of Jang Jin-sung are appearing worldwide under the title Dear Leader. Jan Jin-sung was a member of the personal circle of the former North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il. Dear Leader provides a radically different perspective on the workings of the regime, as it reveals the moving…

Of the 87 Vidi research subsidies awarded by NWO, five have been awarded to Leiden researchers. This represents almost 6 per cent of the successful applications.

Fieldwork

Amerindian settlement patterns and early colonial cartography in Northern Hispaniola

the production, use and exchange of bodily accoutrements through the lenses of the microscope

Nanodiamonds and charcoal in Dutch soil provide no evidence for the alleged impact of a meteorite at the end of the last Ice Age. This is the conclusion of a research done by Utrecht University in collaboration with Leiden University and the University of Groningen.

It is difficult to imagine a society other than a hierarchical nation-state. This is in part because we neglect alternative forms from the past, argues archaeologist Lewis Borck in the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology.

To give a better idea of the research at Leiden University, a new website has been launched that lists the University’s institutes together with the disciplines that they cover. But the institutes also work together intensively.

A delegation from Leiden University will be visiting Mexico from 21 to 25 October. The visit aims to strengthen the ties between Mexican universities and Leiden University.

A study of early medieval reopened graves

Professor Jojanneke van der Toorn has held the chair in LGBT workplace inclusion for five years. To celebrate, organised an international online conference on workplace inclusion, in cooperation with Workplace Pride that was hosted by the university on 20 and 21 May.

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy regularly publishes reviews of recent books within the field of diplomacy and global affairs, written in English, Spanish, French, or German.

On December 5th, Matthias Pache succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Matthias on this great result.

An overview of the courses

The master’s programme of Latin American Studies offered by Leiden University supports the teaching and research of the social, cultural, historical, and linguistic diversity of contemporary Latin America, a region of mind-blowing diversity and global impact.

The Dublin claim determines which country of the European Union is responsible for processing the asylum application of a particular asylum seeker. In general, the first country in Europe where the asylum seeker arrives or transits is responsible for processing the asylum application. It is also possible…

Find out how to apply for North American Studies at Leiden University by following our step-by step guide.

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

Lecture, Boekpresentatie

How did colonial law work to turn people into property? This project argues that colonial ideas about households and domestic authority were critical to legal processes of enslavement in the early modern Dutch empire. Using colonial court records from Dutch Brazil, Suriname, and the Moluccas, the project…

The Centre for Indigenous America Studies (CIAS) at Leiden University is designed to coordinate and promote the teaching and research of Indigenous languages, literatures, cultures and cultural heritage. Our aim is to contribute to an increased acknowledgement, recognition and understanding of Indigenous…

Algae are not what immediately spring to mind when people think of threatened species. But even among algae there are species that have a difficult time, such as ‘Aegagropila linnaei’. In the magazine BioScience Christian Bödeker describes the worldwide decline of this species. He calls for the species…

How is it possible that people kill each other? And above all: how is it possible that people who are able to peacefully live with each other at one moment, can kill each other at another one?

Yusen Yu wins the prestigious Graduate Student Prize of the Middle East Medievalists (MEM) with his article

Leiden biologist Suzanne Lommen and an international team of scientists have investigated how a beetle can reduce hay fever in Europe. Locally, the beetle is even able to stop pollen production in a plant that causes allergic reactions. Publication in Nature Communications on April 21.

An international congress, lectures and a new book series and magazine. It’s a hot topic at the moment that attracts broad public interest. Researchers, from historians to legal experts, are bringing together their expertise in the Leiden Slavery Studies Association.

Grammatical gender is famously the most puzzling of the grammatical categories. We have a solid typology of gender systems, yet exciting and unexpected patterns keep turning up which defy easy classification and straightforward analysis. Some of these question, stretch or threaten to cross the outer…

Together with a large international team of scientists, researchers Peter van Bodegom and Nadia Soudzilovskaia of the Leiden Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) have created maps of variability in plant trait distribution across the globe. The new maps have been published in Proceedings of the…

TRI Leiden has been strongly involved, together with Nottingham Law School, in the development of the EU Cross-Border Insolvency Court-to-Court Cooperation Principles (‘EU JudgeCo Principles’). They were finalised in February 2015 and recently a book has been published. During a business rescue conference…

Over the past months regular updates have been provided on the work of the Leiden Turnaround, Rescue & Insolvency team (TRI Leiden) in creating EU Cross-Border Insolvency Court-to-Court Cooperation Principles. During the last week of January this project was finalised, resulting in 26 EU Cross-Border…

Activities of Magda Dourado Pucci, Dick de Graaf, Henri Bok, Catalina Vicens, Patrizia Bovi, k.g. Guttman, Andrea Stultiens, and Lilo Nein

During the Latin American Studies Master's programme you will focus on key social, political, linguistic and cultural developments which are currently shaping the complex reality of Latin America.

Research framework CIAS

For questions related to Leiden Latin American and Caribbean Centre, please contact Mara Constantinescu, the Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The 2012 crisis in Mali, where the state collapsed and terrorist groups took over the north, came as a surprise to many. Mali had been considered a poster-child for democracy and was judged as considerably more stable than its neighbors by leading quantitative indices of state fragility. This article…

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,…

Freya Baetens is currently a Visiting Professor at the National University Singapore (NUS). NUS started out as a medical school in 1905, founded by a determined group of businessmen led by Tan Jiak Kim, to serve the needs of the local community. Today, it is Singapore’s flagship university consistently…

Linguist Willem Adelaar was appointed to Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion on October 1st. On that very same day he celebrated his 43-year connection to Leiden University. Adelaar has an impressive track record in the field of indigenous, and often endangered, Amerindian languages.