On 7 September 2023 Didem Durak Akser successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

A linguistic test of hypotheses rooted in genetics and archaeology.

Professor of Dutch History prof.dr. H. (Henk) te Velde will become interim Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Leiden University for a two-year term with effect from 1 March 2025. He will succeed prof.dr. M.R. (Mark) Rutgers. Mark Rutgers’ second term of office expires on 1 March 2025; he will be professor…

Nico Staring, researcher in Egyptian art, culture and history, is taking part in the Leiden-Turin excavations in Saqqara, Egypt. The site of Saqqara is interesting because it was utilized as a cemetery but also the veneration of gods for a period of more than 3000 years, between ca. 3000 BCE to the…

The monthly ILS Lunch Seminars unite the several Institutes situated within Leiden Law School. On Thursday 15 February 2018 from 12:00 hrs until 13:00 hrs in KOG B0.41, the next edition of the ILS Lunch Seminars will take place.

Understanding the formation and preservation of Pleistocene fire traces through laboratory-based experimental research

Is our musicality unique? That’s what the Bird Singalong project aims to find out. And for that, they need the help of feathered friends from all around the world. ‘By researching how parrots learn songs, we also learn more about the origin of our own musicality.’ Do you have a parrot that can sing…

Musical instruments are multiple things: they are objects but also means of communication; they are technological and also deeply connected to embodiment through the player; and they leave certain cultural traces (Ricoeur 1975/1984). This research project explores how literary texts from the 19th century…

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'?

For Humans of Psychology, students and staff will be put into the spotlight. At our institute prizes are won, exiting research is conducted, knowledge is harnessed, public meeting are organised and open science is highlighted. Take a look behind the scenes.

In this article, Tom Buitelaar proposes a systematic framework for analyzing the impact of individual characteristics of peacekeeping leaders on the behaviour of field-level personnel in UN peacekeeping operations.

How can people and lions sustainably coexist?

Over the years, many spectacular archaeological finds have been washed ashore on the Dutch coast. Among these a large assemblage of barbed points made of bone and antler from the Mesolithic (11,000-8000 BC). The species used by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to manufacture their barbed points remained…

Up to and including 2024 the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) will be working with the ‘PhDs in the Humanities’ funding instrument.

What the Sex Lives of Bugs, Birds, and Beasts Tell Us About Evolution, Biodiversity, and Ourselves, Menno Schilthuizen reports from the front lines of evolutionary biology, on a quest to make sense of the origins, workings and evolution of our and other species’ reproductive selves.

The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration provides a complete exploration of the prominent themes, events, and theoretical underpinnings of the movements of human populations from prehistory to the present day.

The lecture series 'Humanity in the Automated State' examines how AI and automated systems are transforming government and public administration and what it means to be human within these digitised institutions.

A Humanities degree gives you a solid start on the job market, as shown by the employment survey among alumni who graduated from 2020 through 2024.

Islam exists in global history with its richly variegated cultural and social realities. When these specific cultural contexts are marginalized, Islam is reduced to an ahistorical religion without the ability to contribute to humanity. This limited understanding of Islam has been a contributing factor…

The Career Service Humanities offers assistance while you’re a student and for a year after you graduate! We can help you with:

Each year the NSE (National Student Survey) gives students the opportunity to express their opinion on their studies. The results are important not only for improving study programmes but also for helping new students to choose the programme that’s best for them. This year the survey was completed by…

On 17 January 2024 Ying Wang successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

How did early humans use their hands, and what can that tell us about our shared past? Cora Leder, newly awarded recipient of the NWO PhD in the Humanities grant, is set to find out.

Large carnivore population is globally declining as a result of the fragmentation of habitat, large prey depletion and retaliatory killing by pastoralists.

Recently, the PhD thesis of Lolu Danso Eweje appeared entitled ’Development of human skin equivalents to unravel the impaired skin barrier in atopic dermatitis skin’.

Advanced biotechnology allows us to select or alter the genetic makeup of human embryos. What limits do we impose on biotechnological intervention in nature and the human body? And whose call is that?

Are you curious about why people are the way they are - and how they change? At Leiden University, you’ll explore social behaviour, ideas and cultures, from the past to the present and from local to global. From major cities to world religions, from philosophical questions to education and upbringing…

Graduates in Humanities possess talents that are highly valued in the job market.

Are you curious about why people are the way they are - and how they change? At Leiden University, you’ll explore social behaviour, ideas and cultures, from the past to the present and from local to global. From major cities to world religions, from philosophical questions to education and upbringing…

Are you interested in the neurocognitive and biological roots of learning, behaviour and emotions in children? If so, the programme in Applied Neuroscience in Human Development might be the specialisation you are looking for.

What are the patterns and processes of human mobility in the pre-colonial circum-Caribbean as revealed by burial populations and what are the underlying motives and socio-cultural principles on both micro- and macro-scales?

Valentina Carraro explores the relationship between overlapping UN human rights institutions, specifically the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR)

Lecture, COGLOSS

From self-driving cars to innovative drug development: artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally change our lives in many different ways. We study this technology at a deep and fundamental level. And we seek answers to questions about liability and privacy, for example. Our researchers from…

Are you curious about why people are the way they are – and how they change? At Leiden University, you’ll explore social behaviour, ideas and cultures, from the past to the present and from local to global. From major cities to world religions, from philosophical questions to education and upbringing…

Are you curious about why people are the way they are – and how they change? At Leiden University, you’ll explore social behaviour, ideas and cultures, from the past to the present and from local to global. From major cities to world religions, from philosophical questions to education and upbringing…

Roundtable

Human Rights at Risk brings together social scientists, legal scholars, and humanities scholars to analyze the policy challenges of human rights protection in the twenty-first century.

Scientists remain puzzled by the sudden extinction of Neanderthals, some 40,000 years ago. New research by scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology, Leiden University and Wageningen University now suggests we might have been too quick in attributing the demise of Neanderthals to invasions…

In a new article in the journal Scientific Reports, Leiden archaeologist Wei Chu and colleagues report on recent excavations in Western Romania at the site of Româneşti, one of the most important sites in southeastern Europe associated with the earliest Homo sapiens. The site gives an important glimpse…

The identification of the material of prehistoric arrowheads as human bone led to interest from the media. Research Master's student Jan Dekker, the principal researcher, was interviewed by NewScientist, Smithsonian Magazine, and several Dutch news agencies.

Our Master Law in European and International Human Rights Law (LL.M.) looks at the various human rights protection mechanisms from a comparative perspective

In the eighties the Umhlatuzana rock shelter in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, was excavated. Results from this excavation led to an understanding when the Later Stone Age started in this area. This archaeological period is often associated with the structural presence of modern human behavior. Now a…

Jaira Sona Chin (24) is a second-year student of the bachelor’s programme International Studies in The Hague. Three years ago, she founded her own NGO: the Sona Pushkar Project. With this organisation she helps families from an Indian village to break the circle of poverty.

The Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence minor in the 2024-2025 academic year with options of 15 EC or 30 EC packages.

Explores the relationship between technics and humanity, tracing the emergence of a bio-technical conception of existence in contemporary continental philosophy. Suny Press

Festschrift for Prof. Dr Raymond H.A. Corbey in celebration of his 70th birthday