What does it mean to perceive smell? This question fascinated poets and playwrights of the early modern period (ca. 1500–1700): their work abounds in references to and evocations of smell sensation and of specific scents. POEM maps the ways in which early modern writers put the language of smell – or…

Mission Director: Dr. Carina van den Hoven (The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden University)

The multidisciplinary one-year master’s programme in North American Studies provides students with comprehensive knowledge of North American history, literature, film, and culture and their connection to contemporary social, political, literary and cultural developments in an international perspecti…

Are you ready to take on an extra challenge during your Leiden Bachelor programme? With options like Honours College, The Humanities Lab and the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) you can add extra depth, intensity and ECTS – even a dual degree – to your study.

The scientific research of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs is organised around a number of centres and institutes in The Hague, city of peace, security and justice.

How do societies move forward with sustainable, effective and efficient management of Earth's water resources?

The core curriculum equips students with the conceptual approaches and qualitative empirical research methods necessary to analyze law in context. Specialized electives enable students to dive deeper and focus on particular areas of legal practice—from legal mobilization to regulation and compliance…

This edited volume by Jeff Fynn-Paul pushes forward the debate on the role of entrepreneurs in making war and building states in Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

This book investigates the effects of brain lesions in the left hemisphere, specifically Broca's area, on the production and perception of vowels, of word tones and of the linguistic use of sentence melody.

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.

Religion in the ancient world, and ancient Egyptian religion in particular, is often perceived as static, hierarchically organised, and centred on priests, tombs, and temples. Engagement with archaeological and textual evidence dispels these beguiling if superficial narratives, however. Individuals…

This book explores intercultural management challenges in sub-Saharan Africa through a case study of Vasco Silva, a Portuguese businessman in Luanda, Angola.

Volume II of The Cambridge History of Strategy focuses on the practice of strategy from 1800 to the present day.

On the 4th of June, Menghui Shi successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Menghui Shi on this achievement!

This timely and engaging book examines the rise of populism across the globe. Combining insights from linguistics, argumentation theory, rhetoric, legal theory and political theory it offers a fully integrated characterization of the form and content of populist discourse.

The representation of death children in Dutch literature through time

This book connects labour history, global history and the institutional or political history of international organisations.

Abrupt Climate Change and Cultural Transformation

Every year, the Global Transformations and Governance Challenges programme organises a conference that brings together academics and policy makers.

On the 26th of September, Cosmas Rai Amenorvi successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Cosmas on this achievement!

This thesis presents a detailed description of the phonology, the tone system and the grammar of Liko, a Bantu language spoken by about 70,000 people in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It provides numerous examples.

Usage Guides and Usage Problems in British and American English, 1st Edition

Would you like to know more about our research using laboratory animals or our studies on alternatives to animal testing? If so, take a look at the news articles on the right-hand side of the page (for mobile users, see the bottom of the page).

This new study by professor Peter Hoppenbrouwers focuses on conflict in village communities of late medieval Drenthe in order to depict a typical peasant society in late medieval Europe.

Middle Paleolithic stone tool technology is one of the major sources of information about Neandertal behavior and adaptations. The Balkan Middle Paleolithic often remains outside of the major debates and interpretations of Neandertal behavior.

In this on-line dissertation, jazz saxophonist Dick de Graaf investigates a variety of compositional and improvisational models and techniques in contemporary jazz and Western art music, and discusses possible applications of these materials in current jazz practices.

Particles are omnipresent in biopharmaceutical products. In protein-based therapeutics such particles are generally associated with impurities, either derived from the drug product itself (e.g. protein aggregates), or from extrinsic contaminations (e.g. cellulose fibers).

On 1 June 2022, Bruno Braak defended his thesis entitled 'Overcoming ruptures: Zande identity, governance, and tradition during cycles of war and displacement in South Sudan and Uganda (2014-2019).' The doctoral research was supervised by Prof.dr. J.M. Otto, Dr.ir. C.I.M. Jacobs, and Dr. C. Leonardi…

On 2 May, Sophie Starrenburg defended the thesis 'Striking a balance between local and global interests: communities and cultural heritage protection in public international law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Nico Schrijver and Yvonne Donders.

This collection of seventeen essays takes its inspiration from the scholarly achievements of the Dutch historian Jan Lucassen. They reflect a central theme in his research: the history of labor.

Aspergillus niger is an important industrial producer of organic acids and enzymes producing large amounts of spent fungal biomass.

In Indigenous Ancestors and Healing Landscapes Jana Pešoutová presents new interpretations of current healing practices in Cuba and the Dominican Republic juxtaposed against the European colonization of the Caribbean after 1492.

The lysosomal β-glucosidase named glucocerebrosidase (GCase) is a retaining β-glucosidase that hydrolyzes the glycosphingolipid glucosylceramide (GlcCer) to ceramide and glucose at acid pH.

This historical study argues that the Mandaean religion originated under Sasanid rule in the fifth century, not earlier as has been widely accepted. It analyzes primary sources in Syriac, Mandaic, and Arabic to clarify the early history of Mandaeism.

On November 1st, Min Liu succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Min on this great result.

Historiography of science is in its current self-image a non-evaluative discipline. Its main goal is to understand past processes of knowledge formation on their own terms. In the last few decades this approach has greatly improved our understanding of the phenomenon of science. Yet, something strange…

Since my master's thesis on the landed property of the Frisian monasteries in the Middle Ages I am highly interested in the do ut des-aspects of the relation between religious houses and the lay world. Key words here are: property, power, patronage and the role of religious institutions in the 'salvation…

This dissertation investigates the fabric and the infrastructure of contemporary artistic production.

On July 5th, Mulugeta Tarekegne Tsegaye succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Mulugeta on this great result.

More on the Dutch webpage.

For thousands of years, societies have fallen under the reign of a single leader, ruling as chief, king, or emperor. In this fascinating global history of medieval and early modern dynastic power, Jeroen Duindam charts the rise and fall of dynasties, the rituals of rulership, and the contested presence…

Nietzsche says

Fokelien Kootstra defended her thesis on 23 April 2019

What kinds of vocal music were not typically transmitted in written musical notation? Can specific ‘lost’ song forms - siciliane, giustiniane, le Grechesche, gli stili “regionali“ nel canto del quattrocento - be more precisely identified than they have been until now, both in musicological research…

This dissertation provides crucial but as yet missing empirical data on the tone accent opposition in the so-called

On the 6th of November, Virginia Beavon Ham successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Virginia on this achievement.

This publication aims at the analysis of the performance of a corpus of Fongbe stories that I collected in three villages in the south of Benin in 1976 and 1977. The corpus consists of 37 stories (57.000 words). The stories aim at children’s education.