Aristocratic dynasties have long been regarded as fundamental to the development of early modern society and government. Yet recent work by political historians has increasingly questioned the dominant role of ruling families in state formation, underlining instead the continued importance and independence…

This book examines how gender relations were regulated in ancient Near Eastern and biblical law. The textual corpus examined includes the various pertinent law collections, royal decrees and instructions from Mesopotamia and Hatti, and the three biblical legal collections. The book explores issues beginning…

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

Supervisor: S.F. Portegies Zwart Co-Supervisor: A.G.A. Brown

This research programme encourages the analysis of nascent Islam within the framework of religious studies.

This research focuses on figurative Byzantine mosaic-floors that have been excavated in the geographical area of the ancient provinces of Palestina and Arabia (current Israel, PA and Jordan) dating to the Late 5th, 6th and early 7th centuries C.E.

This thesis describes the synthesis, analysis of various tetrazine bearing compounds and use in bioorthogonal chemistry.

Global History has become a much-debated field. Is it about globalisation, is it a method, a subject matter, all of the above? Over the last two decades global historians have outlined topics and approaches that set the foundations for a transforming field.

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?

From now on, the Master's Vitality and Ageing will be called Health, Ageing and Society. In terms of content, the programme of this international interdisciplinary Master's at Leiden University remains the same. The new name better covers the content of the programme and thus enhances recognition for…

Teachers of English as a foreign language in China and the Netherlands have different notions of themselves as teachers in relation to cultures associated with the English language.

What forms does Muslim religiosity take in daily life? What is the relation between representations of Islam and Muslims by scholars and the views that exist in the ‘real world’?

A new paperback edition of Brian Heffernan's book Freedom and the Fifth Commandment. Catholic priests and political violence in Ireland, 1919-21 was published by Manchester University Press in September 2016.

Malte Riemann examines the evolution of the mercenary concept. He suggests that notion of mercenary emerged in 19th-century Europe.

Recently, Ingrid Leijten’s book Core Socio-Economic Rights and the European Court of Human Rights was published with Cambridge University Press. The monograph was published in the series Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy (edited by Laurence Gormley and Jo Shaw) and deals with the protection…

The main aim of this project is to reveal and unravel the invisible histories of the UN, transcending the dominant Western perspective to recover the historical agency of Global South actors. The research will investigate how the UN has both facilitated and limited their role in shaping global order…

This book presents an archaeological overview of the presence and development of Egyptian material culture in the context of Augustan Rome.

Promotores: W. Th. F. den Hollander, M.O. Heydenreich

This project is a three-year collaborative research between European and Chinese researchers (2015-2018). As a part of the China-Europe “Understanding Population Change” Collaborative Research Initiative, the project utilizes multidisciplinary research methodologies (social and cultural anthropology,…

Recent years have seen a vibrant scholarship on health policy and politics. While much is now known about changes to health policies and institutions over time, this study finds that scholarship still lacks research on the linkages between health policies and health outcomes (Marmor & Wendt, 2012).…

Does the nature and extent of political communication networks, measured through the frequency and multiplexity of information exchange ties, play a critical role in the reconstitution and maintenance of the Chinese Empire?

On 29 June, Erwin Dijkstra defended the thesis 'Discrimination and the foundation of justice: hate speech, affirmative action, institutional opinions'. The doctoral research was supervised by Paul Cliteur and Bastiaan Rijpkema.

In this policy paper, Joachim Koops and Christian Patz are discussing Germany’s comprehensive assessment of Protection of Civilians readiness at the national level.

National and international actors have attempted to provide accountability for the events at Srebrenica in July 1995. This research project aims to draw lessons learned from those multiple efforts in assessing whether securing a measure of ‘justice’ for the victims has been successful and how national…

This book explores the lasting legacy of the controversial project by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, funded by the CIA, to promote Western culture and liberal values in the battle of ideas with global Communism during the Cold War.

Organic molecules in interstellar space are important as they influence the structure of galaxies and star formations. Studying catalytic processes in space allows us to understand how molecular species are formed and chemically evolved in the interstellar medium and solar system objects.

This book explores how public health concerns and political agendas influenced each other in the US over the past century.

The latest scientific articles by the Rectores Magnifici of Dutch universities will soon be freely available online. They aim to set a good example to researchers in the Netherlands. Carel Stolker from Leiden University is one such Rector.

On 24 January 2024, Vethaak defended the thesis 'Empirical Analysis of Social Insurance, Work Incentives and Employment Outcomes'. The doctoral research was supervised by Koen Caminada and Pierre Koning.

Family, Work, and Household presents the social and occupational life of a late medieval Iberian town in rich, unprecedented detail. The book combines a diachronic study of two regionally prominent families—one knightly and one mercantile—with a detailed cross-sectional urban study of household and…

On Friday 23 April, Jorrit Rijpma appeared before the European Parliament’s Working Group on Frontex Scrutiny. This working group was set up by the Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) in response to allegations of serious fundamental rights violations taking place…

The central aim is to systematically study differences in gendered crime patterns in the records of different types of courts in various English and Dutch cities in the early modern period.

How do urban residents in Brazil and the Netherlands (The Hague and Leiden) perceive the cultural benefits of urban forests? How are these benefits spatially distributed across cities? How do socio-demographic factors shape these perceptions, and do these differences vary between countries?

A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914)

At the conference Surrealism and Scotland on 23 and 24 March, Janice McNab will share the paper ‘Surrealism and the making of Mother’.

This thesis investigates aspects of phi-features in non-standard and minority West Germanic languages.

The first of the two volumes of this co-authored study has just been published by Metzler. The study explores the history of the concept ‘barbarism’ from the 18th century to the present and illuminates its foundational role in modern European and Western identity.

On Wednesday 14 May 2025 Remzi Çakırlar successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Plants, are sessile organisms, have developed strategies to adapt to changes in their environment, in part by altering their growth and development.

Social aspects of the learning environment, also called classroom climate, are important for students’ cognitive and affective learning outcomes. In this thesis the classroom climate is operationalised by means of two components: the teacher-class relationship and classroom discipline.

This study investigates how two social and political developments, in the UK and Germany, impacted on the experiences of minorities and the attitudes of majorities vis-à-vis tolerance in those two countries. The results provide a thought-provoking picture of the views of minority and majority groups…

Robert Pee, William Michael Schmidli (Eds.) This book posits that democracy promotion played a key role in the Reagan administration’s Cold War foreign policy.

Metabolomics has the potential to play a pivotal role in understanding disease onset and progression, and ultimately personalized treatments. One of its major challenges is its large-scale implementation, which is necessary to deal with the high variability of the metabolome. In this work we have developed…

How did nineteenth century scholars evaluate each other and each other’s work through more or less informal practices of peer review?

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-Promotor: F. Calle-Vallejo

Haneen Omari defended her thesis on 29 October 2019

An environmental and palaeo-economic reconstruction.

Stephen Moore defended his thesis on 26 May 2020.

Promotor: H.S. Overkleeft, Co-promotor: M. van der Stelt

Welcome to the website of Turkish Studies at Leiden University. On this website you will find information on the work and the activities of the people studying the Ottoman Empire and Turkey at Leiden University.