The aim of this project is to foster a historiography that does justice both to the realization that scientific knowledge is constructed by local, contingent, and contextual processes, and the claims of science to objective validity.

Lecture

This project will construct an inventory of possible conceptions of the resistance of the world to scientists’ claims and theories.

Overview of the Asia Programmes offered at Leiden University.

Dr Thomas Fossen (Institute for Philosophy) has been awarded with an NWO Veni grant for his research project 'Critical moments: How do events affect how we should judge the legitimacy of political authorities?'

The world’s attention will shift to China as the Communist Party is set to hold its five-yearly congress beginning on 16 October. We talk to Senior University Lecturer Florian Schneider about how its leader Xi Jinping is expected to cement his place as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Ze…

Audrey Heijns explored the mindset of alumnus Henri Borel. From 1894 to 1916 he was an interpreter of Chinese and later a government officer for Chinese affairs in the Dutch East Indies. Borel's way of 'translating' Chinese was both unique and inimitable. PhD defence on 28 June.

Dutch radio corporation ‘BNR’ contacted Willemijn Aerdts, a lecturer at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, for her opinion on the arrest. ‘It seldom happens that someone gets caught. What is interesting is that he was both caught and is being prosecuted in the USA.’

Engagement between Asia and Europe is increasing. If these continents want to build a lasting relationship, they need to understand each other better in the economic, socio-cultural, historical and legal arena. Researchers from Leiden have already contributed to the body of knowledge on past and present…

Hundreds of millions of Chinese workers have moved from the countryside to the city. This social transformation has birthed a tradition of migrant worker poetry, professor Maghiel van Crevel states in Jacobin.

What Determines Perceptions of Bias toward the International Criminal Court? Evidence from Kenya. In this article, published on the website SAGE Journals in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the authors Geoff Dancy, Yvonne Marie Dutton, Tessa Alleblas, Eamon Aloyo examine the attitude towards international…

A Spanish translation of Herman Paul’s 'Key Issues in Historical Theory' has appeared under the title 'La llamada del pasado: claves de la teoría de la historia'.

As a graduate of the Faculty of Humanities, there are unlimited possibilities. Do you want to know more about the sectors and jobs Humanities' graduates end up? Read their stories below!

The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages.

This book explores the Indian tradition of liberalism through a critical intellectual biography of Valangaiman Sankaranarayana Srinivasa Sastri (1869–1946).

This article explores how the meaning of the rule of law has evolved over the past century in UK and US parliamentary speeches, focusing on procedural (thin) and substantive (thick) conceptualisations.

To what extent can digital technologies be considered as authorities?

Many people wish for political transparency in The Hague. However, political philosopher Dorota Mokrosinska argues in an article in the Dutch newspaper Trouw that there are certain advantages to political secrecy. She states that politicians are better at compromising with one another behind closed…

The Institute for Philosophy has a new Academic Director: on 1 February, James McAllister was succeeded by Douglas Berger. We asked him about his plans.

LIAS has a School of Asian Studies (SAS), a School of Middle-Eastern Studies (SMES) and a School of Religious Studies (LUCSoR). These designations, and the fields within them, remain foundational to our work. At the same time, the academic community benefits from the presence of cross-regional networks…

Dialogue is a multi-dimensional communication mechanism whose processes can only be examined by means of an interdisciplinary approach.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Erik Zürcher (1928–2008) is still considered an authoritative source in research on Chinese Buddhism. A new collection of his publications serves as an occasion for an international conference on Buddhism in Leiden. Princess Beatrix, who knew him well, will be in attendance at the opening.

Marcel Cobussen wrote the essay “Listening as a Multisensorial Experience” for The Oxford Handbook of Western Music and Philosophy.

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

Area studies is an approach to knowledge that starts from the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present, through the relevant source languages, with central regard for issues of positionality.

Botanisch filosoof Norbert Peeters vertelt over hoe mensen omgaan met planten in het algemeen, en met onkruid in het bijzonder.

In this dissertation, electrophysiological (EEG) and behavioural measures are used to investigate how allophonic tonal variants and sub-phonemic features are processed during Mandarin and Dutch speech production, visual processing of written words and reading aloud.

How to understand the simultaneously dis- and reappearance of letters in contemporary culture, and how does this Neo-Epistolarity relate to media-technological change?

Lecture

Leiden University and China import partner.

Within just a few years, the Chinese government's policy towards the Uyghurs deteriorated sharply. From control and marginalisation, it shifted to violation of human rights. PhD candidate Elke Spiessens was right in the middle of it with her research. 'The fabric of the community is being completely…

In this article in International Affairs, Saskia Postema and Jan Melissen examine Chinese celebrities' UN-affiliated Weibo activism in the context of China's increasing engagement in the United Nations, which coincides with a shrinking domestic public sphere under Xi Jinping's leadership.

Lecture

Leiden University has student exchange and scholarships agreements with various Chinese universities, varying from long-term exchange programmes to two-week Summer Courses.