The MORE project covers the development of the new entrance area for the Leiden Bio Science Park. Partners Leiden University, the Municipality of Leiden and the Amstelveen-based development agency Yisheng signed the agreement on 18 March, marking the official start of the project.

This book argues that Armenians around the world – in the face of the Genocide, and despite the absence of an independent nation-state after World War I – developed dynamic socio-political, cultural, ideological and ecclesiastical centres. And it focuses on one such centre, Beirut, in the postcolonial…

Annual Meeting

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo is an academic centre providing services for scholars and students from the supporting universities.

On Wednesday 23 October 2024 Yixiu Jiang successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On Tuesday 3 December 2024 Shuang Liu successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The Central and East European Studies Centre is hosted by Leiden University.

This project studies travel writing about the Dutch East Indies written between 1800 and the end of the Second World War. By analyzing both Dutch travel texts and Indigenous travel texts in Javanese and Malay, it presents a new, double-voiced perspective on (the historiography of) the Dutch colonial…

In the 2015 QS World University rankings the area of Politics and International Studies at Leiden University, which includes Public Administration, has climbed to the 23rd place worldwide. Politics and International Studies at Leiden University holds the first position in The Netherlands and a top 10…

Serhan Afacan defended his thesis on 23 June 2015

This dissertation studies the formation of the wage laboring class in the Iranian oil industry during the first decades of the 20th century.

This dissertations studies state-society relations in 1930s Turkey, focusing on the anti-veiling campaigns in the mid-1930s and aiming to understand the ways in which the Kemalist policies were received, interpreted, negotiated, compromised and/or resisted by various actors in the provinces.

The Iraqi archaeological site of Nimrud was recently recaptured from IS. The site has been severely damaged. The question now is, what to do with it? Should it be restored? Bleda Düring spoke with Trouw about this complex issue.

Op 10 en 11 december 2019 vond het seminar ‘The Freedom of Movement in Intra-Schengen Border Areas: Challenges & Opportunities’ plaats aan de Haagse Campus van de Universiteit Leiden.

This dissertation, Layered Loyalties: The Natuurkundige Commissie in the Netherlands Indies (1820-1850), studies the Natuurkundige Commissie.

The Dutch colonial past in Indonesia has had a major influence on literature.

Interested in Area Studies? Then Leiden is the place to be! Join our Online Area Studies Week from 2-5 June to find out more. From Africa to Brasil and from Korea to Russia, Leiden covers all areas and fields, both in language, literature, history, politics and socio-economics. Join our live Q&As!

Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? And that the Middle East under Muslim rule was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship?

Central to Nuranisa’s PhD project is the cultural diplomacy practiced by the Javanese courts of central Java (Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Pakualaman and Mangkunegaran) in response to the increasing Dutch colonial power in the 19th and early 20th century. The Javanese sultanates were incorporated into the…

Chaider Bamualim defended his thesis on 9 September 2015

Together with colleagues from the Stimson Center and in the framework of the Global Governance Innovation Network, Dr. Joris Larik has recently published the report

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.

On Tuesday 30 April 2024 Jonny Russell successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On Wednesday 21 May Adrian Perkasa successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University’s Faculty of Humanities with the University of Sulaimani in Iraq.

The MA Asian Studies East Asian Studies offers focused study of China, Japan or Korea. You can study the country of your choice from an expansive number of disciplinary perspectives including history, literature, art, art history, sociology, anthropology, media, cultural studies, religious studies,…

Elizabeth Hicks won first runner-up in the Netherlands Institute of the Near East (NINO) MA thesis 2021 competition at the end of January.

The researchers in the World Archaeology department of the Faculty of Archaeology concentrate on a range of different periods and regions: from humanity’s origins to the Middle Ages and the modern age, and from Asia to South America.

The new Middle Eastern Library (MEL) will bring together the UBL's own Middle Eastern collections and the collections of the library of The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO), which has been part of the Leiden University Libraries since 1st January 2018.

On 3 September 2019, Ilektra Antonaki defended her thesis 'Privatisations and golden shares: Bridging the gap between the State and the market in the area of free movement of capital in the EU'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. S.C.G. Van den Bogaert.

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…

Since the end of the nineteenth century Arabic book designers have influenced the social and cultural situation in the Middle East with their work. Huda Smitshuijzen Abi-Farès has written the first global overview of this neglected field of science. PhD defence 10 January.

The current migration flow into Europa demands effective measures. Leiden experts examine whether these measures are legal and hold up a mirror to policy-makers.

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (the NVIC) was founded in 1971. Nine universities in the Netherlands and Flanders participate in the institute with an aim to stimulating internationalisation of their teaching and research activities in the Middle East.

Balikh Valley Archaeological Project Monograph 1 - BAR International Series 468

Report on the Excavations of the National Museum of Antiquities Leiden in the Balikh Valley, Syria.

Do you want to discover a language and culture that is completely different from the Netherlands? In the Bachelor's programme Middle Eastern Studies you will study the connections between the different cultures in the Middle-East in the past and present. You will be able to choose from the languages…

The gripping story of a collective passion for freedom that shook the world.

Our ambition to contribute to society and the world, searching to solutions to the global challenges of our time, can only be achieved with solid relationships worldwide.

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 18 December 2025 at 6:00 pm.

To be eligible for Middle Eastern Studies at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

There are certainly ten airlines who do not carry out an identity check in the Schengen area upon check-in.