This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University’s Faculty of Science with the University of Pretoria.

Time, Religion and Sacred Discourses of the Ayuuk People

On 23 October 2019, Yoram Stein defended his thesis 'Spinoza's Theory of Religion: The Importance of Religion in Spinoza's Thought and Its Implications for State and Society'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. P.B. Cliteur and Prof. A.A.M. Kinneging.

In the South African context, certain iconic images have been a dominant source for public understandings of historical events. The emphasis given these images tends to overshadow the historical value of other more personal photographic sources – like studio or amateur photography. This project looks…

Concrete pillars without a roof, windows without glass, storeys without walls. It’s clearly evident that the South Cluster is being dismantled. Take a look at the photos!

On Saturday 11 May 2019, the BA South and Southeast Asian Studies programme held an Alumni Event for former students. All current students and staff were also invited. Several alumni were invited to talk about their study and career during two panel sessions. An inspiring afternoon!

This article introduces the special issue on ‘Digital Activism’ by exploring some of the trends in social media activism and scholarship thereof. The authors ask to what extent this literature helps us understand Asian forms of online activism, which forms of activism have relatively done well, and…

Erik de Maaker wrote a monograph on how Garo, an indigenous community of the extended eastern Himalayas, experience and negotiate such disparities. The book shows how relatedness is reinterpreted as religious practices change, and communally held land ends up being privately controlled. Erik de Maaker…

In this book, Lydie Cabane examines the history of disaster management in South Africa.

This book published by Oxford University Press discusses religion and trade in world history.

The archaeological heritage of South America is facing increasing threats due to the expansion of agricultural activities, infrastructure expansion, illegal wood harvesting, and the current fire emergency plaguing the Amazon and other biomes of the continent.

The project focuses on communication processes regarding spirituality and existential issues in the medical health care in the Netherlands

The research profile ‘Asian Modernities and Traditions’ (AMT) aims to raise the strength and visibility of research, teaching and dissemination on Asian studies at Leiden University.

Herta Mohr, Maliebaan 30, 2311CC, Leiden

Mathilde Mechling defended her thesis on 28 january 2020.

Jochem van den Boogert defended his thesis on 18 November 2015

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…

Very little is known about the relationship between religion and the digital future. Bart Barendregt, Professor by special appointment Anthropology of Digital Diversity, is about to change that. He receives a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from the NWO for his research project 'One between the Zeros,…

Filipino anthropologists Andrea Malaya M. Ragragio and Myfel D. Paluga look back at the groundbreaking Netflix show Trese and what it missed about the stories of Indigenous peoples. They published the article 'What Netflix Got Wrong About Indigenous Storytelling' in the digital Anthropology magazine…

This project investigates the causes of the major archaeological change in the period of 40.000-20.000 BC in South Africa.

Bart Barendregt receives a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from the NWO for his research project 'One between the Zeros, an Anthropology of Artificial Intelligence in Islam'.

Mattias Brand defended his thesis on 10 April 2019

The article investigates the origins of Indo-European languages in Asia by 65 coupling ancient genomics to archaeology and linguistics.

Much has been said regarding the global flows of information that are characteristic of modernity; it has been frequently stressed that these conduits are so deeply embedded that local or national environments may be imagined as having a global span. Thus, while we are now well aware that the imagination…

Edegar da Conceição Savio defended his thesis on 28 January 2016

The MA in Politics, Society and Economy of Asia takes a social science approach to the study of one or more countries or regions in modern or contemporary Asia.

This 4-year research project focuses on vernacular and unacknowledged heritages of the highlands of Bhutan. It seeks to make a major contribution to the preservation of these heritages, to create a cultural resource for current and future generations.

Essays in Honour of Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse

Subproject of

‘Displacement’ has emerged as a keyword in studies of South Asia, across research in historical, anthropological, geographical, and cultural studies. In June 2018 Leiden University will host a two day conference - Modalities of Displacement - that will discuss 'displacement' in its multiple vectors…

On 20 September 2023 Mark van de Water successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Home to a rapidly rising superpower and the two largest economies in the world after the US, a global East Asia is seen and felt everywhere. This dynamic text views the global square from the perspective of the world’s most important rising global center.

Xiao Ma defended her thesis on 26 September 2018

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…

Leiden Asia Centres

‘Three books published within a year – that happens only once in a lifetime!’ This was the reaction of Katarzyna Cwiertka, Professor of Modern Japan Studies at Leiden University, on the publication of Cuisine, Colonialism and Cold War, one of her three new books. The book sketches the colonisation of…

Uniting an international consortium of scholars, the Skandapurāṇa Project comprises a team of researchers working in fields across the Humanities. We are creating a critical edition of a foundational work of purāṇic literature and, in doing so, tracing the dynamics of a textual tradition to better understand…

Researchers using remote sensing technologies have characterized pre-Columbian regularly-shaped earthworks in forests in Central America and the Amazon. In tropical forested mountains in South America, two challenges arise when identifying archaeological sites through remote sensing. Firstly, sites…