When researching languages in historical context, our goal is to understand the nature of linguistic variation in the past, and explain the extent to which the socio-cultural context of bygone times contributed to shaping linguistic variation and change.

The topic of Historical Linguistics and Philology at LUCL is language change in its broadest sense.

Travel back in time and learn about how the University has changed over the centuries.

The study of language in change.

Osteoarchaeology is a rich field for reconstructing past lives in that it can provide details on sex, age-at-death, stature, and pathology in conjunction with the cultural, social, and economic aspects of the person’s environment and burial conditions. While osteoarchaeological research is common in…

How did institutions and structures operate throughout the Muslim world from the earliest history of Islam into the early modern period?

This book addresses the definition of history and how people are influenced by it.

The Historical Acting Summer Academy, taught by historical actor Jed Wentz, gives students the chance to focus on the basic techniques of acting 1750-1850.

Memory, Imagination, and Mimetics in Contemporary Composition and Historical Performance

This thesis investigates the historical development of Japanese pitch accent.

What are the differences between the trade in Chinese herbal drugs in Europe between 1800 and now? Can we see the major metabolic changes after 200 yours?

What is the origin of educational ideas, e.g., the idea that intervention in infancy has long-lasting effects on development.

On December 5th, Matthias Pache succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Matthias on this great result.

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?

How and to what extent the historic house (re-)constructs identity through image-making in China.

The specialisation Global Order in Historical Perspective of the master’s in International Relations at Leiden University focuses on examining the historical processes and practices in the making of global order.

Are you thinking about studying Global Order in Historical Perspective? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Through extensive archaeological and documentary research, this study aims to provide a detailed analysis of the maritime cultural landscape of St. Eustatius over the past four centuries. It focuses on bridging the gap between the marine and terrestrial worlds and demonstrates that in order to truly…

In this project the already developed parcel based historical GIS (HISGIS) for the Dutch province of Friesland (Frisia) will be extended with a series of crucial datasets and map layers.

This book, edited by Joost Augusteijn, Constant Hijzen and Mark Leon de Vries, explores how democratic regimes have dealt with anti-democratic forces in society, from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century.

In this paper for Defence Strategic Communications, Alastair Reed and Jennifer Dowling seek to show the importance of historical narratives to propaganda by identifying and exploring five ways in which such narratives are exploited to reinforce the extremists' 'competitive system of meaning'.

How did the life course, with all its biological, social and cultural aspects, influence the lives, writings, and art of the inhabitants of early medieval England?

This paper explores whether multilateral surveillance and policy coordination under the ES was based on a path-changing or a path-dependent mechanism

Political scientist Nicolas Blarel (Leiden University) analyses the background and implications of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel.

On the 12th of November, Xander Vertegaal successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Xander on this achievement!

In his groundbreaking Imagined Communities, first published in 1983, Benedict Anderson argued that members of a community experience a

When did the Mali Empire disintegrate? What does the Sunjata heritage demonstrate about the political situation after 1600?

The current study focuses on Walpole’s social network and the language as contained in the letters of the network members.

This paper explores the historicity of state and Buddhist accounts of the monk Xuanzang 玄奘 (602-664), arguing that in the reconstruction of Xuanzang’s life and career we ought to utilize the former to help adjudicate the latter.

Historical geo data are gaining in importance. Provided that they are exactly geo referenced, they can be stored into a GIS and thus be combined with all kinds of maps (topographical, pedological, etc.) and datasets. This makes it possible to analyze historical developments in space and time on a detailed…

Johannes Boer's research intends to question the way explicit knowledge is applied in order to restore and perform music from the past with the intention to get as close as possible to its original meaning.

The map application includes information from old and new buildings archaeological projects. This makes it possible to investigate whether water facilities (wells, cisterns) and waste facilities (cesspits, sewers) were the privilege of Leiden’s wealthy elite in the late 16th and 17th centuries or whether…

The history of sign languages of deaf people is severely understudied. The historical linguistics of sign languages offers a fundamentally new perspective on the history of human languages. This project addresses the dearth of knowledge about historical sign language linguistics through a large-scale…

How do sign languages change and spread over time, and how is this influenced by their transmission history?

What makes a good historian? When historians raise this question, as they have done for centuries, they often do so to highlight that certain personal attitudes or dispositions are indispensable or studying the past. Yet their vieuws on what virtues, skills or competencies historians need most differ…

The project aims to explore Eurasian elk's role in the ecosystems of the past and its relationship with humans through analysis of its distribution and habitat in the Netherlands.

On the 22nd of February, Ami Okabe successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Ami on this achievement!

Since the adoption of agriculture people have cultivated fields. The project concerns all kinds of aspects related to raising crops.

How have human-environmental entanglements changed in the Gulf of San Miguel, Darien, Panama, from the first traces human practices through to the present?

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

How did disability become a global concern? In this project we will identify the contribution of international agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations and, just as importantly, disabled people themselves, to the IYDP and by showing the connections, interactions and entanglements between…

Chinese materia medica (CMM), comprising a diverse array of natural substances from plants, animals, and minerals, has been integral to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) throughout history. This study investigates the dynamic evolution of CMM, noting shifts in species for improved therapeutic effects…

In Migration and Membership Regimes editors Ulbe Bosma, Gijs Kessler and Leo Lucassen bring together ten essays in an analytical framework which looks beyond the Transatlantic migration of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a deliberate attempt to incorporate the experience of earlier periods…

This thesis studied in depth the energy use and CO2 emissions of the industrial sector in China.

Knowledge and culture subproject 3:

Has the industrial sector in China effectively been decarbonizing in recent years, across different regions and subsectors, and is it plausible that it will reduce its CO2 emissions in conformity with national and internationally pledged emission goals?

In this thesis, I targeted the orchid genus Lepanthes, one of the six genera of angiosperms that surpasses 1,000 species in the Neotropics, as a study model to investigate the evolutionary processes that promoted species diversifications.

As part of the NEXUS1492 project, this project will use ancient DNA techniques to shed new light on the demographic and health history of the Caribbean and the impact of European colonization on indigenous communities in the region.