The treasure houses of Leiden's University Library and Naturalis house wonderful historical collections with dried plants and botanical drawings. Tinde van Andel, extraordinary professor of History of botany and gardens, studies these collections.

Our ability to learn and control movements is essential for engaging in goal-directed behaviour. From buttoning your shirt and driving a car, to cooking dinner and brushing your teeth -- our actions in daily life rely on this ability.

Three Dutch research institutes - including the Leiden University’s KITLV - will conduct a follow-up study on the use of violence during the Dutch East Indies war of decolonisation (1945 – 1950). The government has designated 4.1 million Euros for this study.

With a recently published major research project and an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, the struggle for independence in Indonesia has been thrusted back into the spotlight. Leiden University is devoting attention to this topic as well. History students Sander van der Horst and Melle van Maanen joined…

In the last two decades, there have been heated public and scholarly debates in France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands on the violent end of empire. Nevertheless, the broader comparative investigations into colonial counterinsurgency tend to leave atrocities such as torture, execution, and…

Indirect Method, Critique, and Responsibility in Derrida, Hegel, and Heidegger. Explores why Derrida, Hegel, and Heidegger conceive of their thought as a “movement” rather than as a presentation of results or conclusions.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

"A Green Office (GO) is a platform for sustainability that is established and run by students with the support of the university or Applied Sciences school staff members. The primary goal of a GO is to ensure that the institution is becoming more sustainable in all its facets. This way, the sustainable…

This project compares and contrasts how and why several Turkish and Iranian women were compelled to participate in leftist guerilla movements in the 1960s and 1970s.

Does a moving hybrid zone leave a genomic footprint?

Southern Crossings: Indian activists and the Afro-Asian movement in the early Cold War era

On 18 April, Alexandre Tavadian defended the thesis 'The International Civil Service: Redefining Its Independence'. The doctoral research was supervised by Niels Blokker and Brian McGarry.

As convener for the EASA Network for the Anthropology of Race and Ethnicity, Jasmijn Rana organized a two-day symposium on Decolonizing European Anthropology. It brought together anthropologists from different European countries and non-European anthropologists working in and on Europe. Discussions…

Providing a valuable overview of regionalism throughout the entire continent, Regionalism in Modern Europe combines both geographical and thematic approaches to examine the origins and development of regional movements and identities in Europe from 1890 to the present.

On 17 August 1945, two days after the Japanese surrender that also brought an end to the Second World War in Asia, Indonesia declared its independence. The declaration was not recognized by the Netherlands, which resorted to force in its attempt to take control of the inevitable process of decolonization.…

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

The cry for decolonization has echoed throughout the museum world. Although perhaps most audibly heard in the case of ethnographic museums, many different types of museums have felt the need to engage in decolonial practices. Amidst those who have argued that an institution as deeply colonial as the…

Lecture, Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series

Everything you need to know about the minor Cultural Memory of War and Conflict.

Together with Knud Andresen, Bart van der Steen recently published a volume titled A European Youth Revolt. European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s.

Squatters and autonomous movements have been in the forefront of radical politics in Europe for nearly a half-century—from struggles against urban renewal and gentrification, to large-scale peace and environmental campaigns, to spearheading the antiausterity protests sweeping the continent.

Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period. It inspired people to strive for social and political change, including sometimes by violent means, and prompted in return strong reactions against their religious activism.

Book by Soledad Valdivia Rivera

Dario Fazzi

The research focuses on the understanding of symbolic stratigraphy of the land (through time) from the worldview of the People of the Rain (one of the Indigenous Peoples of southern Mexico), by studying contemporary cultural heritage in communities of the Mixtec Highlands.

This study focuses on increasing our understanding of the different pathways converts take during conversion to Islam.

The book reinterprets the role of the UN during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1964, presenting a multidimensional view of the organisation.

Political Islam is not new to the Middle East, but the appearance of ISIS has stretched the phenomenon to the extreme.

This article discusses the degree of independence that is required for national human rights institutions to function successfully.

Lecture, Histories Connected: Work-in-Progress

This dissertation defends the existence of a type of movement that has so far been considered not to be possible, namely, movement of a bare head to a specifier position over arbitrarily long distances.

On 18 September 2019, Huw Llewellyn defended his thesis 'An Institutional Perspective on the United Nations Criminal Tribunals: Governance, Independence and Impartiality'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. N.M. Blokker and Prof. L.J. van den Herik.

Humanities, Institute for History

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

How can we explain that Caribbean small states have the most stable two-party systems in the world, while Pacific small states have either very weak parties or no parties at all? Matthew Louis Bishop (University of Sheffield, UK), Jack Corbett (University of Southampton, UK) and Wouter Veenendaal (Leiden…

On 8 and 9 May 2018 the Workshop 'Challenging the Liberal World Order: The History of the Global South, Decolonization and the United Nations, 1955-2000' takes place at Leiden University.

Arabic and its Alternatives discusses the complicated relationships between language, religion and communal identities in the Middle East in the period following the First World War.

On a referendum held on May 21, 2006, 55.5% of voters in Montenegro voted in favor of their country’s independence. While in numerical terms the outcome shows overwhelming support for independent Montenegro, from a normative standpoint it was a narrow win. The normative framework that regulated rules…

What is the population size and social structure in time and space? What is the lion diet and food preference in time and space? What is the home range (MCP and Kernel) and movement in time and space? What are human – lion conflict and responses of lions to traditional herding in time and space? What…

Analysing the ways in which immigration structurally challenges and changes the organization and conceptual boundaries of national welfare states.

Atherosclerosis is the main underlying pathology of cardiovascular disease. Atherosclerosis is caused by an immune response which is directed against (modified) lipoproteins which accumulate in the vessel wall.

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.

The authors detail the transnationality of terrorist organisations, including fundraising, communications, alliance-forming, movement and target selection.

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.

In this minor, you will learn about the structure, working methods, and the analysis techniques used by intelligence and security agencies in the Western world.

Read here about the Leiden University Green Office, the Green Office movement and meet our team.

The starting point of Hermans' research is how both children's physical play and dance improvisation by professionals can be considered somatic practices where sense-making manifests itself in and between bodies, and through movement.