Dutch artist and visionary David Humbert de Superville (1770-1849) was the founder and first director of the Print Room at Leiden University. An exhibition and symposium are now being organised in his honour. What makes him so remarkable?

Lecture, Research Seminar

Lecture, LIAS Lunch Talk Series

Congress

This year, LUCIS adapted the programme of its popular annual Middle Eastern Culture Market into an evening version, featuring a lecture, book discussion, and music.

Foreign investments in the Dutch East Indies during the colonial period could have been of more benefit to the Indonesian economy. Foreign investments in the Dutch East Indies during the colonial period could have been of more benefit to the Indonesian economy. But the complicated relationship between…

On Thursday 14 October, Dr Martine van Ittersum gave the first lecture of the Van Vollenhoven Institute’s year-long workshop 'Reconsidering the Socio-Legal Gaze'. Attended by over 40 people, her lecture, entitled 'Van Vollenhoven and Grotius: Soulmates in Empire' examined Grotius’ influence on Cornelis…

Education, Research

Lecture

Hanan Hammad and Eftychia Mylona give a master class focusing on conceptual and methodological challenges in writing histories of marginalized social groups.

PhD candidate Jonathan Ouellet is a guest on the latest episode of the Wetenschappelijke Wezens podcast. As a researcher specializing in the numismatics of the Middle East, Central Asia, and China, Jonathan discusses currency and trade networks during the Early Islamic Period of said area. Hence, listen…

Lecture, Leiden University Nationalism Network

Lecture

Conference, Symposium

Alumnus Rennie Roos lives and works in Indonesia. What took him there, what does he do there and what inspires him?

In the book 'Slave in a Palanquin: Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' Nira Wickramasinghe, professor of Modern South Asian Studies, uncovers the traces of slavery in the history and memory of the Indian Ocean world. She was interviewed about the book in the New Books in South East Asian…

Lecture, Material Culture Talk

Exhibition

It is crucial that Leiden University reflects on its colonial history. These were the words of Cleveringa Professor Gert Oostindie in his inaugural lecture on 24 November. ‘As a university community, we must dare to hold up a mirror to ourselves and, where possible and necessary, also take concrete…

In academia, the mention of Wikipedia might be met with suspicion. However, for Tsolin Nalbantian, university lecturer Modern Middle Eastern Studies, the encyclopedia is an opportunity to broaden the skills of her students and to increase public knowledge. She received a Teaching Comenius Fellowship…

Several of the most important manuscript collections in the Leiden University Libraries (UBL) Special Collections, comprising 443 extremely rare and often unique volumes, have been made available in Open Access via Digital Collections. The available manuscript collections include the private collections…

Looking to share your academic results or insights with a global audience? Leiden University is a ‘contributing member’ of the international journalism platform The Conversation. In 2024, this resulted in 51 articles, which together were read by more than 667,000 people.

Social

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030, an effort to reduce the country’s reliance on oil, may open up new opportunities for Korea. Spearheading the way is Hallyu — the Korean wave, led by K-pop and dramas as a soft power to open new business opportunities in the Middle East, especially…

Prior to arriving to Leiden, Dr. Abazon completed her Ph.D. at Yale University's Department of Comparative Literature, where she also taught courses ranging from Introduction to Zionism to World Cinema.

A new book about Villa Isola in Indonesia reveals some of the shared history of the Netherlands and Indonesia. The book was presented on Thursday to Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board, and Mr Mayerfas, ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia in the Netherlands.

The government, the people and the country were in desperate straits. This about sums up the state of affairs in the Disaster Year of 1672. It was 350 years ago, and to mark the occasion PhD candidate Roosje Peeters collaborated on a series of letters to and from a key political figure Johan de Witt,…

Leiden scholars study clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia. But what exactly does the cuneiform script say?

Economic Anthropologist Erik Bähre talks on the Dutch News Radio Channel BNR about the effects of the Russia-Ukraine grain agreement for African countries.

Lecture

This year, eleven exchange projects from Leiden University received an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility education grant. The total award of almost €510.000 enables 98 students and staff members to go on exchange.

More focus on diversity in Antiquity, workshops for students with disabilities, and a card game to share stories about diversity: these and other projects will receive funding from the JEDI Fund in 2023.

Lecture

While the United States continues to carry out drone strikes, and China conducts large-scale cyber and information operations, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers live in trenches, and NATO sends tanks to the Donbas front to force a breakthrough. Has war changed dramatically in recent decades as a result…

Sarah Cramsey was appointed professor by special appointment of Central European Studies at the Institute of History on 14 September. 'I am keen to incorporate different scholarly approaches into my work and raise the profile of Central European Studies in Leiden.'

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…

Lecture, Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series

Henrike Vellinga recently joined the Institute for History as a PhD candidate, as part of Carolien Stolte's VIDI project 'Peace Palms. International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization, 1918-1970'. The project runs alongside Carolien Stolte's ERC project 'Reconciling Peace: International…

The Epic of Gilgamesh was a lifelong inspiration to artist Harry van Kruiningen. This tale from Mesopotamia about the adventures of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk, and his friend Enkidu is one of the oldest surviving epics in world literature. Despite its almost 4,000 year age, it still captures…

The latest book by political scientist Matthew Longo came out this spring: 'The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain'. In addition to its many favourable reviews, the book received the prestigious Orwell Prize this summer, which highlights exceptional books on politics.

Language can be a time machine: we can learn from ancient texts how our ancestors interacted with the world around them. But can language also teach us something about people whose language has been lost? PhD candidate Anthony Jakob investigated whether the languages of prehistoric populations left…

How do you make niche subjects interesting and accessible? Benjamin Suchard, historical linguist and researcher, seems to have created the perfect recipe, which consists of his various projects alongside his regular research, including a Twitter account and a major international film.

From 1967 to 1982, the United Nations undertook several peacekeeping operations in the Middle East. In his thesis from the Institute for History, Diego Salama examines how these operations were connected and their impact on the region.

Research on Asian plants is his life's work. Now a crown is added to that: a plant from the coffee family bearing his name. Paul Kessler is LUF professor of botanical gardens and botany of South East Asia and Scientific Director of the Hortus botanicus. 'Completely unexpectedly, you get to see the results…

Professor of Contemporary History Wim van den Doel has won the 2024 Boerhaave Biography Prize. Van den Doel receives the prize for his book 'Snouck: Het volkomen geleerdenleven van Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje'.

Before coming to Leiden, Dr. Stökl was Reader in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament at Kings College London.

It is with great sadness that Leiden University has learned of the death of Professor Cees Fasseur (11 December 1938–13 March 2016)

The volume, Heritage Destruction, Human Rights and International Law, co-edited by Grotius Centre, Associate Professor Joe Powderly, and Dr Amy Strecker (Associate Professor, UCD), has been published by Brill/Nijhoff.

On Wednesday 16 June 2021, Karim Khan was sworn in at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Experts say this is no easy time to join the ICC.