Last year, LUCSoR welcomed two new Ph.D. students from Iran: Kiyan Foroutan from Ahvaz and Amir Ardalan Emami from Tehran. Kiyan works on a project on the role of the family in medieval and early modern Zoroastrianism in India and Iran (15th-18th centuries). Ardalan works on a much earlier period, the…

How did British scholars and scientists in the period of discipline formation envision, experience and resist scholarly temptations?

In what way is constructivist logic able to account for both the role of the judging agent in inference and the universal claims of logical validity?

How do ideas concerning the academic study of religion relate to the socio-cultural and political context in which they are developed?

Exchanges between different cultures and institutions of learning have taken place for centuries, but it was only in the twentieth century that such efforts evolved into formal programs that received focused attention from nation-states, empires and international organizations.

He’s sometimes called Your Safeness. Leiden law alumnus Pieter van Vollenhoven, husband of Princess Margriet and the driving force behind the Dutch Safety Board, returned to the University yesterday for the symposium ‘A critical safety watchdog?’ to mark his 80th birthday. With a host of dignitaries…

A symposium with a festive touch was organised at Leiden University on 20 March to mark the 50-year anniversary of the marriage of Princess Margriet and Pieter van Vollenhoven. The theme of the symposium was 'Catastrophes and the Law', a theme, the royal Princess and Prince were quick to reassure the…

The Persian Empire (539-330 BCE) was the first world empire in history. At its height, it united a territory stretching from present-day India to Libya - and it would take 2,000 years before significantly larger empires emerged in early modern Eurasia. This territorial sweep is both a source of fascination…

In this sub-project a selected number of narrative texts will be examined written in the Eurasian realm in the period 1300-1800, focusing on representations of kingship and royal authority.

This volume sees the publication of fifty-six early Old Babylonian letters from ca. 1880 BCE. They were found by legendary Iraqi archaeologist Taha Baqir in 1941 at the site of Tell ed-Dēr, ancient Sippar-Amnānum, in central Iraq.

Writing under Wartime Conditions is a study into North and South Korean literature written during the Korean War.

Indonesian translation of the book Recollecting Resonances from authors Bart Barendregt and Els Bogaerts.

The aim of this Research Traineeship will be to analyze the underexplored reception of ancient religions in popular culture, taking Dutch spiritual magazines as a case study. There are five such magazines: Paravisie (1986- ), Paraview (1997- ), Happinez (2003- ), Bres (1965- ), and Prana/Mantra (1975-…

Dr Nadine Akkerman, lecturer in Early Modern Literature and postdoctoral researcher in Leiden, has written a new book to accompany the exhibition on Elizabeth Stuart and Amalia von Solms at the Historical Museum of The Hague. ‘They were like goddesses, constantly trying to upstage one another,’ says…

As of 1 February 2015, dr. David Napolitano is postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for History. He is particularly interested in the figure of the medieval city magistrate.

The arts and science: for years, they were seen as opposite extremes. One calls on emotion and the other on reason. The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) proves that nothing could be further from the truth. ACPA is where the knowledge and expertise of Leiden University and the University…

The main case study of the project is the cultural geography of Saqqara, the necropolis of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, and its development.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has awarded a grant of 750,000 euros to the 'Visualising the Unknown in 17th-century Science and Society' project. Researchers will reconstruct how seventeenth-century scientists recorded and shared their groundbreaking microscopic discoveries. We…

Cátia Antunes received the prestigious ERC Grant for her Research Project

In Harper’s Magazine, reviewer Dan Piepenbring discusses the latest book by professor Nadine Akkerman and Pete Langman. ‘Spycraft’ showcases how and why messages were ciphered in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England.

Investigating the intercultural connections that shaped practices of knowledge production in colonial Dutch Brazil.

This ethnographic exploration of anticipation published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropology Institute draws on fieldwork among people with dementia and their families in the Netherlands.

Context and contents of the Izcatqui manuscript in the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam

Stephen Moore defended his thesis on 26 May 2020.

How did the medieval manuscript develop as a physical object during the Twelfth Century Renaissance and what do these changes tell us about the intellectual culture of the period?

Investigating epistemic and ethical practices in medical experimentation on humans in the colonial period in Southeast Asia.

This project combines and reconsiders all the available evidence of the Scheurrak SO1, and use new archival databases and modern archaeological techniques to shed new light on the material culture of the Baltic grain trade and the Holland shipbuilding industry at the turn of the sixteenth century.

How was the future United Nations Organization promoted to global publics during WW II?

Students from ‘StudentinzetopSchool’ help schoolchildren and gain valuable teaching experience at the same time. In an online visit on 13 April, Queen Máxima spoke to pupils, students and teaching staff. She also spoke to participants from Leiden. ‘Teaching is wonderful, but it’s complex too.’

La naissance d’une thalassocratie considers the contribution of the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands to the rise of the Dutch Republic as a maritime power. In Braudelian fashion, its chapters follow three lines of research.

Bernini and Pallavicino, the artist and the Jesuit cardinal, are closely related figures at the papal courts of Urban VIII and Alexander VII, at which Bernini was the principal artist. The analysis of Pallavicino's writings offers a new perspective on Bernini's art and artistry and allow us to understand…

Estudio arqueológico de la primera ciudad española en la Tierra Firme de América: Santa María de la Antigua del Darién

This volume challenges the idea that the development of ‘democracy’ is a story of rise and progress at all. It is rather a story of continuous but never completely satisfying attempts of interpreting the rule of the people.

The historiography of the Bretton Woods conference of July 1944 is dominated by the personal clash between the principal negotiators, Harry Dexter White of the United States and John Maynard Keynes of Britain.

This subproject of 'From Homo Economicus to Political Animal' analyzes Greek economic thinking of the Hellenistic period.

This book explores the lasting legacy of the controversial project by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, funded by the CIA, to promote Western culture and liberal values in the battle of ideas with global Communism during the Cold War.

For many teachers, they are a lifesaver: the people at the Science Teacher Support Desk. When a teacher has technical problems, they come to the rescue immediately. Veerle Warnders is one of them and she tells us what is so great about her job.

This book explores the Indian tradition of liberalism through a critical intellectual biography of Valangaiman Sankaranarayana Srinivasa Sastri (1869–1946).

In Uprooting the Diaspora, Sarah Cramsey explores how the Jewish citizens rooted in interwar Poland and Czechoslovakia became the ideal citizenry for a post–World War II Jewish state in the Middle East. She asks, how did new interpretations of Jewish belonging emerge and gain support amongst Jewish…

From colonial times through to the present day, large numbers of Javanese have left their homes to settle in other parts of Indonesia or much further afield. Frequently this dispersion was forced, often with traumatic results.

This thesis studies the relationship of the town al-Fusṭāṭ, located at the southern end of the Nile delta in Egypt, and its hinterland in the period between the town’s foundation in A.D. 641 and the arrival of the Abbasids in 750.

Making extensive use of primary source materials this study contributes to existing scholarship in the field of eighteenth-century grammars and grammarians by providing an in-depth study of Ash’s Grammatical Institutes and its influence on other popular grammars for children.

This book explores chronologically, for the first time, the representation and redefinition of Indonesia’s regional cultures through recording media, from the introduction of the gramophone record through the current video compact disc (VCD) era, taking as case study the Minangkabau ethnic group.

Huda Abi-Fares defended her thesis on 10 January 2017.

This article assesses Russian rhetoric toward Ukraine from 2004 to 2019 by analyzing statements by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Turkic nomadic rulers established large empires in the Middle East and Asia between the 11th and 14th centuries. This project will explore the link between their political ideology and the production of art and literature, via the cultural heritage of five cities along the Silk Road: Kashgar, Samarkand,…

Dr Sri Margana succeeded Bambang Purwanto last September as professor in the Faculty of the Humanities. Margana is a specialist in the early modern history of Indonesia. The appointment will run for five years.

History and Religious Studies in Leiden rank # 17 and #32 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject. With this, History in Leiden ranks as the best in The Netherlands and Religious Studies ranks as second best.