Leidens's Classics and History rank 6th and 15th place in the QS World University Rankings by Subject. Every year, QS ranks universities all over the world on academic reputation and research impact, grouped by subject. Linguistics (23), Languages (39) and Religious Studies (40) also do well in the…

Neanderthals and modern humans in Belgium, a bone story

This study employs a comparative perspective to identify generic and specific qualities of petitions and petitioning. It charts the chronological development of petitioning practices over centuries. The interdisciplinary approaches provide range of conceptual and methodological expertise for reade…

The Secret Life of Art Works. Exploring the Boundaries between Art and Life is the first collection of essays to present case studies from the visual arts, architecture, sculpture and numismatics, and to engage critically with theoretical perspectives from art history, psychology, aesthetics and ant…

Nadine Akkerman recently appeared as a guest on a BBC podcast and the History Extra podcast to discuss her book Spycraft. In these interviews, she delved into the fascinating world of espionage, sharing insights from her research and highlighting key themes from her work.

Carmen Gonsalves has been the Dutch ambassador to Chile since this autumn. She studied history in Leiden. How useful has her degree been and what’s it like to be an ambassador? ‘Diplomacy is fascinating.’ We spoke to her just before the presidential elections.

For every period, it is a challenge to unearth the details of political trafficking; yet the effort needs to include all relevant persons, groups, and institutions – not only those wielding formal responsibilities. We hope to reinvigorate this effort by inviting specialists to present their research…

Historian Dario Fazzi is the new professor by special appointment at the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS), a strategic partner of the Faculty of Humanities. He starts on 1 September and will combine his new position with his current teaching duties at the Institute for History.

Library of Arabic Literature: Critical Edition and Translation of Ibn Qutaybah’s Faḍl al-ʿArab.

The Chinese History chair has a long, rich history within Leiden University. Since 1 February, this position has been held by Ying Zhang. ‘Leiden University brings together a legendary range of Asian knowledge.’

How do first-hand narratives of war of commanders in the front line relate to the official narrative of the Eighty Years’ War?

Our Institute’s research focuses on ‘global vulnerabilities and social resilience’. Specifically, we highlight three interconnected themes: diversity, sustainability, and digitalisation.

Elsemieke Daalder has won the prestigious ‘Premio della Corte costituzionale italiana’, part of the ‘Premio Boulvert’ awards, for her dissertation ‘De rechtspraakverzamelingen van Julius Paulus’, for which she was awarded her doctorate cum laude on 23 October 2018 in Leiden.

The University of Lausanne is hiring 2 PhD's in the domain of art history and French literature. Projects have a specific focus on North West Europe. Candidates should apply before May 1st, 2024.

Lise Stork, PhD candidate at LIACS, was interviewed by Mare about how to smartly digitise the collections of natural history museums.

The historical archaeology of the Port of Sandy Point and its anchorage, St. Kitts, West Indies

The rise and fall of the cesspit in an urban context

On the occasion of the appearance of the monograph "Varieties of the Self.Peter Abelard and the Mental Architecture of the Paraclete" written by Babette Hellemans and published at Brill in 2023, a workshop will be organized concerning rules of observance as ‘texts of life’ in ascetic communities. The…

MINESCAPES invites PhD students from various disciplines to apply for participation in their 2024 summer school, taking place from May 31 to June 10, 2024. The Summer School will bring together students and scholars from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences to study mining landscapes…

Five research projects of the Institute for History have been selected for the Research Traineeship Programme 2016-2017. The programme was initiated by The Faculty of Humanities to offer motivated students the opportunity to develop themselves in academic research. In December the research trainees,…

A new special issue on translation and the cultural Cold War sheds light on the understudied and yet important role of translation in cultural transfer.

Religion, Philosophy, and the Pre-modern World

The project seeks to come to an understanding of the archaeology of the desert and the ways in which its inhabitants engaged with their constraint, marginal environments through time. It compares and interprets site distribution and community organisation over a long time scale and across several different…

The Phantom of the Ego is the first comparative study that shows how the modernist account of the unconscious anticipates contemporary discoveries about the importance of mimesis in the formation of subjectivity.

When we think of unethical medical experiments, we tend to think first of Nazi Germany. What is less well known is that experiments were also carried out in colonised areas without the explicit consent of the test subject. University lecturer Fenneke Sysling has received a European grant to research…

The ESSHC is coming to Leiden (Wednesday 18 - Saturday 21 March 2020)! The European Social Science History Conference is one of the largest gatherings of historians in Europe. The next conference will be held in Leiden in 2020. We are very happy that Leiden has been chosen to host this conference.…

Lecture, Book Launch

Different groups can have different memories of the same historical event. This can lead to conflict but does not have to. How is this, and how can countries and people reconcile with the past?

Update : March 2020 Director: Professor Dr Harco Willems (KU Leuven), co-director Dr Marleen De Meyer (KU Leuven & NVIC)

Minims are letters that are made up of short, vertical pen strokes, such as 'm', 'i', 'n' and 'u'. In Gothic script, there is often little distinction between letters composed of minims. Assistant professor of medieval literature Krista Murchison has written an article in History Today on the hidden…

Expert in Classics Renske Janssen has been awarded a Rubicon grant. She will use the grant to conduct research at the University of Edinburgh into how Roman law was perceived by society at the time.

Leiden alumnus Makoto Yoshida from Japan studied Dutch history and politics from 1996 to 1997. Now he is back in Leiden with his wife who is currently a student at the Faculty of Humanities. Some things still surprise him. 'Everyone at university uses first names, which was - and still is - unacceptable…

On February 2nd the book Beelden zonder weerga appears, written by professor in science history Dirk van Delft and biochemist Ton van Helvoort. They describe the rich history of electron microscopy, which comes to a conclusion in the final chapter with the current state-of-the-art ESCHER microscope…

On 19 July Erik-Jan Zürcher, professor of Turkish languages and cultures, made a TV appearance in Nieuwsuur to talk about the actions Erdogan took after the failed coup.

The hinterland of important centres like Petra (Southern Jordan) can provide essential information that contribute to the understanding of their rise, expansion and decline.

Lecture, Online

This dissertation examines how Benedictine monks at the Abbey of Fécamp designed, produced, and read books over the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Lecture, Special Topics in Dialectology (2023)

More than fifty researchers are working together to describe the colonisation of the Americas from the Amerindian perspective. In November they will be meeting for the first time, in Leiden. How is Corinne Hofman, Leiden Professor of Archaeology managing the international megaproject Nexus 1492?

The bottom-up development of post-Roman northwestern Europe

Migration is not only reflected in DNA, but also in language. By tracing changes in language, we learn more about the lifestyle of the people that speak it. University lecturer Tijmen Pronk (40) conducts linguistic research into (pre)historical migration.