The Faculty of Humanities consist of various academic fields. What is the common ground of all these different academics and students? They tell their story and why it matters in today’s world in 'We are Humanities'.

It is well-known that humans have significantly transformed ecosystems since their adoption of agriculture. However, in a deeper past, prehistoric hunter-gatherers may already have altered and modified their niche in ways that had major impacts on ecosystems.

This project focuses on the study of Neanderthal and early modern human behavior, primarily on the basis of stone tools, fauna and spatial patterns

Humanities are needed to make sense of social issues. Watch or listen to the stories of our experts who tell about their research and the impact on society. Get to know the world at Humanities!

In store is now the Research Handbook on Labour, Business and Human Rights Law edited by prof. Janice Bellace of the University of Pennsylvania and ass. prof. Beryl ter Haar of Leiden University. The book is publisehd in Edward Elgars series on Human Rights.

Mark Rutgers has been reappointed as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. After a first term where the focus was mainly internal, it’s time to look outwards.

On the 21st of June, Marieke Meelen succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Marieke on this great result.

On 7 September 2023 Didem Durak Akser successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

No less than seven scholars of the Faculty of Humanities were awarded a Veni grant. Veni grants are aimed at excellent researcher who recently obtained their doctorate. With a maximum grant of 250.000 euros, the laureates can develop their research ideas in the coming three years.

It is difficult to deny the value and importance of human rights, and yet their application in the context of climate change is increasingly contested. While some argue that it is difficult to establish the violation of human rights by climate change processes, others contend that human rights are anthropocentric,…

Jeroen Touwen has been appointed Vice-Dean and portfolio holder for bachelor’s programmes at the Faculty of Humanities with effect from 1 January 2020. Over the coming three years he will contribute to faculty policy and will steer the BA programmes from his position in the Faculty Board.

This third issue of Ex Novo gathers multidisciplinary contributions addressing mobility to understand patterns of change and continuity in past worlds; reconsider the movement of people, objects, and ideas alongside mobile epistemologies, such as intellectual, scholarly or educative traditions, rituals,…

S.S. Kolipaka’s thesis questions and investigates the survival prospects of reintroduced tigers and their offspring’s in the human dominated landscape of Panna tiger reserve in India.

On Friday 15 March, more than 750 students from the Netherlands and abroad visited the Master’s Open Day at the Faculty of Humanities to explore their options.

Online, hybrid, on campus... It was an unpredictable year, also for the Faculty of Humanities. Luckily, there were also non-corona related stories. Let's review 2021 with this list of the most-read news articles per month.

At LUCL, researchers aim to contribute to a comprehensive and informed perspective on the human past.

At LUCL, researchers aim to contribute to a comprehensive and informed perspective on the human past.

This project investigates the causes of the major archaeological change in the period of 40.000-20.000 BC in South Africa.

The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeology specialises in the macroscopic and microscopic analysis of human remains. We use cutting edge scientific approaches to address archaeological, historical, and anthropological research questions. In addition to paleopathological, histological, and 3D scanning…

On Wednesday 13 December, Melanie Fink defended her doctoral thesis ‘Frontex and Human Rights: Responsibility in “Multi-Actor Situations” under the ECHR and EU Public Liability Law’. The supervisors are Rick Lawson and Jorrit Rijpma from Leiden, as well as Manfred Nowak, and Stephan Wittich from the…

Opening

In a letter initiated by Wil Roebroeks, among others, serious concerns were raised about three research papers claiming evidence for one of the earliest human occupations of Europe.

So much has happened this year! 2023 was an eventful year in which several wars raged about which our experts could offer interpretation. It was also the year in which the government made apologies for the slavery past. Leiden humanities scholars were at the forefront of this with their research on…

If we want to build robots and computer systems that are not only smarter but also possess more social skills, we first need to find out more about how humans interpret information. Max van Duijn and Tessa Verhoef conduct research at the intersection of cognitive science and AI.

This study presents an agent-based simulation model exploring the patterns of presence and absence of Late Pleistocene Neanderthals in western Europe.

During the development of the Humanities Campus, as many 'green choices' as possibile are being made. This concerns the buildings as well as the surrounding area. Making the campus more sustainable is measured using the BREAAM.NL method.

For Humans of Psychology, students and staff will be put into the spotlight. At our institute prizes are won, exiting research is conducted, knowledge is harnessed, public meeting are organised and open science is highlighted. Take a look behind the scenes.

After two years of corona restrictions, it was ‘back to normal’ in 2022. Migration, elections, the history of slavery, Russia, and Ukraine were much-discussed topics. We compiled an overview of the most-read news items and other events of the past year.

On 21 Januari 2020, Patrick van Berlo defended his thesis 'Human Rights Elephants in an Era of Globalisation: Commodification, Crimmigration, and Human Rights in Confinement'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.P. van der Leun and Prof. M.A.H. van der Woude.

An experimental approach to organic palaeolithic technology

We are delighted to announce that the Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence minor will be offered in the 2024-2025 academic year with options of 15 EC or 30 EC packages.

Change requires community. Become a member of OSCL today!

The Faculty of Humanities will introduce a new assessment system in the next academic year. Marcel van Brunschot, the project leader for the digital assessment migration, is responsible for overseeing the transition to ANS.

Up to and including 2024 the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) will be working with the ‘PhDs in the Humanities’ funding instrument.

In this article, Tom Buitelaar proposes a systematic framework for analyzing the impact of individual characteristics of peacekeeping leaders on the behaviour of field-level personnel in UN peacekeeping operations.

Lecture

The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration provides a complete exploration of the prominent themes, events, and theoretical underpinnings of the movements of human populations from prehistory to the present day.

Over the last few years, human Rights have become subject of intense debates in historiography. Sam Moyn’s provocative book The Last Utopia (2010) made in particular clear how important it is to investigate precisely which meaning human rights have been given in a particular context. During the research…

Why did 'character', 'habit', and 'virtue' serve as key terms in late 19th and early 20th-century scholarly correspondences, biographies, and obituaries? Why did scholars around 1900 display so much interest in the working habits and character traits of what they called the 'scholarly self'?

Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) have managed to culture human heart muscle cells on a massive scale. This is an exceptional achievement because it is very difficult to replicate heart muscle cells outside the body. Using a special technique, the researchers have now created…

Which challenges occur as a tool of sustainable peace in the emerging regime of international criminal justice? Andrea Marrone's study offers an overview. He will defend his thesis on the 28th October 2015.

Advanced biotechnology allows us to select or alter the genetic makeup of human embryos. What limits do we impose on biotechnological intervention in nature and the human body? And whose call is that?