Thirteen Centuries of Creed, Conflict and Coexistence

LUCIS is an interfaculty knowledge centre offering a multidisciplinary and comparative view on Islam and Muslim societies.

Around the sixth and seventh centuries, South and Southeast Asia saw a great religious change: Saivism largely took over from Vaisnavism. We’re going to look at the way in which Saivism, the religion of the god Siva, presented itself with respect to Vaisnavism. In particular we’ll investigate the role…

The Supplementa series of BABESCH is designed as a platform for thematic publications, in juxtaposition to the annual and varied mix of contributions offered by the journal itself. The thematic publications will include proceedings of colloquia, collections of particular studies by one or more authors,…

What forms does Muslim religiosity take in daily life? What is the relation between representations of Islam and Muslims by scholars and the views that exist in the ‘real world’?

Through a comparative analysis of participation in outdoor recreation in Europe, this project seeks to investigate how social inequalities are embodied.

Bordering Up: Regulating Mobility Through Passes, Walls and Guards

LIAS has a School of Asian Studies (SAS), a School of Middle-Eastern Studies (SMES) and a School of Religious Studies (LUCSoR). These designations, and the fields within them, remain foundational to our work. At the same time, the academic community benefits from the presence of cross-regional networks…

LUCIS funded several research programmes to boost interfaculty and interdisciplinary cooperation and to widen the involvement of LUCIS members.

Markus Davidsen, assistant professor of Religious Studies, is the winner of the 2021 Impact Prize. He is receiving the prize of 1,000 euros for the material he has developed for religious education in secondary schools.

Southeast Asia is a term to denote a collection of at present eleven nation-states with an enormous diversity in languages, cultures and religions. Muslims can both take a majority and a minority position.

Ruling Overseas: Connected Practices of Governance of Law

The Secular Outlook describes what moral and political secularism means. It paints the image of a world view in which state and religion are kept well separated.

In Belgium, officially recognised religions receive financial support from the state. Partly as a result, there is no clearly implemented secularism (separation of church and state) though this is considered to be a guiding notion in modern constitutional theories. PhD candidate Alain Vannieuwenburg…

Photographs of sacred rituals and ceremonies in Asia by Bangkok-based photographer and author Hans Kemp can be seen in the front hall of the Leiden Town Hall from 27 June to 19 August 2019. Here a sneak preview.

Can a robot perform a religious ritual just like a monk? And what exactly is a religious ritual? Robots and religion seem to be two different subjects, but according to university lecturer Elpine de Boer, both can make us think about what it means to be human and what we consider to be of value. Together…

This study documents and translates the Saa (Zapotec) cultural heritage of the Bene’ Ya’a/En’ne I’ya peoples, the Zapotec inhabitants of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca.

On 30 November 2023, Florian Theissen successfully defended his PhD thesis, 'Sincerely Believing in Freedom'.

Knowledge of Muslim societies is essential to function in a globalised world and to fully understand our own Dutch society. Leiden researchers explore the languages, cultures, religions, legal systems and history of Muslim societies and in this way contribute to a centuries-old tradition.

This initiative is intended to support generative research collaborations between and among scholars located in different geographical regions who wish to pursue focused, joint projects in any area of the study of religion.

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.

It is integral to many cluster members’ research to use Medieval and Early Modern Arts as a lens for studying the medieval and early modern periods at large:

This Conference volume unites a wide range of scholars working in the fields of history, archaeology, religion, art, and philology in an effort to explore new perspec-tives and methods in the study of primary sources from premodern South and Southeast Asia.

Recently, studies have shown the similarities and differences in sources of meaning between religionists, ‘nones’ and atheists (see several studies of Schnell and others). The present study that will be conducted in three European countries tries to clarify the relationship between meaning giving and…

Until 2019, LUCIS organised an annual conference to highlight state-of-the-art research on a central theme within the academic study of Islam and society. Researchers from around the globe convened in Leiden to share and discuss their work.

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.

Regulating Relations: Controlling Sex and Marriage

Managing Diversity: Supervising Functions in Managing Colonial Workplaces

Resilient Diversity: the Governance of Racial and Religious Plurality in the Dutch Empire, 1600-1800

The Faculty of Humanities has 8 institutes:

Serie workshops waarin mensen werkzaam op het terrein van Midden-Oosten- en islamstudies vertellen over hun ervaringen in de praktijk.

Lecture, UMW Research Seminar

Lecture

Conference

PhD defence

Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) and the Leiden University Institute for History (LUIH) are looking for a PhD in the History and Culture of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity.

Reworking Culture: Relatedness, Rites, and Resources in Garo Hills, North-East India provides intimate insights into the lives of hill farmers and the challenges they face in day-to-day life. Focusing on the ongoing reinterpretation of traditions, or customs, the book critiques the all too often taken-for-granted…

Participation in research programmes

Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology is a social science. Anthropologists investigate the ways in which people give meaning to different aspects of their life and the way they interact with each other.