The book 'Darwin comes to town’ by Menno Schilthuizen has been awarded the best nature book in the Netherlands. The Leiden biologist received the Jan Wolkers Prize, awarded annually by Dutch TV and radio show 'Vroege Vogels'. In his book Schilthuizen describes evolution in one of the newest and most…

The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeoloy examines human remains and their burial context to address questions about the human past.

Human trafficking is a very topical social problem, which because of both its social and legal complexity, can only be studied in an interdisciplinary way. Combating human trafficking currently features high on national and international policy agendas.

Hermeneutics and the Humanities: Dialogues with Hans-Georg Gadamer / Hermeneutik und die Geisteswissenschaften: Im Dialog mit Hans-Georg Gadamer

Despite the field’s general agreement that pyrotechnology had a significant impact on the cultural evolution of humankind, our understanding of the origins and development of fire use and its role in humankind’s cultural evolution is very limited, blurred by strong disagreements over its chronology…

Melanie Fink, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Europa Institute of Leiden University, has published her book Frontex and Human Rights, Responsibility in 'Multi-Actor Situations' under the ECHR and EU Public Liability Law. This work is based on her doctoral dissertation, which she defended in December…

The currently available in vitro generated human skin equivalents resemble the human skin in many aspects. However, some essential barrier characteristics do not fully mimic the native barrier. Consequently, the human skin equivalents cannot be used for screening of drugs for skin penetration.

We are very happy to welcome you to spend a semester or year studying with us in the Faculty of Humanities. Here you will find information on your course timetables and more.

Leiden’s Faculty of Humanities is one of the broadest of its kind, offering courses in no fewer than 80 different languages and a very broad spectrum of academic disciplines.

The Faculty of Humanities

The Faculty of Humanities has 8 institutes:

This article discusses the degree of independence that is required for national human rights institutions to function successfully.

In the Humans of Humanities series, we will do a portrait of one of our researchers, staff members or students, every other week.

On 1 October 2019 the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial law hosted its 19th guest lecture starring Paul Sharma, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal and co-head of the European Financial Industry Regulatory Advisory Services practices.

Nederland ligt in de periferie van het verhaal van menswording. De evolutie van onze familie vindt lang exclusief in Afrika plaats. En, als Europa eenmaal bewoond wordt door mensachtigen, ligt het zwaartepunt ten zuiden van onze streken. Toch heeft ons land een aantal interessante vindplaatsen en vondsten…

As a Faculty of Humanities graduate you are part of a valuable network. Discover how you can remain in contact with other alumni and the University!

Environmental Humanities is one of the LUCAS research themes, bringing together members of the three LUCAS clusters.

At the Faculty of Humanities, we study languages, cultures, civilisations and their connection to each other. This knowledge is relevant to society and we gladly share it with the world around us.

Humanities Campus Project is the name of the redevelopment of the Witte Singel-Doelen Complex, the location of the Faculty of Humanities and associated knowledge partners and institutes. Over a period of ten years the complex will undergo a gradual metamorphosis, while classes continue to be taught.…

Learn new ways to analyse and study cultures and languages and provides insight into how digital methods and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing our personal lives and societies in the minor Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence.

The Human Origins group at Leiden University studies the archaeology of hunter-gatherers, from the earliest stone tools in East Africa, more than three million years old, to the origin of sedentary societies towards the end of the last ice age.

The HARVEST project explores the dietary choices that our hominin ancestors and relatives made, by recovering information on what they consumed, and how factors like environmental variation, intrinsic biology, and development of food processing technologies could have influenced their decisions.

Leiden University is building on its future in Leiden. As a means to achieving this aim, the University will be investing in excess of 100 million euros over the coming years in constructing the new accommodation for the Faculty of Humanities at Witte Singel and Doelensteeg. The University aims with…

This multidisciplinary minor provides students with knowledge on how and why humans became the way they are. The minor focuses on the evolution of the species Homo sapiens from other hominin lineages and animal ancestors, and on the various factors shaping this process. Not only is human evolution of…

This case study-based textbook in multivariate analysis for advanced students in the humanities emphasizes descriptive, exploratory analyses of various types of data sets from a wide range of sub-disciplines, promoting the use of multivariate analysis and illustrating its wide applicability. Fields…

There is considerable need for improved skin models to develop safe and efficient drugs for skin delivery as well as for cosmetic and chemical product testing on the skin.

To what extent are, can, and should, human trafficking and human smuggling be(ing) seen as interlinked phenomena? What are the consequences of seeing the phenomena as either distinct or interlinked for the way in which migrants crossing intra-Schengen borders are treated.

Study of human cultures using computational approaches

The Humanities Hub is a central location in Huizinga designed to strengthen the collaboration, connection and exchange of ideas in teaching and research on humanities in the digital world.

Study of human cultures using computational approaches

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

This volume is themed around the interdependent relationship between humans and the environment, an important topic in the work of Corrie Bakels

The LUMC iPSC Hotel offers the generation of research grade human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) from different tissue sources using state of the art reprogramming techniques.

What are interactive effects of human pressures on aquatic communities?

Are you about to move to Leiden or The Hague to study at one of Leiden University’s master programmes? It is not unusual to be a bit anxious. We want to help! The Humanities Buddy Programme has been set up to help you along the way.

Studies in Human Evolution is a series of the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University and The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig.

Welcome to the Graduate School of the Faculty of Humanities.

The master's programme in Philosophy of Humanities at Leiden University allows you to specialise in conceptual and methodological issues in the Humanities.

Leiden University is a unique international centre for the advanced study of languages, cultures, arts, and societies worldwide, in their historical contexts from prehistory to the present.

Recently, Ingrid Leijten’s book Core Socio-Economic Rights and the European Court of Human Rights was published with Cambridge University Press. The monograph was published in the series Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy (edited by Laurence Gormley and Jo Shaw) and deals with the protection…

Correctly interpreting the patterns of fire evidence in the archaeological record will illuminate the origin of human fire use.

Disciplinary History and Epistemology

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