A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a two-volume project, authored by an international team of researchers, and offering the first-ever synthetic overview of the history of modern political thought in East Central Europe.

How did learned natural historical inquiries into the underwater world develop in eighteenth-century Europe?

For three millennia, carved sculptures were ubiquitous among ancient peoples in the Americas. Sculpted in stone, metal or wood, they developed into the well-known totem poles, colossal Olmec heads, royal Maya stelae and golden Inca statues.

When we think of the history of Dutch slavery, the areas that spring to mind are primarily the Antilles and Suriname. However, until the end of the eighteenth century there were also Dutch plantation colonies in neighbouring Guyana. Bram Hoonhout’s book ‘Borderless Empire’ describes this forgotten h…

As of 1 September Jan-Bart Gewald has been appointed as Professor of Southern African History in the Leiden Institute for History, in conjunction with the African Studies Centre, Leiden.

This is the first special issue of any organisation studies journal on food labour. Why is this a big deal? In this Introduction, we argue that the field should pay much more attention to the agri-food system and the work that goes into producing, distributing and consuming foodstuff. Food is such an…

A thorough description of the relationships among languages and their social environment in a given context, reflecting an ecological perspective, involves attention to the agency of local actors, and the policies, discourse, and ideologies that surround them.

This article describes the creation of an app that can help raise climate awareness and the action globally.

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

In light of climate change, it is crucial to determine whether plant species can adapt to future climates to avoid extinction. Plants adapt to various conditions by altering their functional traits, such as leaf size or photosynthetic rate. Some traits appear linked and vary together between species,…

D.P. Kok defended his thesis on 10 October 2017

Conference, Workshop

As of 1 September 2015, Michiel van Groesen is Professor of Maritime History at Leiden University. He succeeds Professor Henk den Heijer, who retired and gave his farewell lecture at 25 September. Den Heijer held the chair from 2010 to 2015. Before coming to Leiden Van Groesen worked as Associate Professor…

This project aims to revisit the relationship between the European cultural agenda and the local identity formation process, and social and religious transformations of Arab Christian communities in Palestine, when the British ruled via the Mandate. What was the role of culture in European policies…

The global agri-food system plays a critical role in food security and environmental issues.

Cosmopolis seeks to explore the transnational and cultural dimensions of intra-Eurasian encounters through Dutch sources.

How can we, together international experts, define future needs of R+D contributions for innovations in the field of risk-based management of chemicals and products in a global perspective using alternative testing strategies to minimize animal tests?

What is the role of local Caribbean individuals and communities in creating and perpetuating archaeological heritage? How has archaeological knowledge been integrated into education plans in different countries?

The outbreaks of AIDS and COVID-19 showed clearly how infectious viruses can influence people’s lives. Investigating the changes in the host metabolism may provide a paradigm shift to consider immune-metabolic interactions as therapeutic targets.

PhD defence

This special issue of Contemporary Levant critically explores, at a micro and macro level, the structural role and religious, cultural and political interactions of the Greek-Orthodox, Melkite and Syriac communities in late Ottoman and Mandate Syria and Palestine.

A Persistent Revolution: History, Nationalism, and Politics in Mexico since 1968

This research investigates everyday lives and workplace experiences of Iranian workers employed at textile industry, which was the second biggest industry after oil following the latter’s discovery in 1908.

On the28th of September Didi van Trijp successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

From 1550 onwards, a great interest in the natural world developed across Europe. This interest was not only stimulated by a growing knowledge of local flora and fauna, but also by the import of numerous exotic animal and plant species. Think, for instance, of researches and collectors like Gessner…

Which traits and/or trade-offs determine benefits of being deciduous or evergreen?

Roos van Oosten's research on medieval cesspits stood on the basis of an article on this subject in Quest Historie, a Dutch magazine about history.

Debates on political legitimacy in Dutch parliament in the 1880s, 1930s, and 1960s

To mark the official launch of the network, Maartje Janse and Peter Stamatov have organized a roundtable on Global Abolitionisms at the Annual Meeting of the Social Science Historical Association, November 2015 in Baltimore.

Together with two other authors, Jaroslaw Kantorowicz from ISGA investigates the susceptibility to believing in misinformation.

Take a walk through any city, and you are likely to come across a brightly coloured mural. Although these paintings often seem to serve solely as a backdrop for Instagram snapshots, art history professor Minna Valjakka says there are rich traditions and intricate histories that uncover more critical…

At the start of the 20th century there were fewer than 2 billion people. Now at over 7 billion, Earth’s population is on target to reach 8 billion by 2027. How has this dramatic increase in human population impacted Earth’s life support systems and natural resources? How should we understand the meaning…

In 'Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800', Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman, both of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and also affiliated with the History Institute of Leiden University, assemble an internationally acclaimed selection of authors,…

Together with students and local residents, historians Ariadne Schmidt and Alicia Schrikker researched the Leiden Transvaal neighbourhood. They will present their findings on Thursday 20 October, at a specially organised mini-festival in the neighbourhood.

Fenneke Sysling has recently launched a podcast: Het Gemeten Zelf (in Dutch). This five-part podcast series explores the history of self-tracking.

Beyond Empires explores the complexity of empire building from the point of view of self-organized networks, rather than from the point of view of the central state.

Which challenges exist for girls to effectuate their right to education and specifically getting access to education?

A new memorial stone on the facade of a student house in the Hugo de Grootstraat is a reminder of the dozens of Indonesian students who studied in Leiden before and during the Second World War. Some of them were active in the Resistance, which cost a number of them their lives.