The motto of the Institute for History is: ‘Global questions, local sources.’ Its researchers use local sources to find answers to major historical questions. Without historical analysis, it is impossible to understand and explain the issues in society today. Leiden itself has a rich history, with big…

Politics is about the authorised allocation of values: who gets what, when and how much? This question is relevant at many different levels, in many different places and in very different ways.

In recent decades, the Netherlands’ struggle with multiculturalism has caused an upsurge in public interest in the relationship between state and religion. In this, the Dutch address a subject relevant not just to them, but to all of Europe.

Subproject of

Muslims have lived in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe for centuries. Their arrival in Western Europe, the two Americas and Australia is however relatively recent. Studying how Muslims relate to their Western environment (and vice versa) and the mutual influences of Western and Islamic philosophies…

By comparing the archaeological evidence at Sedgeford and other sites located on both English and Continental coastal zones, what evidence is there for a shared maritime culture between these North Sea communities? Also if evidence is found, can we reveal to some extent a separate coastal identity to…

This project explored the role of material culture, in casu painted plaster and its technologies, in expressing dynamic social identities and in forging complex interwoven human relationships in the context of the Middle to Late Bronze Age of the Aegean and East Mediterranean.

A look into the political history of collecting and the collections of Andean mummies in Western European museums from 1830-1930 through archaeology and paleoimaging.

The master’s programme in Museum Studies at Leiden University is uniquely positioned at the intersection of Art History and Museum Studies. Informed by leading interdisciplinary research, this degree provides you with a strong academic foundation for a variety of careers in museums, galleries and heritage…

The Master History (study load 60 EC) offers you the chance to determine a study based on your own particular interests and ambitions.

When you apply for admission, you’ll be asked to submit several documents.

One of LUCIR’s key objectives is to bring together scholars and students of International Relations. To this end, LUCIR regularly organises events such as conferences, roundtables, lectures and book launches.

An interdisciplinary collection of the best international scholarship on Muslim youth.

1: What is the relative importance of alfa and beta biodiversity in polar ecosystems, and how does intraspecific variation influence this? 2: How can we use remote sensing to determine functional biodiversity (within communities) in polar ecosystems? 3: Temporal and spatial scales of functional biodiversity:…

Advanced mass spectrometry of glycosphingolipids takes the central stage in this thesis. Investigations focus on characterization of glycosphingolipid metabolism in health and disease with emphasis to the detection and accurate quantitation of known and so far unknown glycosphingolipids and closely…

The insights leading to the present project firstly manifested themselves in 2008, when I worked with field recordings on the basis of relatively well-established notions in music composition studies, such as ‘musical material’ and écriture. With hindsight, I understand the outcomes of those first experiments…

Wim Klooster and Gert Oostindie present a fresh look at the Dutch Atlantic in the period following the imperial moment of the seventeenth century. This epoch (1680–1815), the authors argue, marked a distinct and significant era in which Dutch military power declined and Dutch colonies began to chart…

Studying change in the course of human history, in different places, through the lens of a diverse set of core themes; World History for International Studies offers readers a set of windows into different debates historians have been conducting.

Prince, Pen, and Sword offers a synoptic interpretation of rulers and elites in Eurasia from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. Four core chapters zoom in on the tensions and connections at court, on the nexus between rulers and religious authority, on the status, function, and self-perceptions…

This study addresses and explains the issue of negative descriptions of the Arab Other in modern Iranian thought.

On December 6th, Bob Schoemaker succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Bob on this great result.

This publication aims at the analysis of the performance of a corpus of Fongbe stories that I collected in three villages in the south of Benin in 1976 and 1977. The corpus consists of 37 stories (57.000 words). The stories aim at children’s education.

On 11 November 2021, Evelien Campfens defended the thesis 'Cross-border Claims to Cultural Objects'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. N.J. Schrijver and Prof. W.J. Veraart (VU Amsterdam).

This collection considers such issues as the cognitive, linguistic and emotional benefits of speaking two languages, the perceptions, attitudes and issues relating to identity in minority language areas, and the number of grammatical aspects amongst those who speak these minority languages.

In the Brill series Intersections a new volume has been published, entitled Ronsard and Du Bartas in Early Modern Europe.

Our bachelor’s degree programmes do not always align with the level of the master’s degree programmes. In order to tackle this, this team will examine how we can improve that alignment and how the graduation trajectory can play a role in this.

Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) at Leiden University aims to advance knowledge and practice on how we govern – and could govern – major world-scale changes in contemporary society. These global transformations include hegemonic and other geopolitical shifts, ecological changes,…

On 16 November 2022 ms. Eftychia Mylona successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

From Los Angeles to Tokyo, Urban Sociolinguistics is a sociolinguistic study of twelve urban settings around the world.

The first of the two volumes of this co-authored study has just been published by Metzler. The study explores the history of the concept ‘barbarism’ from the 18th century to the present and illuminates its foundational role in modern European and Western identity.

How do Central African refugees navigate through uncertainty in a new and hostile environment in the DR Congo?

On this page, you can find video's explaining the research of LUCAS members.

Despite the wealth of historical literature on the Second World War, the subject of religion and churches in occupied Europe has been undervalued.

In the light of the fragility of current liberal democracies, this dissertation aims to contribute to rethinking political order by reconstructing Hegel’s account in the Philosophy of Right.

This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a wide range of global case studies from a group of international specialists.

Promotor: Prof.dr. T. Hankemeier, Co-promotor: Dr. Theo Reijmers

This dissertation concerns the role of analogy in Kant’s “Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment”, especially the role of analogy for the formation of the concept of a natural end (Naturzweck). A ‘natural end’ is a ‘regulative concept’ of the reflective power of judgment, that is, a heuristic…

From the formative period of Islam to the contemporary world, Muslims have negotiated changing modalities of being Muslim.

This book is about the archaeology of indigenous peoples who thrived across the Caribbean, the Guianas, and the Lower Amazon basin just before the European invasion, and who also remained central to the early history of conquest and colonization.

This dissertation presents a legal geographical analysis of the heritage laws of the independent English-speaking islands of the Lesser Antilles.

Misinformation has emerged as a major societal concern. But why do citizens contribute to the dissemination of falsehoods online?

The external tissues of plants and animals are colonized by microbial communities termed microbiota. When organisms are exposed to environmental pollutants, these substances will therefore encounter microbiota at the exposure interface.

Politically speaking, the Frisian coastal area constitutes a special case in late medieval Europe since it was not subject to an overlord as it withstood feudalization in the 13th century. Its many sub regions, which were dominated by elites of small noblemen and freeholders, long time succeeded in…

This proposal aims at the construction of a comprehensive and authoritative scientific grammar for Dutch and Frisian in the form of a virtual language institute: het Taalportaal/the Language Portal.

This article studies the securitization of immigration in the United States of America (U.S.), through the analysis of the National Security Strategies (NSS) published between 2002 and 2017, using a two-layered analytical framework that combines securitization theory and agenda setting theory.

New article on popular culture influences on cybersecurity experts, available Open Access at Contemporary Security Policy, part of a special issue edited by dr. Myriam Dunn Cavelty.

The role of grave sets in Corded Ware and Bell Beaker funerary practices