When is (or becomes) an out-of-body experience a R/S experience? (How) do people make sense of their experiences and is this related to mental health? Which motives do people have to (not) communicate their out-of-body experiences with regular and/or alternative caregivers? And what does it tell us…

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

How can the importance of the image in late medieval spirituality be understood in the context of the love mysticism inspired by the imagery of the Song of Songs?

The project focuses on communication processes regarding spirituality and existential issues in the medical health care in the Netherlands

Markus Davidsen defended his thesis on 16 October 2014

How is tradition constructed and belief made plausible in fiction-based religion?

Very generally speaking, this study aims at questioning and re-defining the mind-body epistemic problem within contemporary dance and art culture.

On May 30 and 31, a workshop will take place at the Dutch Art Historical Institute in Florence (NIKI). This workshop aims to further our understanding of how late medieval societies reconciled the partially contradictory ideals and expectations of Ecclesia and Iustitia at a collective and individual…

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

The chief aim of this study is to explore how classical Persian poetry and the Persian mysticism that is interwoven with the poetry have been used in the new politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially during the Iran-Iraq war.

This book explores the spiritual potential of faith, mysticism and transcendence in answer to the dangers of a mythologised state and the sacro-sanctification of (liberal) democracy and its rule of law.

Diede Farhosh-van Loon defended her thesis on 18 October 2016

This research is driven by the necessity to investigate the subject of performing instrumental works by Russian post-minimalist composers, and to explore possibilities of incorporating the spiritual ideas that informed those works in a concert practice.

Leiden archaeologists reveal the function of specific locations and buildings in order to protect indigenous heritage and lifestyle.

Spirited narratives of purpose and progress: church-society engagement alongside the (Company-) state

The heritage of Indigenous Peoples has long been researched and commented upon from the outside. This book adopts an innovative approach by engaging with the heritage of Indigenous Peoples from the ‘inside’.

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:

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…

Leiden University Centre for Intercultural Philosophy (LUCIP) is a centre housed in the Institute for Philosophy at Leiden University.

In 2007, a number of countries signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In collaboration with academics and activists in the field, Leiden researchers help to bring these agreements to life. They are mapping indigenous languages for educational purposes and defending the rights…

On January 17th, Frits Scholten (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam) will give a lecture titled: "Private Devotion & Immersive Play - The Use of 'Spiritual Toys' in the Late Middle Ages." The lecture is part of a Lorentz Center workshop on 'Religious Imagination in the Late Medieval Low Countries' and can also be…

The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages.

How was time understood during the colonial period by Tlaxcaltecan Naua communities? What is the relationship between time, spirituality and ritual in the present-day Naua community of Santa Catarina? What does this tell us about the strengths and values of Indigenous heritage and about the impact of…

Dialogue is a multi-dimensional communication mechanism whose processes can only be examined by means of an interdisciplinary approach.

El proyecto consta de la creación de un libro infantil con contenido de leyendas y cuentos andinos kichwas andinos, con realidad virtual aumentada, que fomente el aprendizaje y activación hacia la lengua kichwa de manera oral y escrita a los niños y niñas, mediante la interacción con padres y/o tutores. El…

On January 19, a masterclass on the theme of religious imagination will take place in the Lorentz Center in Leiden. This masterclass for MA and PhD students will focus on the religious imagination as a spiritual skill in the late medieval Low Countries, and the role of religious texts, images, and objects…

The Afro-Asianism of the early Cold War has long remained buried under the narrative of Bandung, homogenising and subverting the different visions of post-colonial worldmaking that co-existed alongside the Bandung project.

The present monograph, spanning a wide range of world and local literatures represents a high academic standard of both literary criticism and philological analysis. By demonstrating her expertise as an Africanist conversant with the Arabic canon, Raia reveals how the narrative of Joseph has been re-narrated…

Pintores, arquitectos y exposiciones internacionales –como las de Barcelona y Sevilla– tuvieron un papel crucial en la definición y visualización del carácter idiosincrático de cada región. Este libro pionero compara el proceso de construcción de identidades regionales en España con el de Francia y…

Markus Altena Davidsen’s PhD dissertation is the first major study of Tolkien Religion. In it, he analyses the religion that is based on the stories by acclaimed British fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien. He also discusses how fiction itself can become religious. Davidsen will defend his dissertation on…

On 27 May 2021, Hirad Abtahi defended his thesis 'Adjudicating Attacks Targeting Culture'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof.dr. C. Stahn.

Presents a novel philosophical account of psychedelic experiences, arguing that they can be induced by means other than psychedelics — such as meditation and yoga.

The Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference was founded in 2013 to publish a selection of the best papers presented at the biennial LUCAS Graduate Conference, an international and interdisciplinary humanities conference organized by the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). The…

The interdisciplinary network Faith in Democracy (FID) studies the religious, sometimes even totalitarian, assumptions behind the concept of

Tapping into a combination of court documents, urban statutes, material artefacts, health guides and treatises, Policing the Urban Environment in Premodern Europe offers a unique perspective on how premodern public authorities tried to create a clean, healthy environment.

In the last couple of decades an ‘animal turn’ has taken place in the social sciences. This has led to a call to study social issues by including non-human animal perspectives. This Collaborative Research Group thinks it's high time that African Studies joins the chorus of minds that try to contribute…

LUCSoR has chairs in Comparative Religion, Islam in the West, Christianity, and Judaism. Main areas of expertise include ancient Mesopotamian religions, the Enlightenment, Islam in the West, and new spiritual movements.

Context and contents of the Izcatqui manuscript in the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam

The Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference was founded in 2013 to publish a selection of the best papers presented at the biennial LUCAS Graduate Conference, an international and interdisciplinary humanities conference organized by the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). The…

Research on the global field of museums, heritage, commemoration, consumption and material culture

Metaphysics as Praxis: Rereading Dogen's Metaphysics Through Deleuzian Pragmatism and Pratimutpada

This dissertation together with the artworks documented in it is the result of an investigation across multiple media over a seven-year period of the cultural, artistic and spiritual legacy of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Lebensreform (Life Reform) movement.

This research cross-culturally examines the particular ways both the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925 – 1995) and the Japanese Zen Buddhist master Dōgen Kigen (1200 – 1253) considered ontology and one's conception of subjectivity as concretely interwoven with the existential question of life…

Systematic investigations into religious precepts, worldly rules of law and legal practices in the Muslim world show clearly how these societies deal with justice and injustice. Sharia, the Islamic ‘legal system’, plays an important role in this context.

In Indigenous Ancestors and Healing Landscapes Jana Pešoutová presents new interpretations of current healing practices in Cuba and the Dominican Republic juxtaposed against the European colonization of the Caribbean after 1492.