This project studies the development of civic engagement in the Netherlands from the mid-eighteenth until the mid-nineteenth centuries, through a focus on the local and regional levels.

Mining the unusually rich diaries, memoirs, and poems written by Netherlandish Catholics, Judith Pollmann explores how Catholic believers experienced religious and political turmoil in the generations between Erasmus and Rubens.

How does the religious identity of islamic primary schools in the Netherlands relate to the social demands?

Students in EFL (English as a foreign language) classes may regard their non-native teachers as successful models of intercultural communication and mediators between the cultures of English-speaking countries (ES cultures) and their own cultures. Teachers who are aware of such roles may introduce and…

What issues arise in the changing landscape of privacy, identity and data protection?

In my research I am concerned with the possibility of a politics of sexuality without reverting to identitarian conceptions of sexuality. In a reading of the work of the American author James Purdy, I propose to move towards a politicizing of the concept of narrative identity as developed by the French…

Teachers of English as a foreign language in China and the Netherlands have different notions of themselves as teachers in relation to cultures associated with the English language.

The research group Politics, Culture and National Identities 1789-present investigates a wide range of national political cultures in Europe and the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries. Instead of only analyzing high politics (the acts of governments and political parties), the research group focuses…

To what extent and how do identity processes influence health behavior?

Memory and Identity is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

A new paper written by Jolien van Breen, Soledad de Lemus, Russell Spears & Toon Kuppens in the British Journal of Social Pscychology examines the impact of the 2008-2012 financial crisis on national identity in Spain.

Honorata Mazepus and Jaroslaw Kantorowicz are assistant professors at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. Mazepus and Kantorowicz are one of the authors of this article in Nature on the role of national identity on public health support during global pandemics.

Mr. Sujadi defended his thesis on 29 June 2017

Ramesh Ganohariti will examine legal identity in three post-Soviet aspirant states and outline four common scenarios in this article.

Before the modern nation-state became a stable, widespread phenomenon throughout northern Europe, multilingualism-the use of multiple languages in one geographical area-was common throughout the region.

Research conducted in this group aims at furthering our understanding of how communities and individuals deal with social change, conflict and trauma through remembrance and commemoration as well as forgetting in the arts.

This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’. Its members study phenomena such as migration, immigration, citizenship, integration, ethnic parties, minority and caste-based politics, borders and migration,…

Aristocratic dynasties have long been regarded as fundamental to the development of early modern society and government. Yet recent work by political historians has increasingly questioned the dominant role of ruling families in state formation, underlining instead the continued importance and independence…

People in Asia increasingly feel the need for a strong identity. This is the consequence of developments such as globalisation and the realisation that Asian countries such as China and India are becoming new world powers. Professor Hilde De Weerdt studies how political ideas and national identity spread…

This research project focuses on the relation between identity marks and writing.

How and to what extent the historic house (re-)constructs identity through image-making in China.

In the master’s programme Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present at Leiden University you will be at the forefront of a new approach to understand how national politics and identities in Europe are conceived.

Between 1798 and 1813 successive regimes attempted to enforce a fundamental geographical and administrative redivision of the Netherlands. The provinces that had been sovereign states within the Republic of the United Netherlands for over two centuries were dissolved and replaced by ‘departments’, subordinate…

How do humans construct their self?

This study investigates and analyses didactical approaches in theory and practice of both scholars and expert teachers in Religious Education/Life World Orientation (for secondary level) in their role as Identity Agents in order to discover and develop didactical key components contributing to religious…

The artefacts that still remain from the traditional culture of the indigenous Yukon, Canada, are spread over dozens of museums throughout the world. Yukon Indian Ukjese van Kampen carried out research to bring this culture to light. This is the subject of his dissertation entitled ‘The history of Yukon…

The focus of the research lies in the approach of reducing, denying, or taking away essential elements of music making in order to let the musician become theatrical.

Islam exists in global history with its richly variegated cultural and social realities. When these specific cultural contexts are marginalized, Islam is reduced to an ahistorical religion without the ability to contribute to humanity. This limited understanding of Islam has been a contributing factor…

On the 16th of September, Bert van Pinxteren successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Bert on this achievement!

On 5 September, Elize de Mul defended the thesis 'Digital Döppelgangers: identity in the Culture of Imagination'. The doctoral research was supervised by Simone van der Hof and Esther Keymolen.

At the heart of this study is a thorough inquiry of categorisations of social identity used in the VOC’s record-keeping bureaucracy. How were service, occupational and caste groups classified and shaped by the VOC?

Article by Leiden University political scientist Daniel Thomas about shifting norms for membership in international organisations.

Are you thinking about studying Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

In this study I explore literary structures of identity-formation in the works of assimilated/acculturated Jewish writers: Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis” (“Die Verwandlung”, 1912) and David Vogel’s Hebrew novel Married Life. 1929).

Noah Millman defended his thesis on 26 May 2015

Does a shared idea of the ‘public servant’ exist in Europe? Sager, Overeem, and others explore.

Anna Scott is a Canadian pianist-researcher interested in using the early twentieth century recordings of the Brahms circle of pianists to question persistent gaps between the loci of knowledge, ethics, and act in both modern mainstream and historically-informed performances of Brahms’s late piano w…

Ruobin Han defended her thesis on 21 March 2017

European integration is under pressure. At the same time, the notion of a European administrative space is being explicitly voiced. But does a shared idea of the public servant exist in Europe?

This research hopes to contribute to social awareness of the consequences of colonialism for Indigenous Peoples, to the deconstruction of still existing colonial and discriminatory notions and to a better appreciation of Indigenous art and thought.

This doctoral project, entitled Sinophone as Method: Reimaging Chinese Cinema in the Global Era, aims to explore the intricacies of knowledges and practices with regard to notions of China, Chinese, and Chineseness.

Politics, Culture and National Identities investigates a wide range of national political cultures in Europe and the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The present project aims to provide valuable insights for the professional development of international teachers, and also for improving the quality of foreign language education.

In the research master Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present at Leiden University you will be at the forefront of a new approach to understand how politics and identities in Europe are conceived.

Shafa’Atussara Silahudin defended her theses on 18 May 2021.

This study, Calypso, The Trinidadian Experience, has sought to establish links between calypso music and the construction and maintenance of identities, and to locate the genre as a mechanism (or as part of a broader mechanism) that has exerted on-going social influence within Trinidadian society…

What holds people together and what makes them willing to fit within larger political structures? Our project examines this question in the practices of dynastic rulership in Eurasia ca. 1300-1800.