The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) aims to demonstrate its relevance to society by means of high-quality research, excellent education and various outreach activities. A few highlights:

Tracking early human behaviour through plant processing and -exploitation.

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…

The master’s programme in Colonial and Global History at Leiden University offers the most in-depth and comprehensive programme on the history of colonialism and globalisation currently available in Europe.

The recently opened ICPA (International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine) in The Hague will be responsible for coordinating the prosecution of Russia for the crime of aggression and possibly also the prosecution of Vladimir Putin. The ICPA aims to close the gaps…

Writing a story from the perspective of a Rwandan girl set in Africa is not an easy task. Alumna Cultural Anthropology Ruth Erica did it. Her debut novel The tree with the bitter leaves, in which an important supporting role is played by a student of cultural anthropology, appeared in August 2020.

Although Ebola is a virus with significant fatality rates, we still lack effective countermeasures to battle it. To change this, Alireza Mashaghi and his colleagues from the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research have successfully developed an organ-on-a-chip model that imitates the most dangerous…

Who authored the best theses in Leiden University's Political Science BSc programmes?

This new rotating professorship has been established to offer renowned academics the opportunity to teach and conduct research on international children's rights, while at the same time unlocking knowledge that has been acquired worldwide on children's rights.

What is my contribution to the world? This is what students and researchers at Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) ask themselves every day. They want to make a difference with their teaching and research in the four global challenges of ‘Peace and Justice,’ ‘Sustainability,’ ‘Diversity’ and ‘…

Subproject of the ERC project 'Challenging the Liberal World Order from Within: The Invisible History of the United Nations and the Global South'.

As a university we stand with both feet firmly in the world. Internationalisation is in Leiden’s DNA: from the very foundation of our university, the ideal of the free academy has always attracted researchers and students from across the whole world, and that will continue.

At our regular panel discussions we bring together scholars and other experts to discuss a current topic that captures the interest of the general public as well as academics.

Aesthetic formations and cultural repertoires give meaning to our reality in ways that are never neutral. Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its global interlocutors, this project brings together a team of scholars from Leiden University who bring in inter-disciplinary, inter-area…

Our library contains around 23,000 books, journals and historical documents under the care of a specialized librarian.

Description of The Regional Network on the Synergy between the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

This seminal volume covers the entire global history of urbanization since the rise of cities in Mesopotamia in the 6th millennium BC. Leiden historians Wim Blockmans, Leonard Blussé, Luuk de Ligt and Leo Lucassen contributed survey and thematic chapters.

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

Within the Global Ethnography specialisation, you can develop your own research project or make use of the research opportunities offered by our staff members listed below.

On March 16th, students from all over the world visited Leiden's Humanities Faculty to explore their options during the Master's Open Day. 'Leiden is a beautiful city, I feel like I could definitely study here.'

On the 31st August and 1st September 2023, CompaRe hosted a conference on “Smart and lean integration: finding regional solutions to global challenges” in Leiden University’s Campus The Hague.

How many species of butterfly are living in my garden? Do I recognise the Leiden dialect? What is the air quality like in my area? Do you have a question about something that affects you, your neighbours or the whole city of Leiden or The Hague? Residents and scientists have until 15 March 2019 to send…

To discuss this question, chairmen, members, and secretaries of the Research Integrity Committees (Commissies Wetenschappelijke Integriteit, CWI) of almost all Dutch universities gathered at the Leiden Observatory on 21 April. Also present were members of the committees from Leuven, Brussels, Ghent,…

For many deaf Ghanaians, Ghanaian Sign Language is their first language. But for more deaf signers to be able to fully participate in society, more sign language interpreters, deaf school teachers and family members need to be trained. What better way to facilitate this by means of a Ghanaian Sign Language…

At the Institute’s Council meeting of last December the Institute’s biannual prize for teaching was awarded. The award is named after Carla Musterd, a former, highly valued, member of staff, who was famous for her unflinching dedication to teaching standards and excellence.

Lecture

André Leliveld has won a grant of 100,000 euros within the Comenius Senior Fellow programme for the project ‘Learning globally, acting locally: co-creation of an international multidisciplinary online learning environment around Frugal Innovation'. André is academic coordinator of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus…

The idea of global governance and trust in international institutions are apparently getting into deep water. But is there a legitimacy crisis? Not according to international élites, as Jan Aart Scholte (Leiden University), Soetkin Verhaegen (Maastricht University) and Jonas Tallberg (Stockholm University)…

This book challenges the predominance of mainstream sociolinguistic theories by focusing on lesser known sociolinguistic systems.

At LUC we love to hear from you and share your story with fellow alumni of the Liberal Arts and Sciences programme. Check out the news articles in which our LUC Alumni tell you about their experiences!

Studying linguistics at the Leiden University Centre of Linguistics (LUCL) is a challenging but rewarding experience. There are few places in the world where such a broad range of languages are studied from so many different perspectives.

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…

Descriptive linguistics at LUCL covers documentation and descriptive analysis of lesser-studied languages as well as typological and historical comparison.

Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period. It inspired people to strive for social and political change, including sometimes by violent means, and prompted in return strong reactions against their religious activism.

This book collates thematic reflections on Cameroon music exalting Manu Dibango, one of the first-generation Cameroonian musicians, who bowed to Covid-19 on 24 March 2020.

An experimental approach to organic palaeolithic technology

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease which is spreaded through the air. It is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and it led 1.7 million people to death in 2016. This mortarlity rate is concentrated in developing countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, and South Africa. These numbers make…

The Near East, situated at the nexus of Europe, Africa, and Asia, was central to the development of ancient societies in all three continents.

What makes a good historian? When historians raise this question, as they have done for centuries, they often do so to highlight that certain personal attitudes or dispositions are indispensable or studying the past. Yet their vieuws on what virtues, skills or competencies historians need most differ…

Interested in studying Colonial and Global History at Leiden University? Find out what our alumni said about this master's programme.

This thesis attempts to describe the entire corpus of Latino-Punic inscriptions, found in Tripolitania.

Current status and future prospects

The LUC Fund is part of the Leiden University Foundation (LUF). The Fund is managed by LUC’s administrative staff and overseen by a Spending Committee consisting of staff and alumni. Together they are responsible for the allocation of available resources, identifying funding opportunities, and developing…

This edited book presents case-studies and reflections on the role of languages and their analytic study in development practices across four regions: Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific.

The remains of Dutch East India Company forts are scattered throughout littoral Asia and Africa. But how important were the specific characteristics of European bastion-trace fortifications to early modern European expansion?

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of China's global resurgence and its effects on U.S. dominance.

This book questions the accepted origins of the field of International Relations (IR). Commonly understood to have emerged from the horrors of WW1 with the goal of bringing about world peace, the authors argue that on the contrary, IR came from a somewhat less noble tradition – that of the Round Tab…

Part of ‘Moralising Misfortune: A Comparative Anthropology of Commercial Insurance’, an ERC Consolidator project of Erik Bähre.