This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University’s Faculty of Science with the University of Pretoria.

The prehistory of communication metaphors

As Lila Abu Lughod pointed out in 1989, North Africa has been one of the geographical ‘zones of prestige’ for the development of canonical approaches and crucial theoretical debates regarding the comparative study of Islam.

In his dissertation Michiel Hooykaas outlines the results of six empirical research projects focused at biodiversity awareness in the Netherlands, specifically people’s knowledge about animals.

Sea-ing Africa explores how infrastructure in Ghana and Morocco shapes development, blending geopolitics, economics, and culture, impacting local and societal dynamics.

The Great Rift Valley in Africa is a real treasure trove for discovering early human fossils. The fossils found in this part of Africa have determined our view of human evolution. But was the Great Rift Valley really the place where evolution took place or just a place where fossils are well preserved…

The emergence of new players on the world market such as India, Brazil, China, Turkey and the Gulf States gives Africans more choice in who they work with and under which terms. At the same time, African multinationals are choosing to work with regional partners and are thus furnishing old political…

The authors in this volume explore how external innovations (products, technologies, services, institutions and processes) have been appropriated in African societies in order to be acceptable and relevant to local conditions, expectations and demands.

Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence, and Environment, vol.16. Edited by Noriyuki Shirai.

English The purpose of this research is to identify and examine the challenges faced by African States in the field of foreign investment with a view to contribute not only to the academic debate, but also to foster awareness and develop the capacities of these States with regard to the drafting, negotiation…

The role of religion in the identity construction of LGBTQIA+ folks

Using brain imaging to discover the area in the brain that recognizes emotion.

Women Writing Mexico (WWM) is a network of women and men concerned with the human rights crisis in Mexico and more specifically, with the impact of structural forms of poverty, everyday violence, and discrimination based on gender, race, social class, and ethnicity, that particularly have an impact…

This programme starts from the idea that cultural discourse is one of the main engines of intellectual history and the history of ideas.

In the specialisation in Modern Languages you will explore the structure, acquisition, history and use of one or more of these five languages in depth: Chinese, English, French, German and/or Italian.

This thesis describes the use of the evolutionary approach in the study of language change, aiming to provide a better insight in the mechanisms that play a role in language change and to validate this approach in the field of language change.

Languages of The Hague is a collection of columns on languages and language which were published between 2016 and 2018 in the weekly newspaper Den Haag Centraal.

This project, South American population history revisited: multidisciplinary perspectives on the Upper Amazon (SAPPHIRE), investigates population dynamics in western South America on the basis of traces in the geographical, genetic, archaeological, ethnological, and linguistic record.

This project investigates the causes of the major archaeological change in the period of 40.000-20.000 BC in South Africa.

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

VODAN Africa started as a platform to enable access to critical data needed from Africa to fight the novel COVID-19. The initiative was inspired by the experience from the Liberia Ebola Virus outbreak in 2014: early detection requires contact tracing. Inclusion of the most vulnerable is critical to…

The studies outlined in this volume explore how connectedness continues to change Africa and how Africa continues to shape the social life of connections.

In September, the Una Europa ELSEA project, Enhancing Scholarship in Eastern Africa, officially started. Now that the project has been running for a couple of months, it’s high time to check in and see how the project is going.

Drawing is one of the most unique human behaviours. Like language, drawing is a mode of communication and a cognitive tool that from an early age allows us to interact with others. Is the early development of drawing skill influenced by the social environment? If so, how?

Muhammad Adlin Sila examines the range of ways Bima Muslims constitute their Islamic identities and agencies through rituals and festivals. In response to their surroundings, what it means to be a Muslim is constantly being negotiated.

Do you want to do your minor in Morocco? Then choose the minor Culture and Society in Morocco! You'll about Moroccan culture, society and languages, and a solid training in ethnographic research methods.

How does contemporary art and culture represent nuclear contamination in post-nuclear landscapes?

The project

This dissertation provides an up to date description of the Indo European lexical stock of Armenian (ca. 500 entries) with systematic inclusion of unused data that are found in Armenian dialects.

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

Like any language, the natural sign languages (henceforth: SLs) of deaf communities differ from each other in their grammars and lexicons. A growing number of studies indicates that SLs make use of the gestures of hearing speakers to build linguistic structure. This implies that variation and similarities…

This abrupt climate change of 8200 years ago (the so-called 8.2k calBP climate event) has received wide attention among natural scientists, also because of today's rapid climate changes and their impact on our own society. The archaeological implications, however, have not been investigated so far.…

LiTechAe: Percussive stone tools related to stone masonry techniques seen through experimentation and use-wear analysis.

On the 13th of November, Hanna Fricke successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Hanna on this achievement.

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.

The production of history is a process of power. This is particularly relevant in Africa, where during both the colonial and the post-colonial era history has been written by hegemonic regimes. This historiography has in turn (re-)produced structures of domination, social exclusion and division.…

This monograph by Robert Ross provides a detailed narrative of the Kat River Settlement in the Eastern Cape of South Africa during the nineteenth century.