From Crisis to Critique

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

Humans and songbirds learn their vocalizations early in life by exposure to the vocalizations of adult conspecifics. Often, better learning outcomes are achieved with live, social, tutors than with audio-only exposure to vocalizations.

This week, Prof. Luuk van Middelaar (Europa Institute) publishes Alarums & Excursions: improvising Politics on the Europen Stage – a revised update of his 2017 book on the decade of EU crises.

In The Golden Mean of Languages, Alisa van de Haar sheds new light on the debates regarding the form and status of the vernacular in the early modern Low Countries, where both Dutch and French were local tongues. The fascination with the history, grammar, spelling, and vocabulary of Dutch and French…

On the 26th of May Sudarmoko successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The Turn of the Soul: Representations of Religious Conversion in Early Modern Art and Literature

How did Anglo-Saxons reflect on the experience of growing old? Was it really a golden age for the elderly, as has been suggested?

On 25 November 2020, Sara Arendse defended her thesis 'De uiterlijke verschijningsvorm in het strafrecht'. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. C.P.M. Cleiren and prof. J.M. ten Voorde.

Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece pursues a new approach to ancient Greek narrative beyond the taxonomies of structuralist narratologies.

Trust in public institutions in the Tata Steel case and beyond

Central to this research is the Urban Future-project, which consists of a large archive of artworks made from 2002 until now.

Jinhua Wu defended his thesis on 5 January 2021

If you want to follow a full academic programme, the next step after obtaining your bachelor’s is a master’s degree (MA) at a Dutch or international university. And there may be no better place for your further master’s study than Leiden University!

The interdisciplinary minor American Studies offers a survey of U.S. history, literature and culture from the establishment of the first colonies on the North American continent in the 15th century to the present.

Did you know that after succesful completion of the minor American Studies, you can apply for the master’s programme North American Studies? Find out more below.

The master in Media Studies is a one-year programme with four specialisations. Each specialisation explores connections between the various media and examines both present-day and historical material.

The Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society (VVI) is part of the Leiden Law School.

Surreal Geographies recovers a forgotten archive of Holocaust representation. Examining art, literature, and film produced from the immediate postwar period up to the present moment, Kathryn L. Brackney investigates changing portrayals of Jewish victims and survivors.

This project suggests a reconceptualisation of pre- and non-capitalist imperial monetary policy, arguing that the existing literature about imperial financial flows has unnecessarily privileged ideas of largesse and seemingly chaotic monetary distribution.

Conference

With the launch of the Albabtain Leiden University Centre for Arabic Culture, Leiden University and the AbdulAziz Saud Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation will join hands in promoting the understanding of Arabic culture. Have a look at the centre's plans for the years ahead.

Philosophy alumna Naomi Rebekka Boekwijt returns to Leiden University on 20 June to present her latest novel Stemmen (Voices) in Plexus. ‘I wanted to show that things could be done differently in psychiatric care.’

Marike van Aerde was at the brink of traveling to India for fieldwork when that country closed its borders, three weeks ago. Only a few days later, Leiden University followed suit in temporarily banning all fieldwork trips. With her research team scattered across different continents, she does her best…

The conquest by Rome brought profound changes to large parts of Europe. Unprecedented infrastructural works such as roads and harbours were created, towns sprang up, a ribbon of fortresses was laid out along the frontiers and there is a vast increase in material culture to inform us about the lives…

Platform for research about heritage languages spoken in the Netherlands

The Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS) is devoted to the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present time in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective.

Lecture

This project studies travel writing about the Dutch East Indies written between 1800 and the end of the Second World War. By analyzing both Dutch travel texts and Indigenous travel texts in Javanese and Malay, it presents a new, double-voiced perspective on (the historiography of) the Dutch colonial…

Nadine Akkerman recently appeared as a guest on a BBC podcast and the History Extra podcast to discuss her book Spycraft. In these interviews, she delved into the fascinating world of espionage, sharing insights from her research and highlighting key themes from her work.

You can find an overview of events organized by the Platform for Post-Colonial Readings below.

The English Language and Culture programme focuses on four areas, namely: philology, literature, linguistics and language acquisition. It also offers several specialisation options, ranging from renaissance literature to the use of metaphors.

The writings of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) are famously and purposely marked by fragmentariness. Paradoxically, a central aim of his work was to connect: all his life he sought to further the integration of scholarship in the humanities which, he believed, had too long suffered from the prevalence…

Audrey Heijns defended her thesis on 28 June 2016

Can we find and commercialise new treatments for chronic disease that affect our ageing population? And how can we customise this research and development programme to the small but highly-developed Netherlands research economy?

State fragility and conflict continue to be among the most enduring development challenges of the 21st century. The consequences of fragility and conflict on individuals, States and the international community are profound. At the individual level, an estimated 2 billion people or a quarter of the world's…

This dissertation provides an account of polar questions in Italian dialects from a typological, theoretical and empirical perspective.

This thesis presents the systematics, epidermal defense, and bioprospecting of wild orchids.