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Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University studies the everyday practices of individuals and groups around the world in relation to the complex global challenges of diversity, sustainability, and digitalisation.

Lecture, CMGI Brown Bag Seminar

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 14 November 2024 at 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm.

Lecture, Ancient History Research Seminar

This centre brings together the research of the members of the Institute of Philosophy and affiliated academics whose work focuses on the history of philosophy broadly conceived. Research interests range from ancient to near-contemporary philosophy in various regions of the world, and cover all subdisciplines…

Five lecturers from Leiden University have received a Comenius teaching award. With the grants they can carry out an innovation project.

Professor Peter Bisschop, lecturer in Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia, has been awarded a grant by the NWO Free Competition to fund his research into the rapid growth of Saivism in the sixth and seventh centuries in South and Southeast Asia. The research project, entitled ‘From Universe…

Uniting an international consortium of scholars, the Skandapurāṇa Project comprises a team of researchers working in fields across the Humanities. We are creating a critical edition of a foundational work of purāṇic literature and, in doing so, tracing the dynamics of a textual tradition to better understand…

Erik Zürcher (1928–2008) is still considered an authoritative source in research on Chinese Buddhism. A new collection of his publications serves as an occasion for an international conference on Buddhism in Leiden. Princess Beatrix, who knew him well, will be in attendance at the opening.

On Tuesday October 11th, ACPA’s PhD-candidate Frank Blokland will publicly defend his thesis “On the origin of patterning in movable Latin type: Renaissance standardisation, systematisation, and unitisation of textura and roman type”.

On Thursday 8 December at 15.00 hrs, Fred van Haasteren will defend his doctoral thesis ‘Fatsoenlijke flexibiliteit – De invloed van ILO-conventie 181 en de regelgeving omtrent uitzendarbeid’ (Decent flexibility - The influence of ILO Convention 181 and legislation on temporary agency work) at the…

The jubilee conference for the centenary of the Vereniging van Drentse Gemeenten (the association of municipalities in the province of Drenthe) took place on 23 September. The conference focussed on the collaboration between the municipalities, the province and the water boards in Drenthe past, present,…

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden Law School with University of Sarajevo in Bosnia Herzegovina.

Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies analyses the role of religion in past and present understandings of Asia.

Every semester, LUCIS invites a scholar to Leiden to provide a lecture series on a topic of their choice. With these lectures, we aim to present state-of-the-art research in Islamic studies to the Leiden academic community and beyond, and to offer students and junior researchers the opportunity to get…

Many Asian countries are in a process of democratisation. The expectation was that citizens would gradually gain more control over the functioning of their elites. Experts from Leiden have concluded that this process often fails to improve the quality of the administration. They researched the nature…

Leiden researchers study the extent to which Asian citizens can invoke the rights that they have on paper. This knowledge helps them advise the different levels of government and NGOs on how to improve the lot of poor citizens in particular.

What follows is a survey of existing programs and current projects for each of the participating universities.

A comparative study on the spatial origin and development of towns in the northern Netherlands, 700-1400.

Cosmopolis seeks to explore the transnational and cultural dimensions of intra-Eurasian encounters through Dutch sources.

How did the Dutch Empire compare with other imperial enterprises? And how was it experienced by the indigenous peoples who became part of this colonial power?

By analysing neglected (continental) spy centres and integrating these groups of female intelligencers into the traditional, male-orientated historical narratives, this project will proceed towards a gendered history of early modern espionage.

The emergence of the Köprülü household that imprinted its stamp on the latter half of the seventeenth century in the Ottoman Empire. What is the power struggle they carried out against Ottoman dynastic power?

Self-censorship violates principles of a free society but few people want to take the role of the martyr.

Exploring cultural production in Europe, Latin America and Africa, the institute’s research programme focuses on the continuous interconnectedness of the Arts and Society in both the textual culture of literature, learning and public debate and the visual culture of art, architecture, film, photography…

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

The research aims to understand how did Cuban and Dominican landscape encapsulate historical conceptual transformations about human –nature spiritual interaction after the Spanish conquest? More specifically, what are the present day cultural associations with Cuban and Dominican natural landscape?…

This project explores how the populations of the historically contiguous towns of Nusaybin, Turkey and Qamishle, Syria articulate citizenship in the everyday.

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…

Multiple identities of elites and ‘commoners’ viewed through the lens of crafting from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean

This thesis, conducted in the framework of ERC Starting grant project BABYLON (PI: Caroline Waerzeggers), presents an investigation into Babylonian society, focusing on the city of Borsippa during Neo-Babylonian and early Persian rule (c. 620-484 BCE).

Did the Jochids leave their mark on the Grand Duchy, taking into account that the Lithuanian state was one of the main successor states of the Great Horde in the 16thCentury?

What made the early Islamic empire so successful and have we missed the story by neglecting crucial evidence? The 7th-century Arab conquests changed the socio-political configurations in the Mediterranean and Eurasia forever. Yet we do not really know how the Arabs managed to gain dominance of this…

Research how ‘custom’, ‘traditions’ and ‘heritages’ take on new meanings in the uplands of South and (mainland) Southeast Asia.

This research cluster aims to analyse and interpret the formation and transmission of Graeco-Roman culture by exploring the relationships between cultural products (texts, objects, practices) and their societal and historical contexts.

Water, Urbanism, and Sustainability in Roman Ostia

This study relates the vicissitudes of the Amerindian peoples who lived or still inhabit the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, from the earliest occupants, ca. 8000 BC, until at present.

Due to its economic prosperity, its policy of (relative) religious tolerance, and its large numbers of migrants, the Dutch Republic has long had a reputation of being the prime example of ‘tolerance’, especially during the seventeenth century. Although the great variety of newcomers in the Dutch Republic…

This article investigates the causes and examines how differing public perceptions of the rule of law contribute to this trend.