As one of the most influential ideas in modern European history, democracy has fundamentally reshaped not only the landscape of governance, but also social and political thought throughout the world.

The Register of Early Modernists aims to facilitate collaboration between early modern researchers at Leiden University.

Find out how to apply for Modern European Philosophy at Leiden University by following our step-by step guide.

Find out how to apply for Modern Languages at Leiden University by following our step-by step guide.

Find out how to apply for Global Conflict in the Modern Era at Leiden University by following our step-by step guide.

Thanks to its early civilisation and continuous mix of influences, the Muslim world has a rich and varied culture. The study of material culture, books, stories, films and increasingly television series teaches us about the structure of modern-day Muslim societies.

Leiden University Library and related museum holdings in Leiden contain a body of materials showing the unique role of Dutch-Japanese trade relations as a node in the history of global flows of knowledge, materials and culture during the early modern period.

Confucianism has been a major force in the cultural history of China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam for thousands of years, affecting the art, literature, science and politics of all these countries.

LUCAS is home to a multidisciplinary academic community that facilitates deep analyses of, and appreciation for, the power and dynamics of cultural products (texts, objects, practices) in our past and present. Through high-quality research, education, and valorisation, our Institute contributes to a…

Professor Ann Laura Stoler from The New School for Social Research in New York will be the Spring 2016 Global Asia Scholar. She will visit Leiden University from May 17-19, 2016.

Paolo Sartori is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Iranian Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. In Leiden he will deliver one guest lecture on Twilight of the Persianate: The Vernacularization of Central Asia (18th - early 20th Centuries) on 12 April and a masterclass on How can we…

Louis Sicking's Maritime Conflict Management in Atlantic Europe was awarded an 'Internationalisation in the Humanities' grant from NWO. What can we learn from how maritime conflicts were managed in the past?

German Language and Linguistics at Leiden University offers in-depth knowledge of German linguistic theory and practice.

'The World Upside Down. The Geographical Revolution in Humanist Commentaries on Pliny's Natural History and Mela's De situ orbis (140-1700)', in: Enenkel, K.A.E. & Nellen, H. (Eds.), Neo-Latin Commentaries and the Management of Knowledge in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (1400-1700).Humanistica…

Microbiome composition of the spermosphere and the rhizosphere of wild and modern bean accessions grown in an agricultural and a native soil from Colombia was characterized by metagenomics and cultivation-dependent approaches.

How do we experience sensual wonder and enchantment and to what extent can (early) modern imagination-techniques be implemented to create an artwork and performance, which offer a sensory and novel experience.

An exploration across thirteen essays by critics, translators and creative writers on the modern-day afterlives of Old English, delving into how it has been transplanted and recreated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

This research project, that started in September 2008, aims to explore how personal and public memories of the Dutch Revolt in the seventeenth century evolved and interacted to create new political and cultural identities for the societies that eventually were to become the kingdoms of the Netherlands…

English Language and Linguistics at Leiden University focuses on English language usage and linguistics around the world, including in countries where English is spoken as a second language or as part of a mixed language.

Scientific research on Colonialism and Slavery is done from different research programmes and different disciplines.

The annual Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) summer school offers outstanding bachelor students the opportunity to discover the research frontiers of modern physics. The programme includes seminars by renowned physicists on variety of topics, visits to research laboratories, and a range of social a…

On 29 June 2017, Carl Mair defended his PhD dissertation “Taking Technological Infrastructure Seriously”. The supervisors are Professor A. Schmidt and Professor G.J. Zwenne.

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 covers the story of Greece and its central role in our understanding of European civilization, from the Palaeolithic era (400,000 BP) to the early modern period (1950 AD).

In a modernist interpretation of migration controls, nation states play a major role. This book challenges this interpretation by showing that comprehensive migration checks and permanent border controls appeared much earlier, in early modern dynastic states and empires, and predated nation states by…

This book was published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Pera Museum in Istanbul. It contains seven articles on the global panoramic visual history from the early modern to modern times and Istanbul's place within this history.

The Central Asia Initiative in Leiden was launched by the Leiden research area Asia Modernities and Traditions (AMT) in February 2015.

Intermediality, Media Practices and Media Literacy is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

The specialisation in Modern Languages explores the structure, acquisition, history and use of five languages.

In the spring semester, NIMAR offers university and HBO students a 30 EC program where students can choose between an intensive Arabic program focusing on Modern Standard Arabic and Moroccan Arabic or a research-focused program in which you conduct ethnographic research.

Asian Studies at Leiden University is unparalleled in the Netherlands and combines the very best of Asia-related research in North-West Europe.

Overview of the Asia Programmes offered at Leiden University.

During the one-year master’s programme in Colonial and Global History you will learn about the importance of a comparative perspective for understanding transnational processes such as imperialism, colonialism, islamisation, modernisation and globalisation.

The terms ‘social’ , ‘collective’ or ‘public’ memory, are often contrasted with ‘private’, ‘individual’ or ‘personal’ memory. All these terms derive from a fairly new and interdisciplinary scholarly field that is often referred to as ‘memory studies’, and that according to some critics has developed…

In which way was literary celebrity constructed in the nineteenth century and what forms of fandom were there?

The researchers in the World Archaeology department of the Faculty of Archaeology concentrate on a range of different periods and regions: from humanity’s origins to the Middle Ages and the modern age, and from Asia to South America.

This study elucidates a critical facet of modern global Buddhism that has escaped the attention of the scholarly community by exploring the life, teachings and influence of Master Wuguang 悟光上師 (1918-2000).

The Human Origins group at Leiden University studies the archaeology of hunter-gatherers, from the earliest stone tools in East Africa, more than three million years old, to the origin of sedentary societies towards the end of the last ice age.

Researchers within the cluster are committed to the close and expert analysis of the materiality and content of the arts, literature and media they study. Different types of media bring various aspects of this core interest to the fore.