Ornately decorated head pieces and jewellery, images of imposing mosques and photos of local people. The 'Splendours of the Silk Roads' exhibition depicts life and different cultures along this important trade route.

Music venue Paradiso, the Keizersgracht Church and the Artis Zoo’s aquarium: these buildings all owe their design to architects Gerlof Bartholomeus Salm and Abraham Salm. Remco van der Kuijp researched the place of father and son in architectural history. PhD defence on 25 March.

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Ward Hoskens started ten years ago as an intern at one of Leiden's most iconic buildings: the Pieterskerk. Now he is doing his PhD on the question of how the function of this 'church that is no longer a church' changed over recent centuries.

Would you like to do collection-oriented research, but do not have sufficient resources? Every year, the Museums, Collections and Society (MCS) research group makes several research scholarships available for this purpose. Researchers Elizabeth den Hartog and Marika Keblusek previously received an MCS…

Lecture, Austrian Studies Fund Lunch Talk

Master's students Eden Dijkstra and Rosemary Snelth are the first winners of the H.S. Versnel Prize for best master's or research master's thesis in the field of ancient religion. According to the jury, their theses were so original, well-written and of such high quality that both deserved first pla…

On Tuesday, December 9 2025, Prof. Koen Ottenheyn delivered the last Austria Centre lunch talk of 2025. Prof. Ottenheyn serves as a professor of architectural history at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, and is a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and the Academic Curatorium which advises…

This interview features Drs. Peter Bisschop (Leiden University) and Yuko Yokochi (Kyoto University) and their work on the monumental Skandapurāṇa project.

Sacrificing yourself for the greater good: in China, martyrdom and hero worship have been strongly encouraged by the Communist Party for the past decade or so. University lecturer Vincent Chang tells us more about this far-reaching development.

North Korea may seem like an isolated country but it has strong ties with African regimes. This alliance, which trades in arms despite international sanctions, is increasingly operating out of the liberal world order’s sight, PhD candidate Tycho van der Hoog warns.

Yesterday marked the start of the National Accessibility Week. How accessible is Leiden University for people with a disability? We asked Lucia Langerak, disabled herself and working at the Honours Academy, about her experiences: ‘Significant improvements are being made.’

During the ‘Hour of Remembrance’ on 4 May, the University community remembers its students and staff who were killed in the Second World War. It also looks at freedom and oppression today. Three questions for Sara Polak, chair of the Hour of Remembrance committee.

Leiden scholars succeeded in making Arabic accessible to Western academic communities as early as the sixteenth century. But how did they approach this problem?

American anthropologist Rosemary Joyce will be awarded an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on its Dies Natalis on 8 February. Joyce has delivered important new insights into the ancient Mayan cultures of Central America.

Future users of the Aleida Nijland building were recently the first to have the opportunity to admire the design plan for the new building. During a user meeting, architectural firm De Zwarte Hond presented the design, and future users of the building were able to share their wishes and ideas for further…

University lecturer Steven Lauritano has been awarded a Comenius Teaching Fellow grant. Lauritano will use the grant of 50,000 euros to improve hybrid education in classes featuring particular objects.

In September 2023, Geert Ham started working at the Institute for History as a PhD candidate within the ERC-funded project 'Anchoring Innovation'. Below he introduces himself.

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

On Tuesday 19 March, Chris Suijker (Director of Real Estate) handed over the key of the Herta Mohr Building to Saskia Goedhard (Executive Director of the Faculty of Humanities), officially transferring the management of this building to the Faculty of Humanities.

The war in Ukraine is leading not only to human suffering. Ukraine's cultural heritage is also experiencing the consequences of the war: museums are being bombed and 'Russification' in the occupied territories means children no longer learn Ukrainian. Researcher Evelien Campfens was commissioned by…

On January 28 and 29, 2021 the conference ‘Imperial Artefacts: History, Law and the Looting of Cultural Property’ took place online. This first of its kind event at Leiden University was an interdisciplinary online conference and brought together (post-)colonial historians, legal historians, curators,…

The symposium will be held on 11 June 2025 from 10.00-17.00 and is organized as a starting point for the publication of an edited volume – a selection of symposium attendants will be invited to submit book chapters.

The Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR) and the Beheerstichting Theologische Fondsen hand out two biennial thesis prizes, one for the best bachelor thesis and one for the best master thesis. Each of the prizes comes with a cash prize of €500. The prize money comes from the Fund…

From scanners in lecture halls to systems for working from home: the discussion about new technology is being held on various fronts. That is why the University wants to make more use of its in-house experts. At the Technology and Trust symposium at Leiden University on 2 February, researchers from…

On Thursday, the 19th of March 2026, students and staff had the chance to partake in the second full-day workshop organized by the Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Religions (L*CeSAR). This edition was centered on the role of the environment in relation to religion in antiquity.

From 1967 to 1982, the United Nations undertook several peacekeeping operations in the Middle East. In his thesis from the Institute for History, Diego Salama examines how these operations were connected and their impact on the region.

Medievalism is the area of academic study that investigates the reception and reconstruction of the medieval past since the Middle Ages came to an end.

The Chinese History chair has a long, rich history within Leiden University. Since 1 February, this position has been held by Ying Zhang. ‘Leiden University brings together a legendary range of Asian knowledge.’

It will be a summer filled with conferences at the Faculty of Humanities in Leiden. In the coming months, there will be something for everyone at the university, especially in the field of languages and cultures of Africa and the Middle East.

We always need to find a new way to tell the story of 3 October, believes Ariadne Schmidt. The professor by special appointment of History of Urban Culture will be working with students to involve more people in the history of that day. ‘I’m too much of a historian to say: we can just let it be a “fun…

Ten Leiden museums and heritage institutions have curated the online exhibition ‘Carel’s Universe’. They selected objects from their collections that symbolise retiring Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker and the research in Leiden. With direct references, playful associations and the odd nod and wink.