Dutch Studies is a unique bachelor’s programme in which you will quickly acquire fluency in spoken and written Dutch at a high academic level, at the same time gaining deep understanding of the culture and history of the Netherlands.

To be eligible for German Literature and Culture at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for English Literature and Culture at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for Italian Literature and Culture at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for French Literature and Culture at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

In October, Sophie Starrenburg was elected as a member of the Coordinating Committee of the ESIL Interest Group on the International Law of Culture. She will work alongside Giovanni Carlo Bruno (Italian National Research Council), Andrzej Jakubowski (Polish Academy of Studies), and Lucas Lixinski (University…

We are pleased to invite abstracts for a conference on ‘Advancing Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights in a Polarised, Digitalised, and Unequal World’ to be held at Leiden University on 4 and 5 September 2025, in collaboration with Netherlands Network for Human Rights Researh (NNHRR).

Are there cross-cultural principles of law?

Leiden University 2016 thesis awards were awarded to Kaspar Pucek (History), Mariska Meijer (Bio Medical Sciences) and Paul Kozowyk (Archaeology).

Prof. dr. Marcel Cobussen will take part in a research network project in London.

Intensive 5-day programme on the world-famous Antwerp-based printing and publishing house founded by Christopher Plantin in 1555. International experts will discuss how it developed the production and distribution of religious books and related illustrations and prints in the following centuries.

Leiden University offers students a rich environment in which to reach their potential.

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

The Modern and Contemporary Cluster is the largest within LUCAS and home to more than 100 staff members and PhD candidates.

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…

The purpose of the initiative is to establish Central Asian Studies at Leiden University. Central Asia is a region with fluid borders stretching into present-day Afghanistan, Russia, China, Mongolia, Iran and the Caucasus; a premodern highway of global interaction and today increasingly important as…

To what extent can literary strategies deepen and enhance research in and through the visual and performing arts, as well as for research in academia?

This research cluster centres on regional, national, and global intersections and interactions between a variety of artistic expressions and society. It focuses not only on objects (artistic, literary, cinematic, and medial), but also on practices (aesthetic, political, and cultural).

On Thursday 28 March 2024 Said Reza Huseini successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Philosophy of law is concerned with the the foundations of law.

This research examines the social, political, and cultural forces that structure people’s responses towards accented speech, and further uses the accent as a focal point to theorize the interrelation between language and body.

Channi Li defended her thesis on 15 October 2019.

This initiative is intended to support generative research collaborations between and among scholars located in different geographical regions who wish to pursue focused, joint projects in any area of the study of religion.

The bi-annual interactive seminars of the Platform for Postcolonial Readings are all about sharing our enthusiasm about our field of research and our eagerness to learn more about its theoretical intricacies. Our seminars, although informal, adopt a well-defined format. Each meeting is organized around…

Leiden University is building on its future in Leiden. As a means to achieving this aim, the University will be investing in excess of 100 million euros over the coming years in constructing the new accommodation for the Faculty of Humanities at Witte Singel and Doelensteeg. The University aims with…

Your time at Leiden is about more than just studying. Some of your best experiences will stem from being a part of our lively and diverse student community, as well as from life in the beautiful city of Leiden.

This publication of the School of Advanced Study of the University of London is one of the outcomes of the Landscapes of Early Roman Colonization project and the Colonial Rural Networks project (NWO, Dr. T.D. Stek). The volume, edited by Tesse Stek and prof. Gert-Jan Burgers of the Free University Amsterdam,…

Early Modern Medievalisms: The Interplay between Scholarly Reflection and Artistic Production

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

How do religious narratives persuade their readers to believe their message? And how can it be that some readers even come to treat fantasy and science fiction as authoritative religious texts? These are the core questions treated in Markus Davidsen’s new book Narrative and Belief: The Religious Affordance…

Area studies is an approach to knowledge that starts from the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present, through the relevant source languages, with central regard for issues of positionality.

Building on its extensive holdings in Asian studies, including much material that can support the study of “unofficial” histories and cultures, Leiden University Libraries has established the Leiden Chinese Queer Collection (LCQC).

This project investigates properties of quantity expressions across languages from the perspective of how quantity is represented in the human brain.

This volume sheds light on the role played by progeny in maintaining dynasties in early modern royal courts as well as the horizontal and vertical interplay between the actors. It attempts to break through the narrative of older research that saw dynasties as a series of male rulers. Instead, these…

The past decade, against the backdrop of a fragmented political landscape, has witnessed the greatest changes to the Netherlands since the aftermath of the Second World War. The labour market, the housing market, the energy market, the bank system, the pension system, the healthcare system, to name…

This project investigates the globalization and cultural mediation of palliative care practices, policies and discourses.

What was the relationship between women and modern media in different parts of Asia in the 20th century? Under what historical and social conditions did women achieve prominence in popular music in Asia?

From ca. 1540 to 1600, thousands fled the war-stricken Southern Low Countries to the British Isles, Germany, and the Northern Low Countries. Research on this displacement crisis, central to the formation of the Netherlands and Belgium, reflects 21st-century debates on migration and language: language…