When did the Mali Empire disintegrate? What does the Sunjata heritage demonstrate about the political situation after 1600?

‘The storm of the passions rages’: The works of Johannes Jelgerhuis as a source of stagecraft for the historically informed performer.

Adopting a largely chronological approach, Gerrits links the historiography of post-war Europe and the major theoretical approaches to nationalism with analysis of key historical developments and events.

Lecture, Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series

In what way is constructivist logic able to account for both the role of the judging agent in inference and the universal claims of logical validity?

This volume brings together experts on the history of the various revolutionary Sister Republics.

Ali Al Tuma, PhD candidate at the Leiden University Institute for History, has won the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity for his play ‘Yusuf Melik Espanya’ (Yusuf King of Spain), that tells the story of a young Moroccan whose brothers conspire to send him off, against his will, to the Spanish Civil…

Leiden has much to celebrate: first, 450 years of the Relief of Leiden and then 450 years of Leiden University. And that is no coincidence.

This is the first comprehensive commentary on a section of Xenophon's Anabasis in English for almost a century.

What makes a good historian? When historians raise this question, as they have done for centuries, they often do so to highlight that certain personal attitudes or dispositions are indispensable or studying the past. Yet their vieuws on what virtues, skills or competencies historians need most differ…

This comparative study investigates court politics in four kingdoms that succeeded the south Indian Vijayanagara empire during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries: Ikkeri, Tanjavur, Madurai, and Ramnad. Building on a unique combination of unexplored Indian texts and Dutch archival records, this research…

The International Medieval Meeting Lleida invites you to participate in this new edition. Deadline paper proposal: before 30th March 2025

Africa has a population of 1.5 billion. In 30 years’ time, this will be 2.5 billion. The continent’s impact on the global economy, but also on the environment, will therefore increase drastically. Researchers from the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL) have been aware for decades of the crucial role…

Stijn Bussels and Bram van Oostveldt have both contributed with an article in the book of Caroline van Eck: Idols to Museum Pieces. The Nature of Sculpture, its Historiography and Exhibition History, 1640-1880.

The recent rise in global migration movements and the simultaneous attempts to prevent migrations to the Global North in general and Europe in particular have produced numerous images and narratives that try to record and convey these events and their actors.

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.

On Wednesday 20 November 2024 Sara Mirahmadi successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

La naissance d’une thalassocratie considers the contribution of the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands to the rise of the Dutch Republic as a maritime power. In Braudelian fashion, its chapters follow three lines of research.

Paisaje, cerámicas e interacciones

This book explores the Indian tradition of liberalism through a critical intellectual biography of Valangaiman Sankaranarayana Srinivasa Sastri (1869–1946).

Who tried to influence the mission and position of the Dutch security services between 1912 and 1992, what effect did that have on the form and contents of the security services? How to account for transformations of the security services?

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

This book explores how physicists, astronomers, chemists, and historians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries employed ‘epistemic virtues’ such as accuracy, objectivity, and intellectual courage. In doing so, it takes the first step in providing an integrated history of the sciences…

The contributions in this volume seek to highlight the atypical features of the Hanse, and place them in a wider context of common roots, influences and parallel developments.

This study addresses and explains the issue of negative descriptions of the Arab Other in modern Iranian thought.

There’s more to life than studying hard; sometimes you just need to relax. It’s good to know then that The Hague’s offering in the area of sport and culture is surprisingly extensive.

The year 2019 is the 444th anniversary of the University’s ‘birth’ and the 350th anniversary of painter, draughtsman and engraver Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669). Reason therefore to celebrate both 444 years of Leiden University and Rembrandt Year. But what was the connection between Rembrandt, the most…

Pui Lun Chan defended his thesis on 12 September 2017

This new volume, published 19 November 2020, - within the series 'Intersections' -, explores the concept of magnificence as a social construction in seventeenth-century Europe. Although this period is often described as the ‘Age of Magnificence’, thus far no attempts have been made to investigate how…

The KLM Urban Trail Series is a hugely popular series of running trails in the Netherlands that are a unique way to explore a city centre. This year Wijnhaven is opening its doors to the runners. Join in with the fourth edition of the KLM Urban Trail in The Hague on Sunday 7 July.

At the LAK you can participate in a large variety of artistic and creative courses taught by our professional teachers. We offer courses in the following categories: theater and presentation, dance, visual arts, music, photography and writing (literature). All staged art courses come to a close with…

PhD defence

LUCSoR has chairs in Comparative Religion, Islam in the West, Christianity, and Judaism. Main areas of expertise include ancient Mesopotamian religions, the Enlightenment, Islam in the West, and new spiritual movements.

Mr. J. Sun defended his thesis on 21 March 2018.

This project aims to situate the current policy concept of ‘valorization of scientific knowledge’ in historical and epistemological perspectives. Conceptual understanding of the utility of scientific practices is developed in dialogue with historical analyses of the politics of knowledge in European…

Nadine Akkerman's book Invisible Agents is the very first study to analyse the role of early modern women spies. The book foregrounds the agency of early-modern women, offering a corrective to the gender bias implicit in modern historiography.

What is the iconography of propaganda specifically as it relates to the historical development of political ideologies in modern Egypt and how was/is this propaganda disseminated among creative fields such as cinema, art, monuments, architecture, and literature?

This study is an attempt to reconstruct the muted violent past by breaking the monopoly of the Turkish state over the memory of the Armenian genocide.

Situated at the crossroads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Spanish Philippines offer historians an intriguing middle ground of connected histories that raises fundamental new questions about conventional ethnic, regional and religious identities.

Grace Leksana defended her thesis on 26 May 2020.

Read more about the application procedure and apply now!

Lecture, Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar

The Van Bergen Fund provides financial support to study associations of Leiden University for initiatives that promote contact between Dutch and international students. A good plan will receive a subsidy from the Van Bergen Fund.

LUCIS affiliated members are researchers outside Leiden University who are actively involved in the study of Islam and/or Muslim societies and who regularly participate in LUCIS activities. LUCIS affiliate membership offers possibilities to cooperate with LUCIS as well as network opportunities. Contact…

There are various links between Rembrandt and Leiden University

One way for governments to conduct foreign policy and promote national interests is through direct outreach and communication with the population of a foreign country. This is called public diplomacy. Historians such as Helmer Helmers and William T. Rossiter have shown that printed media were already…