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…

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

View our course and workshop program for Spring 2026 here. The courses will start from February 2026. Our courses are open for everyone aged 17 and older. Leiden University students get a special discount on the course fee.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Paisaje, cerámicas e interacciones

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?

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.

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.

There’s more to a master’s than studying hard; sometimes you just want to relax. It’s good to know that The Hague’s offering in the area of sport and culture is second to none.

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…

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

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.

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…

Since its beginnings, Leiden University has been home to scholars with a broad and diverse expertise in the histories, languages, literatures and material cultures relevant to the study of Jews and Judaism from antiquity to modern times.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

Grace Leksana defended her thesis on 26 May 2020.

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…

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.

Read more about the application procedure and apply now!

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…

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…

There are various links between Rembrandt and Leiden University

Nicolaes Tulp (1593-1674) studied medicine in Leiden. He attended lectures in the Academy Building and was taught anatomy in the former Faliede Begijn church, now the ‘Old Library’ (Oude UB) building, for a long time the location of the anatomical theatre. Shortly after his move from Leiden to Amsterdam,…

Jed Wentz is a University Lecturer at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts of the Leiden University. He earned a PhD from the docARTES programme and his doctoral thesis Gesture, Affect and Rhythmic Freedom in the Performance of French Tragic Opera from Lully to Rameau explored how historical…

What would a university be without its students? In 2025, we will celebrate 450 years of studying with an exhibition showcasing our students from the past centuries. How did they study in the past? And how do they study now? This outdoor exhibition will be on display from 23 April at the Hortus bota…

This week, Prof. Luuk van Middelaar (Europa Institute) publishes Alarums & Excursions: improvising Politics on the Europen Stage – a revised update of his 2017 book on the decade of EU crises.

How are social structures of gender, religion and race/ethnicity learned and embodied in practices of movement?

This series of publications brings together new material on wellconsidered themes within the wide area of Early Modern Studies.

Leiden is a real student city and has everything you’ll need to turn your time as a student into the time of your life.

The Leiden Ludic Collective is an open initiative and shared space for scholars and gamers of any level to hold discussions, exchange ideas, and, most importantly, play together. The Ludic Lab is located in Huizinga 0.14.

This doctoral dissertation explores classical music performance from a curatorial perspective, reflecting upon and challenging the traditional configuration of performance environments.

Elizabeth Stuart is one the most misrepresented – and underestimated – figures of the seventeenth century. Daughter of James VI & I, she was married to Frederick V, Elector Palatine in 1613 – they were crowned King and Queen of Bohemia in 1619, only to be deposed and exiled to the Dutch Republic in…

A new vision on the Revolt of the Low Countries through the eyes of Spanish commanders