By analysing neglected (continental) spy centres and integrating these groups of female intelligencers into the traditional, male-orientated historical narratives, this project will proceed towards a gendered history of early modern espionage.

'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…

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…

Victorian Fairy Tales

This research project is an integral part of its mother-programme NEXUS1492 ERC Synergy Project directed by Prof. Corinne Hofman. Overarchingly, it aims at understanding and bridging from the archaeological perspective the late pre-colonial and early colonial history of the Southeastern Caribbean macroregion…

The Dutch and English East India Companies were formidable organizations that were gifted with expansive powers that allowed them to conduct diplomacy, wage war and seize territorial possessions. But they did not move into an empty arena in which they were free to deploy these powers without resista…

An early farming community in Thessaly, Greece.

This study interrogates contemporary and historical uses of barbarism, arguing that barbarism also has a disruptive, insurgent potential.

The figure of the barbarian has captivated the Western imagination from Greek antiquity to the present. Since the 1990s, the rhetoric of civilization versus barbarism has taken center stage in Western political rhetoric and the media. But how can the longevity and popularity of this opposition be accounted…

It is often claimed—in both scholarly and popular sources—that guide dogs for the blind are a modern innovation. But as this project demonstrates clearly, guide dogs also existed during the medieval period.

Aristocratic dynasties have long been regarded as fundamental to the development of early modern society and government. Yet recent work by political historians has increasingly questioned the dominant role of ruling families in state formation, underlining instead the continued importance and independence…

In this paper, Andrea Malaya M. Ragragio and Myfel D. Paluga recast new light on the historical tattooing of the “Pintados,” or the the name by which the inhabitants of the Visayas Islands (in the central Philippines) were called by Spanish documenters in the sixteenth century. This is one of their…

Imami Shiʿism was a key part of the turbulent thesis and antithesis which formed Islam, and it remains greatly influential today. The aim of the ImBod project is to write the first comprehensive social history of the Imamate.

The article investigates the origins of Indo-European languages in Asia by 65 coupling ancient genomics to archaeology and linguistics.

How are the narrative concerns of Nigerian female writers constructed in relation to the structure to their society?

My ERC Starting Grant, funded with €1.5 million for 5 years as part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, is focused on building the early warning system WARN-D to reliably forecast depression in young adults before it occurs. Why depression, and why prediction?

Southern Crossings: Indian activists and the Afro-Asian movement in the early Cold War era

Did early farmers deliberately use animal manure on their fields?

By the end of the sixteenth century, stories about the Revolt in the Low Countries (c. 1567-1648) had begun to spread throughout Europe. These stories had very different authors with very different intentions.

How might viola and string quartet playing in the performer-centered, moment-to-moment and communicative style heard on early recordings be brought about today?

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…

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.

When do fire making tools appear in prehistory, and how might the use of these tools manifest in the archaeological record?

Brian Shaev

On the 2nd of April, Eline Lismont successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Eline on this achievement!

As a contribution to the changing legislation and evolving societal attitudes concerning environmental issues, this project aims to enhance and manipulate the plants’ own natural defense mechanisms against western flower thrips (WFT).

Exploring cultural production in Europe, Latin America and Africa, the institute’s research programme focuses on the continuous interconnectedness of the Arts and Society in both the textual culture of literature, learning and public debate and the visual culture of art, architecture, film, photography…

ASLU 28 Michalis Karambinis (2015)

In the History of the Roman Emperors, what does Herodian’s method of composition consist of and how does it relate to his writing intention, particularly in terms of political and moral idea(l)s?

What does the excavated material tell us about the continuation and/or change of urban life during the transitional phrases from Antiquity to the Middle Ages on Crete and in the eastern Mediterranean more generally?

One of the three long-term research interests of our group concerns the Transformation of the Roman World (c AD 450-900).

Every month a member of the Institute for History tells about a book that inspired him or her. Afterwards, the pen is passed on to another colleague. This month dr. Meike de Goede tells about the book 'Between Tides' by Valentin Mudimbe. The novel, little known beyond the circles of Africanists and…

Doctoral Thesis

What are the capabilities or limitations of traveling between islands and how does this reflect seasonal variation? Is it possible to show higher levels of connectivity between islands based on generated pathways between several sites on two separate islands?

The Animated Image addresses the entire range of contexts in which images were described by Roman authors as being animated, as well as the accounts that Roman writers produced to explain the animation of inanimate matter.

‘The Survival of Pliny in Padua. The Botanical Renaissance and the Transformation of Classical Scholarship’ in: Transformations of the Classics via Early Modern Commentaries, ed. by K.A.E. Enenkel. Intersections 29 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, forthcoming autumn 2013), pp. 327-62.

Bernini and Pallavicino, the artist and the Jesuit cardinal, are closely related figures at the papal courts of Urban VIII and Alexander VII, at which Bernini was the principal artist. The analysis of Pallavicino's writings offers a new perspective on Bernini's art and artistry and allow us to understand…

Combining cutting-edge quantitative approaches with more traditional book history approaches, this new book offers the first history of medieval manuscript destruction in England from the medieval period to the present.

On 20 September 2023 Mark van de Water successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Central to Nuranisa’s PhD project is the cultural diplomacy practiced by the Javanese courts of central Java (Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Pakualaman and Mangkunegaran) in response to the increasing Dutch colonial power in the 19th and early 20th century. The Javanese sultanates were incorporated into the…