Bachelor, Master

Professor Dario Fazzi has been organising virtual exchanges for students with various American universities for a number of years. Now he has been awarded 400.000 euros from the Erasmus+ programme Cooperation Partnerships to further develop the virtual component of his teaching.

There are some changes in the plans for the development of the Humanities Campus. The Faculty of Humanities along with the central organisation and the Real Estate department need to save costs due to the financial challenges at the faculty and the cuts in higher education. At the same time, we still…

The slogan of the Faculty of Archaeology, ‘The Future of the Past starts at Leiden University’, might sound like empty marketing speak. But there is something to it. The past can teach us a lot about climate change and that could make us fear the worst for our future. Archaeologist Gerrit Dusseldorp…

Over the past few years, citizen scientists from the Heritage Quest project have scoured the entire Veluwe and Utrechtse Heuvelrug areas for unknown archaeological heritage. One of the results of this research is that the number of known burial mounds in this area has doubled.

Lecture

Welcome to Leiden University

Back in June, the annual Leiden Archaeology Field School took place in Oss. For a month, every week, a group of 25 first year students gets to learn the ins and outs of a professional excavation. This is what they have been prepared for in the past year. ‘It is very exciting to put all the theory into…

In the student-made documentary, our Field School manager, Dr Arjan Louwen, gives a brief introduction on the importance of the excavation in Oss. Watch the documentary below.

Heritage Quest is a large-scale citizen science project in the field of archaeology that allows anyone to contribute to scientific research. It is the first large-scale archaeological citizen science project in The Netherlands and one of the few of its kind in the world. As part of the Cultural Heritage…

Dr Quentin Bourgeois and a group of students are currently exploring the Veluwe. In 2019 and 2020 volunteers looked at altitude maps of the Veluwe and indicated potential burial mound locations. Now the team from Leiden is 'ground-truthing', checking on the spot whether we are dealing with an actual…

The Municipality of Oss is a household name in the world of Dutch archaeology. For fifty years, Leiden archaeologists, in collaboration with residents of Oss, have been uncovering the history of the municipality. 2024 is the archaeological year of Oss! In a series of interviews we look back on fifty…

In 1974 Professor Modderman (founder of the Institute for Prehistory Leiden; predecessor of the present Faculty of Archaeology) executed a small excavation in the city of Oss. The Middle Iron Age cemetery, built over by Roman Period farmhouses, proved to be the start of a unique archaeological regional…

During the ceremony of the Opening of the Academic Year, University Lecturer Arjan Louwen has won Leiden University's prestigious LUS Teaching Award. The prize, awarded annually by the Leiden University Student Platform (LUS), honours lecturers who excel in their teaching. For Louwen, the nomination…

Palestinian national Abu Zubaydah was captured by the CIA in March 2002 and has remained in detention ever since, without any form of trial. Leiden professor Helen Duffy is doing all she can to secure his release or a fair trial. Her hopes now lie on international pressure and the UN Working Group on…

Recent fieldwork at the vast desert region in north-eastern Jordan has revealed an immensely rich heritage of an area that is difficult to access and archaeologically less known. Professor Peter Akkermans was interviewed about his groundbreaking research in this area, known as the Black Desert.

Facility

You can find an overview of the projects and a list of all research trainees below.

How can you find an internship or research project and what arrangements do you need to make?

Maurits Berger's new English-language podcast, Matters of Humanities: History of Islam in Europe covers no fewer than thirteen centuries of history. In eight episodes, professor of Islam and the West Maurits Berger argues that the Islam and Muslims are an important part of European history: ‘That was…

In June 2024 the Faculty of Archaeology welcomed a new Assistant Professor. Dr Alejandra Roche Recinos, originally from Guatemala, will strengthen the Faculty’s expertise on the archaeology of Central America. ‘I want to explore the lesser known archaeology of Southern Guatemala.’

'Echoes of the Silent Roots' by Mark Lindenberg wins the Multimodal Incentive Grant for Alumni of the Metje Postma Awards. His film is a touching auto-ethnographic project about family estrangement and repair. Ieke van Dam won the Excellence in Visual & Multimodal Ethnography Thesis Prize for her film…

The whole world gets raw materials from Latin America, but at the expense of nature. Håvar Solheim researches the role of organised crime in this environmental crime and Soledad Valdivia researches sustainable urban initiatives in Latin America. What do these university lecturers think the future of…

Is aviation on a one-way journey or a round trip? That is the question Steven Truxal will answer in his inaugural lecture From Disruption to Innovation in Air and Space: Legal Solutions for a Sustainable Future on Monday 15 November. This professor of air and space law is positive. That’s one thing…

Three of our researchers have been awarded a certificate for receiving enough downloads to be in the top 10% of papers in 2022

Across Latin America, stories of violence against women reveal how deeply gender, power en inequality are intertwined. Researcher Martín Hernán Di Marco tells how storytelling, activism and research together challenge the global cycle of violence against women and girls.

An extraordinary encounter took place in 1911. American scientists discovered the last 'wild' Indian, from the Yahi tribe, who had lived in total isolation for years. As he had no name, they called him Ishi. But who was this man, and what did this discovery mean to us? Cultural anthropologist Erik Bähre…

There are many links between Leiden and the US. The highest office there has been held an impressive nine times by presidents with Leiden roots. This has led to memorable visits to Leiden University.

In the honours course Sustainability & Health, students examine the causes and effects of climate change – but also how they can relate to these themselves. How do you build resilience in turbulent times? An excursion focused on silence and compassion helps students with this challenge.

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

From the Spanish Flu during WWI to COVID-19: the role of the American government in these Pandemics. Professor Giles Scott-Smith, who together with Dario Fazzi and Gaetano Di Tommaso completed the book project Public Health and the American State, discusses a century of American responses to health…

Alumna Lisa Koolhoven is the granddaughter of a Rotterdam woman who experienced the ‘forgotten bombing’ of the city on 31 March 1943. Her friend Kristen Hayford has an American grandfather who served in the Air Force during the Second World War. In their podcast ‘Beb & Bob| Collateral Damage ’, they…

Lecture, Language and the Human Past

Schedules

A study association is a good way to combine study-related activities with pleasure. Every faculty has one or more study association.

Six programmes in the Faculty of Humanities have been awarded the designation 'top programme' by the Keuzegids. These are the bachelor’s in German Language and Culture, Greek and Latin Language and Culture, Latin American Studies, Ancient Near East Studies, Religious Studies and Russian Studies.

Carlo Beenakker has been appointed a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the organisation behind the journal Science. Among the Fellows, he is the third Dutch person and first Leiden researcher.

Erik de Maaker wrote a monograph on how Garo, an indigenous community of the extended eastern Himalayas, experience and negotiate such disparities. The book shows how relatedness is reinterpreted as religious practices change, and communally held land ends up being privately controlled. Erik de Maaker…

She narrowly defied bureaucracy and spent days angling for cod. In the North Sea, marine biologist Inge van der Knaap discovered that noise significantly disturbs fish behaviour. ‘There is now a lot of attention for underwater noise.’

She walked into the Sylvius building as a wide-eyed twenty-something in 1984, and next year, she’ll be leaving us as a soon-to-be retiree in her sixties. Ine Tijdens (66) reflects on more than four decades at LACDR. ‘One year, I got a little whip for Sinterklaas. That says something about my persona…

When writing a thesis or paper you must make good use of the insights you have gained during your lectures and studies so far. You should also refer to relevant literature and carry out your own research on the topic.

Bachelor, Master