Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence, and Environment, vol.16. Edited by Noriyuki Shirai.

Find out how to apply for East Asian Studies at Leiden University by following our step-by step guide.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden Law School with the University of Rwanda.

This project studies travel writing about the Dutch East Indies written between 1800 and the end of the Second World War. By analyzing both Dutch travel texts and Indigenous travel texts in Javanese and Malay, it presents a new, double-voiced perspective on (the historiography of) the Dutch colonial…

Annual Meeting

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo is an academic centre providing services for scholars and students from the supporting universities.

The Central and East European Studies Centre is hosted by Leiden University.

The Iraqi archaeological site of Nimrud was recently recaptured from IS. The site has been severely damaged. The question now is, what to do with it? Should it be restored? Bleda Düring spoke with Trouw about this complex issue.

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…

Knowledge of Muslim societies is essential to function in a globalised world and to fully understand our own Dutch society. Leiden researchers explore the languages, cultures, religions, legal systems and history of Muslim societies and in this way contribute to a centuries-old tradition.

The Dutch colonial past in Indonesia has had a major influence on literature.

This dissertation, Layered Loyalties: The Natuurkundige Commissie in the Netherlands Indies (1820-1850), studies the Natuurkundige Commissie.

LIAS aims to advance the globally conscious vision of area studies, both within and outside the academic community. Focusing on Asia and the Middle East, the institute is a meeting place of multiple fields of inquiry, theories and methods, historical periods, and areas.

Elizabeth Hicks won first runner-up in the Netherlands Institute of the Near East (NINO) MA thesis 2021 competition at the end of January.

This book argues that Armenians around the world – in the face of the Genocide, and despite the absence of an independent nation-state after World War I – developed dynamic socio-political, cultural, ideological and ecclesiastical centres. And it focuses on one such centre, Beirut, in the postcolonial…

The MA Asian Studies East Asian Studies offers focused study of China, Japan or Korea. You can study the country of your choice from an expansive number of disciplinary perspectives including history, literature, art, art history, sociology, anthropology, media, cultural studies, religious studies,…

Commonplace - Photographs from the Drummond-Fyvie Collection and the Ngilima Collection. By Tamsyn Adams and Sophie Feyder.

Yung Lin’s research explores how citizens in Taiwan and Southeast Asia actively shape public diplomacy, build trust across cultures, and address identity-based conflicts, highlighting the shift from government-led to citizen-centred diplomacy.

The researchers in the World Archaeology department of the Faculty of Archaeology concentrate on a range of different periods and regions: from humanity’s origins to the Middle Ages and the modern age, and from Asia to South America.

The new Middle Eastern Library (MEL) will bring together the UBL's own Middle Eastern collections and the collections of the library of The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO), which has been part of the Leiden University Libraries since 1st January 2018.

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (the NVIC) was founded in 1971. Nine universities in the Netherlands and Flanders participate in the institute with an aim to stimulating internationalisation of their teaching and research activities in the Middle East.

Overview of the Leiden Asia staff per area or country.

Report on the Excavations of the National Museum of Antiquities Leiden in the Balikh Valley, Syria.

Balikh Valley Archaeological Project Monograph 1 - BAR International Series 468

Do you want to discover a language and culture that is completely different from the Netherlands? In the Bachelor's programme Middle Eastern Studies you will study the connections between the different cultures in the Middle-East in the past and present. You will be able to choose from the languages…

Southeast Asia is a term to denote a collection of at present eleven nation-states with an enormous diversity in languages, cultures and religions. Muslims can both take a majority and a minority position.

This lecture will be hosted on Wednesday, 17 December 2025 at 6:00 pm.

Our ambition to contribute to society and the world, searching to solutions to the global challenges of our time, can only be achieved with solid relationships worldwide.

The gripping story of a collective passion for freedom that shook the world.

For a long time, the painful history of colonial slavery received too little attention. People whose ancestors lived in slavery are now asking critical questions about how we should address that past. Leiden University researchers study the history of colonialism and slavery and their long-term impact…

Uncovering ancient Arabian inscriptions feels like pioneering detective work, says Arabist Michael Macdonald in a video interview with Leiden Islam Centre LUCIS. 'First you have to learn the alphabets that they're written in, and then you have to try and work out what they say.'

Since the end of the nineteenth century Arabic book designers have influenced the social and cultural situation in the Middle East with their work. Huda Smitshuijzen Abi-Farès has written the first global overview of this neglected field of science. PhD defence 10 January.

Lecture, Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar

Leonard Blussé, emeritus Professor in the History of European and Asian relations, will receive the prestigious Japanese Academic Fukuoka Prize. Blussé receives the prize for creating a new academic field: 'The Maritime History of early modern East/Southeast Asia'. He will receive the Prize in September…

Lecture, China Seminar

Debate

Jelle van Buuren, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, discusses the death of Al-Baghdadi and whether this could also mean the end of IS.

The Case of the Painted Plaster

LIAS has a School of Asian Studies (SAS), a School of Middle-Eastern Studies (SMES) and a School of Religious Studies (LUCSoR). These designations, and the fields within them, remain foundational to our work. At the same time, the academic community benefits from the presence of cross-regional networks…

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University’s Faculty of Humanities with the University of Sulaimani in Iraq.

Understanding the history of Islam and Muslim societies sheds a clear light on the complex and changing social structures of the Middle East, including the current trouble spots whose effect spreads all the way to Western Europe.