This is the 2017 paperback release of William Michael Schmidli's The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, which won the 2013 Foreign Affairs Magazine Best Book of the Year.

The first settlers of the Caribbean have long been regarded as bands of highly mobile groups who subsisted exclusively by hunting, gathering, and fishing. In recent years, however, there has been increasing evidence for the cultivation of domesticated plants by early groups and a lower degree of mobility…

Nature News reported on the use of bow-and-arrow for hunting based on the research made on small points found in a 54,000-year-old cave site in southern France.

Our Master Law in European and International Human Rights Law (LL.M.) looks at the various human rights protection mechanisms from a comparative perspective

Study information

Monday 29 January, the annual meeting of Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Safety and Security (LDE CSS) took place at Wijnhaven. The conference started with pitches of projects financed via seed money of LDE CSS. Followed by interaction in small groups to formulate research and education topics for the…

Musicologist Dinko Fabris has been appointed professor at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA). He started on 1 September. 'I’m looking forward to making a connection with society.'

This book is a celebration of the work of Professor Frans Theuws and was published in conjunction with the symposium held at the University of Leiden on June 29, 2018.

Explores the relationship between technics and humanity, tracing the emergence of a bio-technical conception of existence in contemporary continental philosophy. Suny Press

A study by a Leiden-Wageningen group shows that present-day humans are biologically poorly equipped to deal with the toxins they are regularly exposed to in smoky environments: compared to earlier hominins, we modern humans are probably even worse off. The study appeared in Molecular Biology and Evolution.…

Research into the evolutionary backgrounds of our diets can help us make the right choices in diet, health and lifestyle.

There is no human society that does not employ a rich and diverse language. This course introduces you to linguistics, featuring interviews with well-known linguists and with speakers of many different languages. Join us to explore the miracles of human language!

What are the humanities? As the cluster of disciplines historically grouped together as “humanities” has grown and diversified to include media studies and digital studies alongside philosophy, art history and musicology to name a few, the need to clearly define the field is pertinent.

Large carnivores and humans, along with their livestock, have co-existed for thousands of years. However, human population growth and an increase in economic activities are modifying the landscape for large carnivores and their prey.

Responsible AI for science and a strong and resilient society.

Are traces of fire use detectable in ancient hominin genomes?

On 18 June 2019, Peter Kempees defended his thesis 'Hard power and the European Convention on Human Rights'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. R.A. Lawson and Prof. H. Duffy.

This website showcases Leiden University’s contribution to the SSH Sector Plans.

Lecture, Book launch event

On 25 May, Roxane de Massol de Rebetz defended the thesis 'Beyond the dichotomy between migrant smuggling and human trafficking: a Belgian case study on the governance of migrants in transit'. The doctoral research was supervised by Maartje van der Woude, Joanne van der Leun and Masja van Meeteren.

Promotors: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Prof.dr. H. Leirs (Univ. Antwerpen), Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Efficiently responding to others’ emotions has great survival value, especially for social species, such as primates, who establish close, long-term bonds with group members. The closest living relatives to humans are the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Studying these species, and comparing them on the exact…

Are you thinking about studying European and International Human Rights Law? Learn more and watch the videos.

Central in this thesis are the various forms the research-teaching nexus can take in the university, especially in the Faculty of Humanities. The importance of a strong relation between research and teaching is advocated by many academics, but debate is going on about the forms this strenghthened relation…

Promotor: J.A. Bouwstra Co-promotor: A. El Ghalbzouri

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.A. Bouwstra, Co-promotor: Dr. A. El Ghalbzouri

Please note that if you haven’t done so already and wish to make use of the Early Bird Registration for the conference, that it closes on 1 March.

This project envisions a broad evaluation of 20th century models of human development over the life course (ontogenesis, human constitution), including socialist and capitalist conceptions across both Eastern and Western Europe.

The Research Handbook on Labour, Business and Human Rights Law edited by prof. Janice Bellace of the University of Pennsylvania and ass. prof. Beryl ter Haar of Leiden University. The book is publisehd in Edward Elgars series on Human Rights.

On Thursday 29 January 2026 Uğur Derin successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

For a long time, even many researchers thought that guide dogs were a relatively modern invention. An accidental encounter with archival material showed university lecturer Krista Milne that guide dogs helped their blind owners as far back as the Middle Ages. Milne now has received an NWO XS grant to…

This PhD project investigates what the universal and variable morphosyntactic properties of linguistic expressions of otherness are and how they can be modelled theoretically.

In a new study published in PLOS One, Leiden archaeologist Anastasia Nikulina, together with an international team from France, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, challenges the long-held belief that early humans had minimal impact on their environment before the rise of farming.

Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Changing Concepts of Physiology from Antiquity into Early Modern Europe

On 18 March 2020, Hoko Horii defended her thesis ‘Child Marriage as a Choice. Rethinking agency in international human rights’. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. A.W. Bedner and prof. G.A. van Klinken.

Chaider Bamualim defended his thesis on 9 September 2015

How can archaeological datasets reveal the interplay between past indigenous understandings of the surrounding world and resilient and sustainable ways of life in the Isthmo-Colombian Area?

Investigating the intercultural connections that shaped practices of knowledge production in colonial Dutch Brazil.

Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability showcases how the eco-geological creativity of the earth is integrally woven into the landforms, cultures, and cosmovisions of modern Himalayan communities.

The writings of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) are famously and purposely marked by fragmentariness. Paradoxically, a central aim of his work was to connect: all his life he sought to further the integration of scholarship in the humanities which, he believed, had too long suffered from the prevalence…