D.P. Kok defended his thesis on 10 October 2017

This project investigates the full ecosystem of Middle Dutch prayerbooks in order to answer questions about their role in – and impact on – religion, culture, and society in the late medieval Low Countries.

Music of Possibility is a personal account of what, for composer Richard Barrett, are the most consequential areas of twentieth- and twenty first-century musical innovation, and how, together with a web of technologies, cultures and politics, they have informed his creative practice.

On the28th of September Didi van Trijp successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Sonic Modernities situates Southeast Asian popular music in specific socio-historical settings, hoping that a focus on popular culture and history may shed light on how some people in a particular part of the world have been witnessing the emergence of all things modern.

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.

Have you heard about the book bus project (عربية الحواديت) in Sharqiya? This wonderful initiative encourages children, who don't have easy access to books, to read by spreading books by car. They are also setting up a library!

The book ‘Geleerde Zorgen: twee eeuwen academische geneeskunde in Leiden’ (‘Learned Care: two centuries of academic medicine in Leiden’) was presented on 16 December to Annetje Ottow (President of the Executive Board of Leiden University) and Pancras Hogendoorn, Dean and member of the Executive Board…

For the second time in a row the NVIC Library is organizing a book fair for a good cause! The proceeds of this edition will go to Qalb Kabeer NGO, an organisation that is running a literacy and arts activities program for children living on Dahab Island.

Together with colleagues from VU University Amsterdam and the Hague University of Applied Sciences, Toon Kerkhoff is writing a book in English about corruption and public morality in the Netherlands during the period 1650-1950.

A conversation about expanding the disciplinary boundaries of the study and teaching of pre-modern English literature, on the occasion of the publication of Sjoerd Levelt’s The Middle Dutch Brut: An Edition and Translation. With: Shamma Boyarin (University of Victoria), Shazia Jagot (University of York),…

From Galileo Galilei to Albert Einstein and from Anna Maria van Schurman to Anton de Kom: only a selection of the 25 authors who's books and ideas had extraordinary historical impact, in some cases even to this day. Leiden University Libraries and the National Museum of Antiquities jointly present the…

Huub de Groot is one of the 55 authors for the book The Colours of Energy. The book consists of Essays on the Future of Energy in Society in which leading energy thinkers explore the future of energy in society.

The International Conference "Her Book: Women and Book Ownership in Early Modern Europe" will take place at the Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris) on 17-18 June 2022. For more information: aurelie.griffin@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr.

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. Robert Stein tells about the book 'La Vérité sur l'affaire Harry Quebert' by Swiss writer Joel Dicker. It is not so much the whodunit that…

Researchers from Leiden and Delft have found a way to look inside early-modern bookbindings. An x-ray technique has allowed them to search for remains of medieval manuscripts hidden inside the bindings. After the Middle Ages many manuscripts were recycled, their pages pasted inside bookbindings to provide…

In 2025, it will be 600 years since a university was founded in Leuven, the forerunner of today's KU Leuven. In anticipation to these festivities, KU Leuven Libraries, in collaboration with UCLouvain, is putting its academic collection in the spotlight. Thanks to the efforts of the past months and years,…

A new book, Learning to Play: Learning Reinforcement and Games by Aske Plaat is now available.

The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world, Antony Lowenstein, Verso Books, 2023

Just published:

As Scaliger professor, Erik Kwakkel is responsible for the academic context of the complete Special Collections of the Leiden University Library. His inaugural lecture on 15 May will focus mainly on the section closest to his heart: Medieval books.

We are welcoming nominations for the 2023 HJD Book Award ! The HJD Book Award is given to the author(s) of the book that best advances the theoretical and/or empirical study of diplomacy.

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy is looking for nominations for its 2021 HJD Book Award.

Ronald Cramer, in cooperation with Ivan Damgard and Jesper Nielsen (Aarhus University) have recently published the first book ever written on “quantum-secure multi-party computation”. The authors have spent six years to finish this comprising book.

On 28 and 29 April 2022 the conference ''Book Diplomacy’ in the Cultural Cold War: Interdisciplinary Perspectives' takes place at Leiden University. The keynote speaker during the conference is Professor Greg Barnhisel (Duqusense University). The conference aims to bring together a diverse group of…

Researchers Wim van Noort, Sandra Groeneveld, Marieke van der Hoek, Jelmer Schalk en Joris van der Voet published a book on public organizations.

The new book, ‘Njord in de Oorlog’ (Njord during the War), describes how the Leiden student rowing club was affected by the Second World War in a detailed series of personal stories. On Monday 16 November, Njord president Rosalie ten Wolde presented the first copy to Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker.

The Yearbook for Dutch Book History publishes Dutch and English-language articles on the book history of the Low Countries in all time periods. For the 31st edition of the Yearbook, to be published in 2024, we welcome in particular contributions concerning the theme ‘Controversy’. Deadline: 1 March…

The compulsory reading list is infamous among secondary school students, and for all the wrong reasons. This prompted the Faculty of Humanities and the Onderwijsnetwerk Zuid-Holland (South Holland Education Network) to launch the Alternative Reading List Award, in search of books that motivate young…

Over the past year, the lectorate ‘Music, Education & Society’ has worked on a publication with contributions from students and staff from the KC called 'The promise of music'.

Leiden University political scientist Daniela Stockmann has been awarded the 2015 Goldsmith Book Prize for best academic book in the field of media, politics, and public policy. Stockmann's 'Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China' (Cambridge University Press, 2013) was acknowledged…

In April 2022 a new monograph by Carine van Rhijn (Utrecht) will be published, entitled "Leading the Way to Heaven. Pastoral Care and Salvation in the Carolingian Period".

The African Studies Centre Leiden presented the last book by its renowned colleague Prof. Stephen Ellis (1953-2015), This Present Darkness: A history of Nigerian organised crime, on 9 June. The book was published posthumously. Former colleagues and friends paid tribute to Ellis, who was regarded as…

This interview features Drs. Peter Bisschop (Leiden University) and Yuko Yokochi (Kyoto University) and their work on the monumental Skandapurāṇa project.

The Dutch government chairs the EU council this year. Researchers from Leiden took this opportunity to reflect on the future of the European Union and to give recommendations where possible. The book will be presented on Friday 29 April, 10.15 AM in Nieuws Poort (Den Haag). Attending the event are Ankie…

This year The Netherlands once again chairs the EU Council. In the book ‘Fit for the Future’ Leiden researchers reflect on the priorities that the Dutch presidency has put forward for 2016 and raise the question: is the EU fit for the future?

The Netherlands has one of the oldest constitutions in the world and a stable system of government lasting more than two centuries. The system’s ‘ground rules’ are essential for how we shape our destiny together, yet they are little-known, sometimes almost invisible set pieces necessary for our nationwide,…

A fascinating description of a global language, A Grammar of Mandarin by Jeroen Wiedenhof combines broad perspectives with illuminating depth. Crammed with examples from everyday conversations, it aims to let the language speak for itself. The book opens with an overview of the language situation and…

How did the medieval manuscript develop as a physical object during the Twelfth Century Renaissance and what do these changes tell us about the intellectual culture of the period?

Anchrit Wille, Associate Professor at Leiden University's Institute of Public Administration, wrote together with Mark Bovens, Professor of Public Administration at the Utrecht University School of Governance the book“Diploma Democracy”. The Economist wrote a review “This fascinating book shows that…

Who determines what is wrong with children and how they develop? Educator and sociologist Annemieke van Drenth wrote a book about this that will be released on 10 June. In it, she uses the history of the school for ‘idiotic children’ in The Hague to investigate how special children were identified in…

Herman Boerhaave (1668 - 1738) is generally known to have been a dedicated doctor and chemist. However, the significant role he played in botany is less well documented, according to Margreet Wesseling. So she decided to write about about Boerhaave the botanist to mark the 350th anniversary of his birth…

Op 16 november en 6 december vinden in respectievelijk Gent en Amsterdam boeklanceringen plaats van het publieksboek "Middeleeuwse Medemensen. De clichés over de donkere eeuwen voorbij". In dit boek buigen tien jonge mediëvisten uit Nederland en Vlaanderen zich over enkele hardnekkige mythes over de…

This symposium (May 22) will explore topics such as the loss of and damage done to medieval manuscripts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries through an interdisciplinary set of papers. Speakers will highlight projects aimed at identifying and rehabilitating damaged manuscripts and archives, and…

Saskia Gras, PhD graduate from the Dual PhD Center, presents her book on Wednesday 6 June:

Intensive 5-day programme on the world-famous Antwerp-based printing and publishing house founded by Christopher Plantin in 1555. International experts will discuss how it developed the production and distribution of religious books and related illustrations and prints in the following centuries.

Aleydis Nissen discusses her new book, The European Union, Emerging Global Business and Human Rights.

On 6 September 2021 Dr Vestert Borger, Assistant Professor of European law, was awarded the Best Book Prize by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES). Borger received the prize for his book 'The Currency of Solidarity: Constitutional Transformation during the Euro Crisi…

In the book 'Slave in a Palanquin: Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' Nira Wickramasinghe, professor of Modern South Asian Studies, uncovers the traces of slavery in the history and memory of the Indian Ocean world. She was interviewed about the book in the New Books in South East Asian…