This omnibus brings together some old and some recent works by Jos Gommans on the warhorse and its impact on medieval and early modern state-formation in South Asia.

Ron Sela, Associate Professor of Central Asian History in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University – Bloomington, will be the Central Asia Visiting Professor from 19 until 25 May 2017. Ron Sela will deliver a guest lecture and a master class within the Central Asia Initiative…

Leiden University has long history of research and teaching on Asian traditions, with a focus on language and philology, history, religious studies, philosophy, law and literature. Leiden has in the last thirty years also built up an equally impressive strength in the study of modern and contemporary…

How did free agents oppose the monopolies held by the VOC and WIC in court?

The LeidenAsiaCentre will open its doors on Wednesday 27 January. This is the place for applied knowledge on Asia in the Netherlands.

Postcolonial Displacements explores the multiple ways in which migration in South Asia contributes to the imagining, questioning, subverting and reframing of territories, nations and communities. The project focuses on the contested fringes of the politically divided South Asian subcontinent, across…

Photographs of sacred rituals and ceremonies in Asia by Bangkok-based photographer and author Hans Kemp can be seen in the front hall of the Leiden Town Hall from 27 June to 19 August 2019. Here a sneak preview.

This project aims to revisit the ways in which religious minorities in the Middle East participated in, contributed to, and opposed the Arab nationalism of the post-war years, when the British and French ruled the region via the Mandates. Research question: How did religious minorities in the Middle…

Throughout the coming year, all attention in Leiden will be on Asia. This special year, featuring numerous Asian events, conferences, exhibitions and concerts, celebrates the new Asian Library at Leiden University. Come and read, watch, listen, taste or dance Bollywood style.

This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a two-volume project, authored by an international team of researchers, and offering the first-ever synthetic overview of the history of modern political thought in East Central Europe.

In the contemporary myriad of definitions and approaches of landscape, the starting points and limits of the concept of landscape biography are being explored, but also tested in this thesis. What exactly is a landscape biography? What does it constitute of? Is landscape biography just a narration of…

Many of the journal's issues contain short contributions from practitioners of diplomacy. These practitioners' essays offer unique insights into the world of diplomacy and they serve as a source of inspiration for researchers.

Professor Peter Bisschop, lecturer in Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia, has been awarded a grant by the NWO Free Competition to fund his research into the rapid growth of Saivism in the sixth and seventh centuries in South and Southeast Asia. The research project, entitled ‘From Universe…

‘There is often a strong emphasis on the differences with Asia when actually there are so many similarities on all sorts of levels. Parents in Asia deliberate just as much about which school they should send their child to,’ says Frank Pieke, Professor of Modern China Studies. The opening conference…

The one-year master's in History, Arts and Culture, a specialisation of Leiden University’s MA in Asian Studies, allows you to focus on one or more countries or regions of pre-modern, modern or contemporary Asia.

What is it like to study International Studies in The Hague? Read how Stijn, student of International Studies, spends his day on average.

Although official law generally conceives of personal injury victims as individual rights holders, the actual experience of physical injury and its consequences is relational. Indeed, many researchers in the global North as well as the global South have contended that the very concept of the Self should…

Ramesh Ganohariti will examine legal identity in three post-Soviet aspirant states and outline four common scenarios in this article.

This book is the first systematic analysis of the changes in the use of goods and services by households of Black South Africans since the early nineteenth century.

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine re…

An environmental and palaeo-economic reconstruction.

Authority and Control in the Countryside looks at the economic, religious, political and cultural instruments that local and regional powers in the late antique to early medieval Mediterranean and Near East used to manage their rural hinterlands.

This NWO project, which is being be carried out in close cooperation with the universities of Oxford (contact: Prof. Robert Hoyland) and Princeton (contact: Prof. John F. Haldon) and the UMR 8167 (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS, University Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV, University Panthéon-Sorbonne,…

During this programme you gain deep knowledge of one of eight world regions by studying its politics, economy, history and culture, and a local language. You will gain the ability to view regional issues from a global perspective, preparing you to play a crucial role in an increasingly globalised and…

On November 17, the Leiden Anthropology of Asia Network held its second Anthropology of Asia at Leiden Update. At Leiden University, anthropologists are not at all confined to the Institute Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (CADS).

On Friday 2 October journalist Sander van Hoorn starts his lecture series ‘The Middle East doesn't exist’, which was organised by the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS). ‘If all goes well, people will understand the Middle East that bit less after my lectures.’

On Wednesday 14 February 2024 Yorum Beekman successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Which circumstances have determined the transition to, or the dominance of, a particular type of military employment in different societies at different times?

Political scientist Nicolas Blarel (Leiden University) analyses the background and implications of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel.

The main question I want to answer is about the mutual influence between the cultural and settlements changes that occurred between the Bronze and the Early Iron Age in Margiana and the management of water resources.

Professor Paul Keβler, prefect of the Leiden Hortus botanicus, holds the special chair Botanical gardens and botany of South-East Asia since 1 February 2017.

There are numerous ways in which Asia and the West influence one another. Having a good understanding of the countries of Asia and their inhabitants improves the contacts between these two world regions. Leiden experts have studied Asia for decades from the perspective of different disciplines. Read…

Leiden has the most highly regarded China Studies programme in Europe. But how did this knowledge find its way specifically to Leiden? For his PhD research Koos Kuiper delved into the unique history of the start of this unique programme.

Devin DeWeese, Indiana University Bloomington, will be the Central Asia Visiting Professor between 5-17 September 2016. Professor DeWeese will deliver a guest lecture on Monday, 12 September (Lipsius 148, 3pm) and a masterclass on Friday, 16 September within the Central Asia initiative at Leiden Uni…

Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies analyses the role of religion in past and present understandings of Asia.

On 28 and 29 August, Dr. Ben Van Rompuy and Dr. Armin Cuyvers gave a two-day training to the Competition Commissioners of the newly established East-African Competition authority.

Zifa-Alua Auezova will be the Central Asia Visiting Scholar in November 2016. Dr Auezova will deliver two guest lectures on Thursday, 10 November and Monday, 28 November within the Central Asia Initiative at Leiden University.

On 1 June 2022, Bruno Braak defended his thesis entitled 'Overcoming ruptures: Zande identity, governance, and tradition during cycles of war and displacement in South Sudan and Uganda (2014-2019).' The doctoral research was supervised by Prof.dr. J.M. Otto, Dr.ir. C.I.M. Jacobs, and Dr. C. Leonardi…

In tracing intra-site, local and regional craft networks in Late Bronze Age Tiryns (Greece) the project aimed to understand technological changes, (dis)continuities and social practices from the Late Palatial until the Post Palatial periods in Mycenaean Greece.

If you really want to understand East Asia, you can't overlook Korea. At the Bachelor's programme Korean Studies at Leiden University you will discover a fascinating mix of age-old traditions and modern customs through intensively studying culture, history and language.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of China's global resurgence and its effects on U.S. dominance.

Pursuing Whiteness in the Colonies offers a new comprehension of colonial history from below by taking remnants of individual agencies from a whiteness studies perspective. It highlights the experiences and perceptions of colonisers and how they portrayed and re-interpreted their identities in Afric…

Former President Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa gave a public lecture on Campus The Hague on 7 July. His story was about the economic transformation of Africa.