Stéphanie Noach, PhD within LUCAS, received a Fulbright grant to conduct research for her PhD project 'Dark Matters. Recasting Darkness with Contemporary Latin American Art' at the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard University.

Assistant professor Stephanie Noach has won the Dissertation Prize of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. She is receiving this prestigious prize for her research on darkness in contemporary art from Latin America and the Caribbean.

A particular group of counter protesters have been sighted at numerous Black Lives Matter protests that were held in the United States. An extreme right movement known for its characteristic Hawaii Shirts and heavy weaponry that calls itself the Boogaloo Boys. Which is cause for concern among the American…

María Gabriela Palacio recently joined the Latin American Studies programme at the Institute for History as University Lecturer in Modern Latin American History. Below, she introduces herself.

Eveline Crone has been selected for the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Social & Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS). 'It's very special to get recognition from your peers in the United States.'

Randal Sheppard recently joined the Institute for History as a lecturer in International Relations. He introduces himself.

Carla Cisternas Guasch, PhD candidate at the Leiden Institute for History, is one of the winners of the 2023 call of the Slicher van Bath de Jong Foundation for the advancement of study and research on the history of Latin America. She receives a research grant of €10.000 (max).

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.

American foreign policy in the period after the Second World War is often characterised as liberal. This is, however, not the full picture, argues university lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe. He has been awarded a Vidi grant to research and rewrite this popular narrative.

Explore how cultural heritage can proactively respond to global crises, from geopolitical conflicts to climate change, through innovative cross-cultural collaboration between Latin American stakeholders and Una Europa.

Professor Edmund Amann will be the new Professor of Brazilian Studies. A short introduction.

Leiden University will confer an honorary doctorate on astrophysicist Sara Seager for her work on exoplanets.

Buying chocolates as a sign of love, getting the best deals on Black Friday and putting on a spooky costume for Halloween. In recent years, these holidays and traditions have taken off in the Netherlands, even though they originated on the other side of the ocean. Why are we so excited about American…

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas last week. University lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe explains in an interview with ABC Radio what the embrace of 'Orbánism' means for the American right, and democracy more broadly.

Of course, Jan Melissen is proud of the publication of his new book. Even so, one painful memory lingers: because of American interference, he was forced to remove the chapter on citizen diplomacy, diversity and inclusion. ‘It did affect me.’

Research

Masses of hamburgers, steaks, cheese and a lot of eggs: Americans love their animal products. But researcher Oliver Taherzadeh discovered that only a relatively small group of high-volume consumers need to modify their diet to achieve an enormous environmental gain.

The traditional Res Publica study trip took place this year from 20 to 24 April. Because of the coronavirus restrictions, the members of Res Publica – the faculty’s study association for constitutional and administrative law – travelled ‘virtually’ to Portugal, the United States and Singapore. Of course,…

In the 60s and 70s, Black Power groups were also active in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This is what PhD candidate Debby Esmeé de Vlugt has discovered.

Meet-up and drinks

Salvador Santino Regilme received Honorable Mention for the 2022 Best Scholarly Article Award from the Sociology of Human Rights Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). He won for his paper “Visions of Peace Amidst a Human Rights Crisis: War on Drugs in Colombia and the Philippines,”…

Assistant Professor Briitta van Staalduinen has received the Best Dissertation Award from the American Political Science Association, Section on Class and Inequality. Her dissertation, Ethnic Inequality in the Welfare State, aims to reconcile the persistence of ethnic inequalities in expansive welfare…

Special achievements, grants and a top 10 ranking, a great calendar year for the Faculty of Archaeology! See the overview of 2023 in the hall of fame below.

The appointment of Alex Geurds as Professor in Central American Archaeology reinvigorates an existing focus within the faculty. 'The research chair offers opportunities to make cross-connections, across departments and disciplines.'

Library, Research

Conference

Met de benoeming van Rijpma en Campos Delgado is de Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid in alle uniersitaire regiogroepen vertegenwoordigd.

In a packed lecture hall at Wijnhaven, Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman succinctly summed up the essence of his argument on Wednesday 17 September: ‘Running a good society is hard’. His lecture held up a mirror to economists and policymakers.

Seger Kersbergen studied the Cabo Verdean nightlife in Rotterdam. He explains how their music describes their nightlife and daily lives.

On 3 September 2025, more than 30 archaeological objects were returned to Peru, Panama and Costa Rica. The objects come from a private collection belonging to the descendants of physician and amateur archaeologist Dr Hans Feriz. In her will, his daughter stipulated that the objects collected by her…

It was not light, but its absence that caught Stephanie Noach's attention a few years ago. With her research on darkness in art, she aims to show how darkness can question and sometimes even undermine colonial imagery.