Over two days in the middle of April the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society hosted the virtual Bodies Matter conference. Almost two years in the making, the conference was an exciting and timely opportunity to discuss and debate histories, theories and practices of bodies.

Leiden University has six top bachelor's programmes according to Keuzigids universiteiten 2025, a consumer guide to university programmes. This puts Leiden in fourth place of the broad-based universities.

Alisa van de Haar is one of three humanities scholars to win a KNAW Early Career Award this year. The university lecturer of Ancient French Literature is receiving the award for her innovative research on multilingualism and migration. 'It would be nice to use this to set up a project with students.…

Medewerkers van de Universiteit Leiden trappen maandag 10 maart de estafettestaking af van de Nederlandse universiteiten tegen de kabinetsbezuinigingen.

Are you looking for some listening material for the upcoming long weekend? Staff members and alumni of the Faculty of Humanities have been creating various podcasts over the last few months. A selection is shown here:

When university lecturer Martine Bruil was on exchange in Ecuador as a teenager, she fell in love with the area's ancient languages. Now, more than 20 years later, she is starting a research project on the kinship of the language Awapit with the Quechua language that was spread by the Incas.

Professor Antje Wessels has received an NWO Open Competition grant to research fragmentary texts.

South African poet Antjie Krog will be the writer in residence at Leiden University in autumn 2021. Krog is famous for her poetry collections and books, which are often inspired by the history of South Africa. In her role as writer in residence, she will give the annual Albert Verwey Lecture and a series…

Gabrielle van den Berg became the Academic Director of LIAS on 1 September 2025: “I hope I’ll be able to make a real difference.”

Marijke Kooijman recently joined the Institute for History as a postdoctoral researcher within the NWO-funded project 'Roman Fake News? Documentary Fictions in the Roman Empire' under the supervision of Rens Tacoma. Below, she introduces herself.

Literature – and films and social media too – helps us understand ourselves and society. That makes literary studies an eternally modern discipline, especially if you dare to combine it with other disciplines, says Nidesh Lawtoo.

Saskia Goedhard was previously director of operations at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam and the UvA. Since April, she has brought her expertise to the Faculty of Humanities as director of business operations. 'Good business management is like water from a tap. You only notice it when it’s no longer th…

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has elected 16 new members, including two academics from Leiden: internist-infectiologist Meta Roestenberg and Arabist Petra Sijpesteijn.

Workshop

Arts and culture, Festival

Lecture, Leiden University Nationalism Network | Roundtable

Lecture, Global Questions Seminar

Lecture, LIMS seminar

Lecture, Ancient History Research Seminar

Lecture, VVIK lecture

University ceremony

Lecture, Ancient History Research Seminar

Lecture

Arts and culture

On Wednesday April 8, 2026, the Austria Centre Leiden and the Special Chair for Central European Studies hosted the Seventh Annual Lecture in Austrian Studies.

Lecture, Ancient History Research Seminar

Lecture

Evenement

In her teaching, University Lecturer of Ancient History Liesbeth Claes uses various digital tools. Using that experience and interest she started an innovation project in order to research which digital skills history alumni need on the labour market and how these skills can be implemented in the cu…

Florian Herrendorf has won the Fruin Prize 2023. His thesis was chosen out of 11 nominees as the best master's thesis in history studies.

On Saturday 16 April, secondary school pupils will once again have a chance to sink their teeth into the hardest language-related questions during the final of the Linguistics Olympiad. Professor Sasha Lubotsky and PhD student Cid Swanenvleugel are both former Olympiad winners. Now they are involved…

In December 2023, Louise van der Vlugt was announced as Co-Winner of the 'Best Thesis in Jewish Studies' Award. She sat down to answer some questions about her prize-winning BA Thesis.

The theme of the Heritage Open Days Leiden on 10 and 11 September is sustainability. At four University locations guides will talk about the history of the buildings and how they have been renovated. And there is a first: tours in sign language.

After a process of more than two decades, the new Greek-Dutch dictionary was presented on Wednesday 5 June. University lecturer Lucien van Beek acted as manager of this project headed by Ineke Sluiter for the last nine years. He is also one of its editors-in-chief.

Markus Altena Davidsen was 'extremely happy' when he heard that he and his colleagues had been awarded a grant from the KNAW pilot fund for science communication. Together with partners from all over the country, they are working on a book that should inspire secondary schools to renew their education…

What did medieval scholars think of the books they read? In her inaugural lecture, Professor Mariken Teeuwen will talk about the texts they wrote in the margin.

Eight scientists from Leiden University have been awarded a grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). With this Vidi funding, the researchers can set up an innovative line of research and further expand their own research group over the next five years.

A celebration was held in the Tabú restaurant: Mark Rutgers, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, was presented with the first copy of LEAP, a journal where Humanities master’s students can prepare for an academic career by publishing articles themselves.

Egyptologist Marleen De Meyer has been appointed the new Director of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC). Dr De Meyer has worked for the institute, which promotes Egyptian, Dutch and Flemish collaboration in the field of education and research, since 2016.

Six projects from the Faculty of Humanities recently received grants of up to 750,000 euros from the NWO Open Competition. Researchers involved tell how they will spend this money.

The Young Academy has gained a new Leiden humanities scholar as a member. University lecturer Greek language and literature Tazuko van Berkel will be appointed as a member as of March.

The Plants & Planets exhibition brings two worlds together in a dazzling mix of science, nature and art. It opens at Old Observatory Leiden and Hortus botanicus on 7 February.

Glorious sunshine, dozens of enthusiastic academics and huge numbers of Leiden residents ensured that this year’s special jubilee version of 3 October University was a great success.