Access to education for people from the lower socio-economic class has improved immensely in Europe from the 1950s onwards. Yet the Roma and Sinti were unable to reap benefits from this. PhD candidate Anita van der Hulst researched why so few Roma and Sinti went on to higher education. PhD defence on…

The 50th Top 450 entry has now been published. In the run-up to the university’s 450th anniversary, we are compiling our Top 450. What is your favourite?

Open to students and staff of Leiden University. In this workshop we will delve into the long tradition of political posters for Palestine. In the seventies and eighties, the Palestinian Liberation Organization regularly commissioned Palestinian, Arab, and international artists, building an impressive…

Rachel Beckles Willson, Professor of Intercultural Performing Arts at ACPA in Leiden University and Codarts in Rotterdam, will launch her new book, The Oud: An Illustrated History, and perform a concert with guest artists Emine Bostancı and Nizar Rohana. The concert will present a wide range of styles…

On 25 and 26 October 2024, the first biennial symposium Environmental History in the Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries is scheduled to take place at Leiden University. This symposium, organized by the Research School for Medieval Studies and Leiden University in collaboration with Flemish colleagues,…

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

Dr. Brackney is a modern European intellectual and cultural historian with a Ph.D. from Yale University. Before coming to Leiden, she held postdoctoral teaching posts in the History & Literature program at Harvard University and the Pozen Center for Human Rights at the University of Chicago.

Geert-Jan Janse has always been fascinated by the way objects can bring the past closer. On 16 November, he will present a Museum Talk about his work as the director of the Vereniging Rembrandt (Rembrandt Association).

When discussing the history of Islam, the focus is almost always on the history of the Sunni majority. University Lecturer in the history of Islam, Edmund Hayes wants this to change. His new ERC-funded project , focuses on the development of the early Shia community.

Webinar: ‘An Introduction to the Arabic Language History and Origins’ Date : Monday, July 10, 2023 Time : 12:30 – 13:00 hrs Location : Online via Teams Link to the webinar: Click here to join the meeting Meeting ID: 355 470 657 667 Access code: hdpXi9 Download Teams | Join on the web

The tenth International Conference on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the Pacific will be a special edition with a focus on reconciliation. The fatal shooting in 1722 will be remembered, when the Dutch shot and killed ten Easter Islanders. The conference will be held in Leiden from 19 to 24 June.

What do the cloth trade and slavery have to do with each other? Quite a lot, as it turns out, as by history student Sjoerd Ramackers demonstrated in his bachelor’s thesis. He reveals that cloth merchant Daniel van Eijs was closely associated with four plantations in Berbice, a former Dutch colony on…

Historians recently started preliminary research on Leiden University’s role in colonialism and historical slavery. Our knowledge about this is too limited and fragmented. They are looking with fresh eyes at Leiden’s archives and collections. An interview with historians Alicia Schrikker and Ligia G…

The opening of the new academic year highlighted students' and lecturers' personal motivators. Incoming students were encouraged to be bold, forge their own paths and grow by trial and error.

In September 2013 I moved to Leiden from the UK to take up the position of Assistant Professor covering politics and international relations on the BA Russian Studies and International Studies programmes and the MA Russian and Eurasian Studies.

Since ancient times, humans have lived and even prospered in the arid regions of South Arabia, where the pre-eminent factor limiting life is water. What kinds of strategies did people in the past use in order to deal with the scarce water resources? How did they interact with a natural environment that…

Lecture and Exhibition

Arts and culture

Lecture, Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar

Lecture

The Shahnama or Book of Kings is one of the most famous works in Persian literature. This extensive epic poem in verses was written over a thousand years ago but remains very much alive in the Persian-speaking world to this day, particularly in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. Leiden University Libraries…

Inaugural lecture

Inaugural lecture

Film screening and Book Launch

Monique Koemans werkt sinds 2,5 jaar op de Nederlandse ambassade in de Verenigde Staten. 'Leiden is een opvallende rode draad in mijn leven.'

Lecture, Workshop

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…

In the Spanish town of Guadalajara, there is a street named ‘Burgemeester Fluiterstraat’, named after a descendant of Leiden migrants who had done well in the South. He was not the only Guadalajara resident with Leiden roots: at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a stream of Dutch textile workers…

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

Prof⁠.dr⁠. A⁠. Lubotsky dr⁠. G⁠.J⁠. Kroonen

If it is up to university lecturer Evelien Walhout, in a year's time we will know exactly what people from Haarlem and Zwolle died of a century ago. Together with colleagues from other universities, she started the doodsoorzaken.nl platform, where causes of death are recorded. ‘Somewhere around the…

The French political theorist Hélène Landemore has been appointed as the new Cleveringa Professor. She will deliver her inaugural lecture on 26 November.

It was a remarkable trend in 19th-century London: middle-class bourgeois bohemians falling in love with anarchism and its assassins. University lecturer Michael Newton has been awarded a NIAS subsidy to reconstruct the lives of three of these families.

Lecture, China Seminar

Prior to arriving to Leiden, Dr. Abazon completed her Ph.D. at Yale University's Department of Comparative Literature, where she also taught courses ranging from Introduction to Zionism to World Cinema.

A cannon, a sabre, guns: these Sri Lankan objects had been in the Rijksmuseum for centuries. In early December, they were returned to Sri Lanka. Associate Professor of Colonial History Alicia Schrikker led the research that formed the basis for the restitution and published a volume on the findings…

Using enslaved people as servants, becoming an administrator in the Dutch West India Company or making uniforms for the colonial army. Many people from Leiden played a role in colonialism and slavery. Historians are conducting preliminary research and finding striking examples.

Expert in Classics Renske Janssen has been awarded a Rubicon grant. She will use the grant to conduct research at the University of Edinburgh into how Roman law was perceived by society at the time.