Wearing All Stars and ‘just’ a pair of jeans, with a backpack slung over his shoulder. It was an informal Friday afternoon with Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, at Wijnhaven. Perched on a desk, he took questions from students in the audience.

Horses were first domesticated in South-West Russia, is the conclusion drawn by an international team of researchers writing in the well-respected journal Nature. Their conclusion resolves a longstanding archaeological question. But, surprisingly enough, this domestication did not contribute to the…

Leveraging a clause in Dutch law that forbids the police from entering a place of worship when a service is ongoing, a local church in The Hague held a non-stop, 24/7 worship service that lasted for three months. It did so to shelter an Armenian family seeking asylum and facing deportation by the Dutch…

PhD defence

Last Thursday the Dutch House of Representatives held a debate on children being put into care when the childcare benefits scandal (toeslagenaffaire) had caused problems for their families. Four Leiden University academics were asked by the House to produce a fact sheet for this debate, bringing together…

Shiru Lim has been working at the Institute of History as an assistant professor since August 1, 2023. Below she introduces herself.

What defence strategy should the Dutch government adopt for the next four years? Our experts advise investing in social resilience, strengthening ‘soft power’ and integrating defence awareness into education.

Dr Mamadou Hébié, Associate Professor of International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, served last week as legal counsel in the world’s first advisory proceedings concerning climate change before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), on the one hand, and…

Isaac McKean Scarborough has been working at the Institute for History as a lecturer since September 2021. Below he introduces himself!

The chance that it will do so is about zero, but Russia is legally obliged to investigate violations of law during the war in Ukraine. States that enter into an armed conflict often deny liability, but under international humanitarian law and human rights they are obliged to investigate their military…

Lecture, Food for Thought

The 4th Environmental Humanities LU talk will take place on Friday, June 2, 15:15-17:00 in Huizinga 0.06. Our guest speaker for that day is Miriam Meissner (Maastricht University) who will talk about her work on degrowth:

We are delighted to host a screening of a selection of short films by designer and researcher Simone Niquille, of Amsterdam-based technoflesh Studio. The screening will be followed by a Q&A & discussion moderated by Dr. Rodrigo Ochigame.

We are excited to announce the inaugural seminar of a new series, Radical Spotlights, a collaboration of the Society for Economic Anthropology (SEA) in the AAA and the Network Anthropology of Economy in the EASA.

Lecture, Research Seminar

In this talk, leading Vietnam scholar and Leiden University professor Jonathan London delves into the striking evolution of Vietnam over recent decades, showcasing its transition into a market-Leninist state and emergence as one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Drawing on his decades of…

Bureaucrats appointed based on merit are not necessarily more professional or autonomous than those who have been, for instance, ‘politically installed’. Furthermore, patronage does not only have negative effects. These are two conclusions reached by Abdul-Nasir Abubakar, PhD candidate at Leiden University’s…

Northern Yemen; a highland region often in the news as the center of the Houthi regime, has a political, social, and intellectual history spanning more than a millennium. This exhibition showcases some of the findings of the Early Modern State Development in Yemen project, based at Leiden University,…

All Leiden University students and staff are welcome to attend.

The excuses for the slavery past? It would have been better if the cabinet had taken some more time on that, thinks university lecturer and Atlantic slavery expert Karwan Fatah-Black. 'Too bad they didn’t wait for the results of the study.'

Lecture, Lunch Research Seminar

All are welcome, however please register in advance at l-peg@hum.leidenuniv.nl to receive a copy of the paper and lunch.

Despite its pervasive reputation as a place of religious extremes and war, Afghanistan has a complex and varied religious landscape where elements from a broad spectrum of religious belief vie for a place in society. It is also one of the birthplaces of a widely practiced variant of Islam: Sufism.…

EDGES Talk

A fragmented political landscape, permanent pressure from current affairs and an increasingly political civil service: our government faces many challenges. This makes it all the more difficult to make important decisions about pensions or the climate. Research and good education can help meet the challenges…

Inaugural lecture

This paper revisits the ways Hong Kong’s existential crises have been articulated and theorized since the 1980s up to the present moment. The discourses on Hong Kong society and its internal logic of cultural production have always been cast under the shadow of disappearance and death. Yet if the slow…

Historians of philosophy/political thought/ideas ask two main kinds of questions: (1) empirical questions (e.g. what Hobbes meant by "reason", why Hume wrote what he wrote, and who influenced Locke), and (2) philosophical questions (e.g. how Hobbes's ideas fit together, and how convincing Hume's arguments are). The…

Students for Palestine – a group of students from Leiden and The Hague – are holding a panel discussion in the Leiden University in The Hague Wijnhaven building on Tuesday 24 May entitled ‘Silencing Palestine’.

Alumni event, Lezing

What is the effect of a certain regime on a country’s migration policy? Political scientist Katharina Natter compared the migration policy of autocratic Morocco with that of democratising Tunisia. Her findings challenge some of the core assumptions.

Leiden University will be conferring three honorary doctorates in its special anniversary year. They will be awarded to Eliot Higgins, truth finder and founder of Bellingcat, Bonnie Honig, expert in feminist theory and legal theory, and Kelly Chibale, professor of organic chemistry, who works on prevention…

There is a real chance of war closer to home, political and military leaders in Europe have warned. What does Frans Osinga, Professor of War Studies, think about the threat and what we should do?

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.

PhD defence

PhD defence

Prof.dr. G.J. Abbink Prof.dr. M.O. Hosli

PhD defence

Prof. dr. I.B. Smits dr. Y. Horsman

PhD defence

In a packed Stadsgehoorzaal, philosopher and Member of the Senate Daan Roovers delivered the 54th Huizinga Lecture. It was a passionate plea for a form of politics thatt is not only about winning, but also about talking and playing.

Last week Russia and Ukraine met for the first time since the outbreak of the war. The talks took place in Belarus.

Do you know what the capital of St Eustatius is? Or which province Curaçao belongs to? No idea? You are not the only one: the majority of European Dutch people know little about the Caribbean islands within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This is according to a large-scale opinion survey led by political…

Indigenous populations in Latin America have historically been understood as ethnic/cultural minorities in need of accommodation within the dominant culture and political system of the nation-state. Far from passive subjects of high politics, indigenous populations have been active actors in the political…

Lecture, Workshop

Migration, globalisation, technological developments, climate change: the greatest challenges of our time all affect our labour market. But how exactly? And can we influence this? Professor of Economics Olaf van Vliet regards it as his job to reveal how things really are. ‘That way, we can work on solutions…

Lecture