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.

Anthropologist Marja Spierenburg talks in the Dutch newspaper NRC about the neoliberal system and how it has to change in order to solve the energy crisis in South-Africa.

Israel was ordered to take steps to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza. Giulia Pinzauti, an expert on state conflicts and humanitarian law, explains the significance of the case, the specific details of the ruling and what we can expect to happen next.

On the occasion of the conferral of an honorary doctorate to children’s rights activist Graça Machel, a fund has been established that will enable two female students from South Africa to come and study in Leiden.

University Lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe commented on the BBC regarding Donald Trump’s plans to exclude South Africa from the G20.

Lydie Cabane, Assistant Professor in Governance of Crises at the Institute for Security and Global Affairs, recently published the book The Government of Disasters. In this book Lydie explores how the South African state bureaucracy reacts to disasters.

In the seventeenth century, stereotypes about Africa and its inhabitants became deeply ingrained in European culture. PhD candidate Matthias Lukkes is going to investigate the role played by Dutch culture in this process.

The jury of the Africa Thesis Award is delighted to announce that the 2024 prize has been awarded to Baleseng Maeneche, a graduate of the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at the University of the Western Cape, for her thesis 'Media Representations of Male Perpetrators of Violence against Women and Children:…

Under the title “New insights from old collections”, the archaeological research was introduced on the Museum’s news page.

Leiden University will deepen its cooperation with knowledge institutions in Africa. During a trip to Ghana, a delegation spoke with several African knowledge institutions about intensifying their collaboration.

PhD defence

Bachelor, Master

Baleseng Maeneche (University of the Western Cape) has won the Africa Thesis Award 2024 with a master's thesis on media representation of male perpetrators of violence against women and children in South Africa. Her research challenges dominant narratives and emphasises the need for fair media representation…

Van Vollenhoven Lecture 2025

The jury of the Africa Thesis Award is delighted to announce that the 2025 prize has been awarded to Yonwaba Matshobotiyana of the University of the Free State, South Africa, with a thesis on Black women's poetry in South Africa.

Two MEPs visited Leiden University on Friday 30 January. Their visit underscored the vital importance of the university’s expertise on Africa, Asia and Latin America in a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape.

Lecture, COGLOSS Seminar

Mozambican politician and child rights activist Graça Machel will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University for her commitment to the rights of women and children in Africa and elsewhere. She will be awarded the honorary doctorate on the Dies Natalis, the University’s foundation day, on 8…

Lecture, Book Talk

Leiden University and four other Dutch universities will appoint 51 PhD candidates to conduct solution-oriented research for and with the African continent.

The Leiden African Studies Assembly (LeidenASA) held its Annual Meeting on 12 December. LeidenASA is the network of Leiden based Africa-researchers. Fifteen researchers gave pitches on their projects, and sketches of Leiden University's Africa strategy were outlined.

North Korea is generally thought to be an isolated country. But, according to PhD candidate Tycho van der Hoog from Leiden’s African Studies Centre, the opposite is in fact the case. North Korea actually has strong alliances with countries in southern Africa. Van der Hoog is trying to shed more light…

Western countries still tend to view Africa as the periphery, says anthropologist Mayke Kaag. In her inaugural lecture, she calls for a shift in perspective: to see Africa as a mirror of global developments.

The winner of the Africa Thesis Award 2023 is Rachel Dubale, a graduate from the Research Master in African Studies at Leiden University, with her thesis “They think we can eat the condominium”. Chronicles of Economic, Social and Political Practices in Addis Ababa’s Condominiums.

At the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), scholars have been studying the Indian subcontinent with attention and expertise for more than 100 years. This part of South Asia is an economic giant with a population of over two billion. Nira Wickramasinghe, Professor of Modern South Asian Studies,…

The renovation of the South Cluster has been in full swing over the recent period. As the completion date approaches, no later than 1 April, we're excited to provide you with a glimpse of the current state of the building.

Describing almost 1400 maps of Africa in three months. It’s no small task that student assistants Artemis Mantheakis and Beatriz Veiga have been working on within the joint ASCL-UBL Africa Maps Project. The project’s aim is to describe and catalogue a 20th-century map collection of the library of the…