The Voices of Africa platform is ten years old and has just recently won the annual popularisation prize of the Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics (LOT). High time for a chat with Jenneke van der Wal, Maarten Mous and Nina van der Vlugt about the importance of the platform and plans for the…

Lecture, Lunch Research Seminar

Satrio

Fadly Rahman is a PhD candidate at the Institute for History. His research examines the role of local networks within the global botanical research network of Plantentuin Buitenzorg during the colonial and early postcolonial periods.

Dr. Ritanjan Das is a university lecturer in contemporary South Asian politics at the Leiden Institute of Area Studies. His primary research and teaching interests are in the fields of political economy of development and political anthropology in India and South Asia. He has conducted extensive ethnographic…

Emma is a lecturer at the BA International Studies programme at Leiden University-Campus The Hague. She teaches first-year to third-year courses. Before joining academia, Emma was a social development worker for more than a decade. She took on roles in research, publication, advocacy, network coordination,…

Arthur Crucq is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. He lectures about topics such as art and anthropology, art theory, representation and style, regarding fields as diverse as architecture, ornament, painting, sculpture and textiles. In recent years he published…

Felipe Colla de Amorim is a PhD candidate at the Institute for History. His research investigates the role of Latin American actors in shaping the global order, as part of the Invisihist Project (“Challenging the Liberal World Order from Within: The Invisible History of the United Nations and the Global…

Emmanuelle Radar is Assistant Professor in contemporary French and Francophone literature(s) and culture(s) (20th-21st c.) at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society.

Coen van 't Veer is a university lecturer at the Centre for the Arts in Society. He specialises in (post)colonial literature and history, especially that of Indonesia. He focuses on how colonial strategies of inclusion and exclusion still permeate our post-colonial society. From colonial literature…

Nira Wickramasinghe is Professor of Modern South Asian Studies at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies.

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,…

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.

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.

Bart Verheijen is an Assistant Professor in Colonial and Global history, with a main research interest in the political culture and the development of national identities in the early nineteenth century in Europe and The Dutch Indies. He completed his PhD on Napoleonic history in 2017 and since then…

Cecilia-Louise von Ilsemann is a scholarship PhD candidate at the History and International Studies Section, Institute for History, Leiden University. Her research focus is on Southeast Asian state’s foreign policy behavior in the contemporary American-Chinese great power rivalry. She researches foreign…

I am a South African IR scholar whose research interest is questioning Western-centric narratives and making sense of international relations from the perspectives of the global South, particularly Africa. Before joining Leiden University in 2017, I was based at the University of Cape Town, where I…

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.

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.

South Korean smash hit Squid Game is on track to becoming the most successful Netflix production ever. The series is number one in over 90 countries. Professor and Korea expert Remco Breuker can see why South Korean pop culture is becoming so popular, also outside Asia.

The new Cluster Zuid building is progressing steadily. The glass roof over the atrium has been installed and the window frames are being fitted. The future locations of the offices and classrooms are also becoming increasingly visible. See Stijn Poelstra's photo report below.

Erik de Maaker wrote a monograph on how Garo, an indigenous community of the extended eastern Himalayas, experience and negotiate such disparities. The book shows how relatedness is reinterpreted as religious practices change, and communally held land ends up being privately controlled. Erik de Maaker…

Lecture

Glenn is a researcher from Costa Rica that has developed his career in the sustainability field. He holds a bachelor degree in Chemistry from the University of Costa Rica and a master of Sustainability from the University of Sydney, Australia.

There has been good progress with the new South Cluster construction through the summer months. All the door and window frames are now in place, the building will soon be wind and watertight and the interior finishing has already begun. The work will be completed in the months ahead, with the building…

In the book 'Slave in a Palanquin: Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' Nira Wickramasinghe, professor of Modern South Asian Studies, uncovers the traces of slavery in the history and memory of the Indian Ocean world. She was interviewed about the book in the New Books in South East Asian…

The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, has chosen not to use his presidential compound. Professor Remco Breuker states in Time that this marks a change in South Korea’s approach to the compound.

As part of the final project for the Islam in South and Southeast Asia course (taught by Dr Verena Meyer), students were tasked with creating podcasts that delve into significant cultural and historical topics related to the region. Two students, Roma Bhiekhemsing and Shaneeva Bean, have chosen to share…

For decades, the trade in pocketbooks prescribing how to be a good Muslim flourished in East Africa, but in recent years the number of books in circulation has been declining. University lecturer Annachiara Raia is the recipient of an Impact Explorer grant to revive this tradition, in cooperation with…

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.

Concrete pillars without a roof, windows without glass, storeys without walls. It’s clearly evident that the South Cluster is being dismantled. Take a look at the photos!

The construction work on the South Cluster is going ahead throughout the summer. See the photo's and the video below!

Niels Schoubben is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project “The Silk Road Language Web” (PI: Prof. dr. Michaël Peyrot). As a linguist-cum-philologist, he studies the written remains of extinct Central Asian languages in order to uncover words and grammatical patterns borrowed from one ancient language…

Martine Bruil is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.

Peter Bisschop is Professor of Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies. He is a Sanskritist and cultural historian of ancient India, with particular interest in the development of Hinduism and related traditions. His research is philological in…

Attention to the colonial past may be increasing, but many aspects of it are still underexposed. Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, in collaboration with, among others, Leiden researchers Anne-Marieke van der Wal-Rémy and Alicia Schrikker, therefore created a 'Canon of the Dutch Underexposed Past', which…

I am an Assistant Professor (Universitair Docent) of Islam in South and Southeast Asia at the Leiden Institute for Area Studies. In my work, I draw on ethnographic field research, training in contemporary critical theory, and literary studies in Javanese, Malay, and Arabic to investigate questions of…

Carolien Stolte is Associate Professor of History at the Institute for History. She specializes in modern global history with a regional focus on South Asia.