The perception of the Middle East is riddled with stereotypes that have had dire consequences on its people. What is myth and what is reality? How did these stereotypes come about? What consequences have they had? All of these questions and more are answered within this reading list.

On April 22, Lasse van den Dikkenberg defended his dissertation: Living with Flint. For this, he examined flint finds from the Rhine-Meuse Delta. These finds belong to the Vlaardingen culture, which existed here from 3400-2500 BC. His research revealed that import played a larger role in the Neolithic…

On 11 June 2025, the MA in International Relations (MAIR) Programme convened its 2nd Humanities & IR Graduate Conference at The Hague Campus (Schouwburgstraat), welcoming over sixty participants from twenty institutions in Europe, North America, and Asia.

Take a walk through any city, and you are likely to come across a brightly coloured mural. Although these paintings often seem to serve solely as a backdrop for Instagram snapshots, art history professor Minna Valjakka says there are rich traditions and intricate histories that uncover more critical…

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.

Nadine Akkerman's book Spycraft, which she co-wrote with historian of science Pete Langman, has garnered top publications, with reviews featured in The Telegraph, Literary Review, The Spectator, History Today, and the Times Literary Supplement.

The Leiden Research Profile Area Political Legitimacy organizes a public symposium on the 12th of May 2016 on the legitimacy and future of the Dutch Senate.

The Executive Board of Leiden University has appointed Dr Tom Louwerse as Professor of Political Behaviour and Research Methods at the Institute of Political Science.

Laura Doornkamp, PhD candidate at FGGA, is organizing a symposium on the role of gender representation and gender stereotypes in Dutch secondary education. The symposium will take place on 23 November from 19.00 – 21.30 hours at Wijnhaven. Five questions about the symposium.

On December 4, 2024, Prof. dr. Sarah Cramsey gave a short lecture before a film at the Czechoslovak New Wave Film Festival in Rotterdam. The festival was expertly organized by Ms. Hana Schenkova, the Director of the Czech Centre in Rotterdam, and featured more than a dozen films from Czechoslovakia…

Open Mic

Lecture

In an article by the New York Times, cultural heritage law specialist Evelien Campfens discusses the difficulties surrounding the ownership of looted art.

Conference

Lecture

Lecture, Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series

During illness, the stiffness or viscosity of cells can change. Tom Evers demonstrated this by measuring such properties of human immune cells for the first time. ‘The stiffness of certain cells could be a way to make a diagnosis,’ Evers said. He defended his thesis on March 26th.

Gijs Zebregts had just graduated from International Studies when he was stricken with acute leukaemia. A stem cell donor brought relief. Now he is going to cycle from Florence to Rotterdam to raise money and awareness for the donor bank.

Do you know what to do if a rubbish bin catches fire, a student takes ill or a colleague falls off their bike? Our emergency responders do. They are ready to evacuate buildings, fight fires and offer first aid. Why not join the team?

‘Children’s rights are somewhat of a poor relation’, says Professor of Law and Health Mirjam Sombroek-van Doorm. In her inaugural lecture, she will emphasise how more attention needs to be paid to children’s rights in current thinking on law and health.

Behind the relatively stable income inequality in the Netherlands, big changes have been happening. Income inequality has increased over the past 40 years, but less sharply because women in lower income groups have begun working more. In contrast, men’s income has increased very little over the past…

How are you doing in these strange and unprecedented times? This is the question we are asking our colleagues in this series of articles. This time we asked Erick van Zuylen, the University beadle. 'This year, I haven't been leading the PhD committee into and out of the chamber, wielding my beadle's…

Why does a medicine work well for one person, but cause side effects in another? Research by Laura de Jong shows that it’s not just our DNA that matters – other medicines and illnesses can also affect how our bodies respond.

Leiden researchers Arko Ghosh and Enea Ceolini analysed the usage data of hundreds of mobile phones and discovered that our body has rhythms ranging between 7 and 52 days. These cycles influence how we behave. Their research resulted in an article in npj Digital Medicine journal, a Nature Portfolio…

Online webinar

Lecture, CMGI Brown Bag Seminar

In the course 'From Ceramics to Plastics: The Mediterranean in 12 objects' students were taught to work with 3D scanning technologies. One of the underlying reasons to introduce students to this technology was to teach them to reproduce objects. ‘More and more archaeological information is stored in…

For decades it was thought that the family system of the ancient Egyptians was very similar to our own. However, PhD candidate Steffie van Gompel explains that the reality is somewhat different. ‘In Egyptian families, it was often the eldest son versus the rest of the children.’

Getting young people excited about history is quite possible without books. Researchers from Leiden travelled to Morocco to work with schoolchildren on reconstructing cultural heritage in the popular video game Minecraft. The result: one virtual 14th-century city gate – and 20 teens with a greater appreciation…