What does it mean to be in a Dutch prison? What is true about the prejudices about being in jail? Criminologist Marieke Liem has released a podcast on Dutch national broadcaster NPO Radio 1: Hotel met tralies.

The latest volume of Contributions in New World Archaeology (Vol. 18) has been dedicated to the memory of Dr Andrzej Tadeusz Antczak, an eminent archaeologist and long standing collaborator of the journal. Dr Antczak, who passed away in 2024 after a long illness, was a respected member of Leiden University’s…

Organisation

Lecture

Do we break the silences in our research participants’ stories? When is it ethical to write and not write about what remains unspoken in the social worlds we study? And when we encounter silences, how do we document them? These were just some of the many questions discussed during the vivid and inspiring…

The proportion of professors at Leiden University who are female has risen slightly to 32.0%. These are the results of the Women Professors Monitor 2024 released by the Dutch Network of Women Professors (LNVH). This puts Leiden University above the national average of 28.7%.

Gijsbert Rutten has been appointed professor of Dutch Linguistics with effect from 1 July. In this position, he will focus on language change and language variation, with a particular emphasis on historical sociolinguistics.

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

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.

On 1 June 2022, Maarten Kunst, Professor of Criminology at Leiden Law School, gave a lecture on his research into the effects of the right to be heard on both the defendant and the victim. Victims have certain rights in the Dutch criminal process, including the right to be heard in criminal proceedings.…

Study information, Experience Day

Study information, Student for a Day

Professor Steven Truxal was invited to address the 15th European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) Forum of Directors General in Paris on 6 December 2022.

For an assignment for the course Medical Anthropology, students were asked to choose a theme related to the Covid-19 pandemic, find information and present their work in a creative way. The results are impressive.

The lecture halls in the Lipsius were full of curious secondary school students in January. During a special profile selection afternoon, they were introduced to the faculty and language studies. ‘I had no idea that Hebrew and Arabic were similar.’

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030, an effort to reduce the country’s reliance on oil, may open up new opportunities for Korea. Spearheading the way is Hallyu — the Korean wave, led by K-pop and dramas as a soft power to open new business opportunities in the Middle East, especially…

A course that concludes with a video pitch, instead of a paper or examination: Italian Language and Culture students each recorded their own knowledge clip, speaking to a wide audience about Italian cultural expressions. We asked Goran Bouaziz, Cameron-May Bosch and Katja Timmer what they thought of…

Over the past five years, medical anthropologist Annemarie Samuels has studied palliative care in different parts of the world. Over the next five years, she will focus on end-of-life care in the Netherlands. 'Everyone has the right to good care at the end of their life, but what that means differs…

On 3 September 2025, more than 30 archaeological objects were returned to Peru, Panama and Costa Rica. The objects come from a private collection belonging to the descendants of physician and amateur archaeologist Dr Hans Feriz. In her will, his daughter stipulated that the objects collected by her…

PhD defence

PhD defence

Cut marks on the bones of bears show that people in North-West Europe used bearskins to keep warm 300,000 years ago.

How does audio-visual material shape the identity of people when those people do not own their own land and are being oppressed? Bahar Simsek delved into the effect of film on the Kurdish identity. She will obtain her PhD on 4 May.

When a foreign book is translated for the Chinese market, there is a good chance that not all of the text will make it into the new version. With an NWO XS grant, university lecturer Svetlana Kharchenkova will investigate how foreign authors deal with this censorship.

Master's students Adam El Amraoui, Eesha Sheel, Frieda Chen and Lawrence Kurowski are organising a graduate conference. On March 26, students will gather to ponder definitions of belonging both within Asia and among Asian diasporic communities.

Jaïr van Rhenen studied Medicine in Leiden and is now a GP in the largely religious Veenendaal. Before this, he worked as a tropical medicine doctor in Lesotho. ‘If you have the prospect of an afterlife, you often respond differently to illness.’

Marieke Liem, professor at ISGA, discusses how the number of drug-related murders has not decreased in the last years

As part of a wish fulfilment from Make-A-Wish, Leiden University recently welcomed a very special guest. Together with her best friend, Yuliia participated in a practical session on February 24th, where they studied the brain of a calf.

On Tuesday evening 22 August, our very dear colleague Jo Hermans passed away. Jo had been ill for some time, but continued to enjoy life in good spirits until the very end. He meant a great deal to Leiden University and will be remembered with fond memories by many.

To foster interfaculty collaborations and explore common ground for working interdisciplinary on health-related themes in Leiden and beyond, the Leiden University Medical Anthropology Network has been set up.

PhD candidate Maia Casna received an Incentive Prize from the Dutch Association for Physical Anthropology (NVFA). She was rewarded this honor for her innovative research into respiratory diseases and her talent for presenting her results to both academic and general audiences. ‘It feels really nice…

Roughly arrested and subjected to extreme isolation. Using his experience, expert Jason Bhugwandass spoke to 50 young people who have spent time on Zikos wards (‘very intense, short-term observation and stabilisation wards’). He concluded that they’re ‘mostly locked up’ and leave ‘even more traumatised’…

ICT

Now that it is becoming increasingly easy to digitise texts, it seems almost obvious to do that with everything that has ever been written. University lecturer Verena Meyer thinks that is too simplistic. ‘We need to look more closely at the political and cultural effects of digitisation.’

In a significant step toward restoring cultural heritage, PhD candidate Marie Kolbenstetter has played a pivotal role in repatriating a collection of 133 archaeological artefacts from the prestigious Musée du quai Branly in Paris back to their place of origin in southern Honduras. Her efforts underscore…

From one year to the next, face masks have started to appear in the environment. As the masks are discarded, they end up in the top soil, in sediment layers, and in refuse heaps. In a couple of generations archaeologists will study the layer that has already been labeled the Face Mask Horizon. Current…

Lecture and Exhibition

Film screening and Book Launch

Before coming to Leiden, Dr. Stökl was Reader in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament at Kings College London.

On January 16, 2022, our respected and beloved colleague Prof. dr. Bas Edixhoven passed away after a short period of serious illness.