The Master's programme in History at Leiden University is set to change. From September 2026, three of the five specialisations will be replaced by new subjects that are more closely aligned with the field of research and students’ interests. One of these new specialisations will also be taught entirely…

Fan Lin is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies.

Envoys jumping out of windows, fights, and illegal diplomacy: history student Tessa de Boer encountered them all while writing her master's thesis on Amsterdam as a diplomatic city during the 17th and 18th centuries. For her thesis, she was awarded the Uitgeverij Verloren/Johan de Witt thesis prize…

Jeff Fynn-Paul, lecturer at Leiden University’s Institute for History, was recently awarded the European History Quarterly’s 2016 Prize for his article “Occupation, Family, and Inheritance in Fourteenth-Century Barcelona: A Socio-Economic Profile of One of Europe’s Earliest Investing Publics.”

What are the origins of the Islamic Empire? And what was daily life like there? Two new Ted Ed animations answer these questions in simple language. Arabists Petra Sijpesteijn and Birte Kristiansen explain what the process of developing the videos was like.

Anne Heyer is an Assistant Professor in modern history with a research interest in the ideas and practices of political participation in different European countries (1800-today). She works on political parties, populism, social movements and democracy in Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Britain and Spain).…

Maja Vodopivec teaches several courses in Peace and Conflict Studies track of the World Politics major, and a course in Global History track of the Human Diversity major. Her research interest lies in postwar Japanese intellectual history and peace and conflict studies. Extension number: 8372

Aad van Mastrigt is an external PhD candidate at Leiden University and is working on a thesis entitled: 'Playing with identity: Is Chilean classism destabilizing due to the phenomenon of re-identification? (2002-2017)'

I specialize in modern Japanese history, with particular expertise in Japanse imperialism and the social and cultural history of the 1920s-1940s.

Roos Stolker participates as a dual PhD candidate at Leiden University Dual PhD Centre. Working title: 'Development perspective on shared urban heritage. Transformation of the Latin American city'.

André Gerrits is Professor Emeritus of International Studies and Global Politics.

Fenneke Sysling - Leiden University Institute for History

Willem Zwalve is a professor at the Department of Legal History, associated with the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Law.

Alicia Schrikker doesn't usually get involved in urban history. As a senior lecturer, her research field is generally the colonial history of Asia and partly South Africa. So, the fact that she is going to carry out an urban history research project together with colleagues, is something that even she…

From the First World War until the height of the Cold War, actors from the decolonizing world sought to build connections with international peace movements. These efforts produced new networks and practices of solidarity while also exposing tensions over the centrality of decolonization in global struggles…

Historic and iconic yet expensive and cold. It’s with mixed feelings that the university is leaving the Gravensteen building, which dates back to the 12th century. How was it to work and study in this former Leiden prison?

Hanan Hammad and Eftychia Mylona give a master class focusing on conceptual and methodological challenges in writing histories of marginalized social groups.

Two statues of gorillas abducting women: they were what led PhD candidate Dick van Broekhuizen to write a new type of history of nineteenth-century sculpture. ‘If you view nineteenth-century art history from a less narrow perspective, the narrative changes completely.’ PhD ceremony on 21 June.

Gabrielle van den Berg is Professor of Cultural History of Central Asia and Iran at Leiden University. She teaches courses on the cultural history of Central Asia and Iran. In 2016, she received an NWO VICI grant for her project

Prof. Jan Just Witkam is retired and doesn't have a desk at the university anymore. Please send him an email if you want to contact him. The above mentioned telephone number is the number of the secretariat.

I am a scholar whose research focuses on the modern and contemporary United States. Though a historian by training, my work engages with insights from other disciplines, particularly international relations and American politics. I am currently the principal investigator on the NWO Vidi-funded project…

The Executive Board of Leiden University has appointed Dr Alicia Schrikker as Professor History of The Netherlands in the world, effective 1 January 2026. The chair is based at the Institute for History at the Faculty of Humanities.

Sandra Khor Manickam is a historian of colonial Malaya and Southeast Asia with an emphasis on the history of anthropology, race and medicine.is a historian of colonial Malaya and Southeast Asia with an emphasis on the history of anthropology, race and medicine.

Leonor Jonker (1987) is a historian, author, and artist. She was the scientific curator of an exhibition on the Namibian genocide at the Mémorial de la Shoah, Paris (25 November 2016 - 12 March 2017).

In her teaching, University Lecturer of Ancient History Liesbeth Claes uses various digital tools. Using that experience and interest she started an innovation project in order to research which digital skills history alumni need on the labour market and how these skills can be implemented in the cu…

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…

From the very beginning, the Islam has known an oral tradition. It was only two hundred years ago that Muslims starting writing about the history of Islam, on rocks or other hard materials. Arabic epigraphy (study of inscriptions) turns out to be an essential tool in historical genealogy research. Abdullah…

A shepherd, but also a comparativist and historian with very broad interests. That is how Professor Philippe Buc describes himself. As of 1 August 2021, he will hold the chair of professor of Medieval History at the university. In an introductory interview, Buc introduces himself, his research and his…