Festival

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe has won the American Historical Association John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History for her book Slave in a Palanquin. Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' (Columbia University Press: New York 2020).

On 1 January Minna Valjakka was appointed Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory from a Global Perspective. Valjakka sees her appointment as 'extremely topical' because of the discussions about the decolonisation of the arts: 'Art teaches us not just about art, but also about contemporary…

Finds uncovered in the east of Germany show that Neanderthals stored and preserved vast amounts of meat and/or temporarily aggregated in larger groups to exploit the spoils

That it was students who started the protests in China against its zero Covid policy makes things more dangerous for politicians. China expert Frank Pieke explains the role of students in China, what makes the protests unique and what might happen next.

Salvador Santino Regilme, Jr. Associate Professor of International Relations and Program Chair of MA in International Relations, has been honored with the Cecil B. Currey Book Award for 2023. The accolade, presented by the Association for Global South Studies (AGSS), recognizes Regilme’s exceptional…

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded an Advanced Grant to six Leiden researchers. It awards these significant grants to established principal investigators for ground-breaking, high-risk research.

LUCSoR is happy to welcome Verena Myer, researcher and lecturer in Islam in South and South-East Asia to the staff. In this interview she will discuss the course she is teaching, as well as her upcoming book.

On 15-16 June, Jos Gommans, Marieke Bloembergen, and Carolien Stolte will organize an international conference entitled “India in the Making of the Global Esoteric: 1200-2000”. The conference asks: why is it always India that has been imagined as a wonder, and what did that wonder mean, intellectually…

PhD candidate Alex Tutwiler, from the Faculty of Archaeology, has received a grant from Archol, via the P.J.R. Modderman Foundation, to investigate how child labor shaped the bones of Dutch children between the 17th and 19th centuries. Using CT scans, she aims to build a more comprehensive picture of…

Lecture

Lecture, VVIK lecture

Movie Screening | SSEALS

More than 40 years ago, a wrecked merchant ship was found in the Wadden Sea. PhD student Geke Burger looked at this archaeological find from a historical perspective.

Minuscule elementary particles from space colliding with Earth can give us an insight into the distant objects they come from. But first, you need to know how to catch them. With a Vidi grant from NWO, researcher Sjoert van Velzen will 'hunt' for neutrinos coming from exploding black holes.

Generations of Leiden students and academics have done archaeological research into the early medieval history of Oegstgeest. This makes this old settlement one of the best-documented sites from that era. In a new book Leiden researchers take stock.

Rosalien van der Poel has worked in every nook and cranny of the university over the past thirty years. Now she is stepping down as institute manager of the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) to enjoy her retirement. Last year, we spoke with Rosalien about her career.

Lecture

Lecture, Digital Archaeology Group

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

An alumnus who wishes to remain anonymous has endowed a named fund to support Dr Miriam Müller’s historical and archaeological research on the earliest periods of Egyptian civilisation.

Conference

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…

Every year, an NWO PhD in the Humanities grant is awarded to a prospective PhD candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology. This year, the grant went to Maia Casna, enabling her to study respiratory disease in the past. ‘My hypothesis is that the rapid formation of cities in the medieval Netherlands, must…

Mohammad Bin Khidzer recently joined the Institute for History as a Postdoc, as part of Fenneke Sysling's ERC Starting Grant project COMET: Human Subject Research and Medical Ethics in Colonial Southeast Asia. Below he introduces himself.

As from Wednesday 13 May, the Faculty Office has moved to the Herta Mohr Building.

Lecture, LAC Asia Academy

In a new study published in PLOS One, Leiden archaeologist Anastasia Nikulina, together with an international team from France, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, challenges the long-held belief that early humans had minimal impact on their environment before the rise of farming.

Conference

When we talk about the Kingdom of the Netherlands, it is not just about the Netherlands. On the contrary: our Kingdom consists of no less than four countries, three of which are Caribbean islands. This structure is complex, to say the least. Although all countries are officially equivalent, in practice…

Now that war is once again raging in Europe, the question of when you need to stand up against injustice has become more relevant than ever. In his Cleveringa lecture on 24 November historian Gert Oostindie will discuss why colonial domination was not regarded as an issue in Leiden for a long time.

It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing of our former colleague dr. Karin Willemse, who passed away on Saturday 18 March 2023.

Professor Ian Lilley, the Faculty of Archaeology’s Willem Willems Chair in Archaeological Heritage, was invited by Her Excellency Mrs. Marion Derckx, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Australia, to present the 2022 commemoration speech for Netherlands Memorial Day on May 4th at the Netherlands-Australia…

Dutch artist and visionary David Humbert de Superville (1770-1849) was the founder and first director of the Print Room at Leiden University. An exhibition and symposium are now being organised in his honour. What makes him so remarkable?

Lecture, Digital Archaeology Group

The Research Network of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency (FRANET) commissioned Aleydis Nissen and Rik Raedschelders to write the 2022 report on Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Belgium.

Research

For long, the government showed little empathy for military veterans with physical or psychological scars. This is what PhD research by Theo van den Doel has revealed. The Ministry of Defence looked at each case through a legal lens. Veteran support has improved enormously since, but the policy does…

In 2024, Professor Joanita Vroom received a substantial grant from the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) in support for her Hinterlands of Medieval Chalcis Project (HMC Project) in Greece. PHI, a California-based non-profit organization, is dedicated to archaeological research as well as to the preservation…

Ancois de Villiers, PhD candidate at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, received the PeerJ Award for Best Student Presentation at the International Mediterranean Ecosystems Conference.

Ivonne Koomen

Lecture, Com(parative) Syn(tax) Series

Lecture, LIAS After-Lunch Talk Series

Debate, BASIS The Hague, Universiteit Leiden

On February 10, 2026, emeritus Professor Dr. Takamitsu Muraoka (1938–2026) passed away, one day after celebrating his 88th birthday. From 1991 until his retirement in 2003, he held the chair of Hebrew Language and Culture, Israelite Antiquities, and Ugaritic at Leiden University.

It is with the greatest sadness that we have learned of the unexpected passing of Emma de Rijke. Emma was a student in the MA Asian Studies, having finished the BA China Studies just before she enrolled in the MA program in February 2024.

How do you compare the living environment of Dutch dairy cows with that of Masai cattle in East Africa? And how can we reverse biodiversity loss? These questions are central to CurveBend, an international research consortium in which ecologist Michiel Veldhuis plays a key role.

An evening program in the University Library and Middle Eastern Library in Leiden for everyone who has something to do with the Middle East; from Tajikistan to the Mahreb and from Istanbul to Sanaa. View the oldest books and clay tablets from the collection and listen to the most fascinating stories…

This year, LUCIS adapted the programme of its popular annual Middle Eastern Culture Market into an evening version, featuring a lecture, book discussion, and music.