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.’

The Lucia de Berk case or the suicide of Slobodan Praljak at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: certain trials keep popping up in media. In her dissertation, Tessa de Zeeuw examines the cultural appeal of such cases and analyses artistic responses. ‘Artworks sometimes have…

As an employee of Leiden University, you probably work with or come into contact with personal data. The concept of ‘personal data’ is core to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If you work with personal data, you must be able to explain clearly, comprehensively and in simple language how…

Conference

In a well-filled Telders Auditorium, university learners of Korean competed with each other to see who speaks Korean the best.

Who holds rights to Greenland’s surrounding waters and natural resources? Which interests are at stake and for whose benefit? We put these questions to Hilde Woker, who specialises in the law of the sea in the Arctic.

The Iran war has pushed up fuel prices and raised concerns about a global energy shortage. How well prepared is the Netherlands? We asked two experts.

PhD defence

His Surinamese neighbours in Amsterdam gave Russia expert and economic historian Isaac Scarborough an idea: a re-evaluation of the Surinamese economy in the twentieth century. An NWO XS grant will enable him to make a start on this.

Research

We are living through an age in which social media platforms have given way to entirely new forms of politics and politicking. It is no exaggeration to say: there is a before and after social media.

The page gives an overview of what the Faculty of Humanities offers in the areas of AI and Digital Humanities. 'The Human Digital World' is one of the four key themes with which the faculty profiles its research and education.

Lecture

Inaugural lecture

Festival

Sometimes fascination can lead to in-depth research. Such is the case with Wahyu Widodo, who came across the Islamic Walikutuban ritual in Java in 2019, on which he subsequently wrote his PhD dissertation. Widodo: ‘Besides community, it also breeds political loyalty’

Western countries still tend to view Africa as the periphery, says anthropologist Mayke Kaag. In her inaugural lecture, she calls for a shift in perspective: to see Africa as a mirror of global developments.

MA International Relations: Culture and Politics student Annick van Rinsum created a play as a method to research her master’s thesis. “Through writing this play, I aim to contribute to our understanding of International Relations Theory. I’m specifically interested in the question how our theories…

Stories of resistance in the Second World War are widely covered in Dutch historiography: Hannie Schaft, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, and Professor Cleveringa are some of the best known. But these accounts largely focus on the Dutch domestic perspective. On the other side of the world, a complex colonial…

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.

Literature – and films and social media too – helps us understand ourselves and society. That makes literary studies an eternally modern discipline, especially if you dare to combine it with other disciplines, says Nidesh Lawtoo.

Lecture

To truly understand Dutch literature, we have to look beyond borders. At least, that is the view of Sander Bax. From 1 August, he will be Professor of Contemporary Dutch Literature and Culture in a Transnational Dynamic.

On Wednesday 15 April, two career events for students took place: the Humanities Career Event in Leiden and the Job Fair in The Hague. Together, these events attracted nearly a thousand students who were keen to explore their career options.

Climate and human rights will again become major issues on the world stage by the end of 2023. The new series of lunch seminars by the interdisciplinary research programme Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) seamlessly tie into these events. All Leiden researchers and students are…

Grotius Dialogue

Op maandag 1 april 2024 stierf onze leermeester, vriend en gewaardeerd collega Dr. Alexander Hendrik de Groot (Sander).

Three researchers from Leiden University have been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council. The subsidy will allow the researchers to set up their own projects and put together a research team.

Professor Sjef Barbiers is leaving his job as scientific director of LUCL for the position of scientific director of the Institute for the Dutch Language (INT) from 1 September.

Many of the language rules we use today were formulated in the 17th and 18th centuries. In a dual track at the universities of Leiden and Brussels, PhD candidate Eline Lismont investigated why some rules became successful while other rules were quickly forgotten.