Holocaust scholars Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski will jointly hold the Cleveringa lecture on November 26. They were accused of defamation in Poland for a book they co-edited. How has this affected them? ‘This is an attempt to wear us down.’

Alternative demonstrations were held in Leiden and The Hague on Thursday 14 November after the national protest in Utrecht was cancelled. Leiden University supports these protests, which were organised by WOinActie. Read our live blog of the demonstrations.

Recently, Engin Yüksel gave a lecture on Russian military concepts from 1853 to the present day and his observations on the Russo-Ukrainian war at the Faculty of Humanities, premised on his recently completed doctoral research.

In 1808, the United States banned the transatlantic slave trade. Not everyone was happy about this, as Marcella Schute discovered. In her thesis, she shows how politicians from Louisiana made serious attempts to restart the slave trade in the mid-nineteenth century.

Isaac McKean Scarborough has been working at the Institute for History as a lecturer since September 2021. Below he introduces himself!

Leiden and South Africa have long standing historical ties in the field of mathematics. These ties have now been strengthened thanks to an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (ICM) grant. Four researchers from Pretoria are now visiting Leiden. ‘No matter how good we are at dealing with Teams and…

You speak Japanese, know everything about medieval art or understand exactly what Hegel meant. And then you graduate. Many Humanities students find it hard to enter the labour market. A relevant part-time job can help. Therefore, the faculty has been working together with the employment agency Randstad…

Every year on or around International Women’s Day on 8 March, Leiden University holds its Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture. This year’s lecture will be given by Sylvana Simons, MP and leader and parliamentary chair of the BIJ1 party. What does International Women’s Day mean to her and which challenges…

Over 600 manuscripts and early prints have been made digitally available by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) via the Europeana platform. In the project 'The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages’ (ARMA), seven European heritage institutions added 30,000 digitised medieval items to Europeana’s database…

The impact of war extends beyond destroyed buildings and torn families. In bilingual Ukraine, the ongoing war with Russia is a major driver for increasingly discarding the Russian language. What does this mean for the position of Russian in Ukraine?

Five Leiden research projects in history, law and AI have received SSH Open Competition M 2024 funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The researchers have up to five years to work on a promising idea.

Thirteen Leiden University exchange projects have been awarded an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility grant. The total award of around 450,000 euros will enable 103 students and staff to go on an exchange.

The effects of sustainability projects on poorer, marginalised people should be considered at a much earlier stage. This is the opinion of Marja Spierenburg, Professor of Anthropology of Sustainable Development and Livelihood, who will give her inaugural lecture on 25 February.

Almost 4400 anatomical drawings from the collections of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) are now available through Europeana. The collection shows medical art on paper from the early eighteenth century to the present day. Most of the drawings were created in or around the Leiden University Medical…

Brian Shaev recently joined the Institute for History as a lecturer in International Studies. He introduces himself.

Taking responsibility concerning colonial heritage and restitution is a pressing issue for countries and museums worldwide. On 23 and 24 May, a Leiden University interdisciplinary symposium will explore new perspectives as a basis for policies. Organising professors Carsten Stahn and Pieter ter Keurs…

Suddenly there they were, the Russian soldiers near the border of Ukraine. Since then, reports of tensions between Russia on the one hand and the United States and Europe on the other have dominated the news. What is going on? An interview with Russia expert André Gerrits.

Lecture, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics (CIEL) Seminars

Lecture, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics (CIEL) Seminars

Lecture, Ancient History Research Seminar

Writers are not just storytellers: with their novels, tales and critiques they broaden the social imagination, reflect on societal developments and sometimes put new themes on the map. This can easily lead to a conflict because writers and literati often think very differently about issues such as…

Lecture

Conference

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

Wearing All Stars and ‘just’ a pair of jeans, with a backpack slung over his shoulder. It was an informal Friday afternoon with Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, at Wijnhaven. Perched on a desk, he took questions from students in the audience.

Het college van bestuur heeft Wim Voermans benoemd tot Universiteitshoogleraar. Hij gaat zich richten op duurzaam institutioneel vertrouwen.

Each research institute has its own dynamic. The Executive Board is visiting our institutes to find out what they are up to. On 24 June, it was the turn of the Institute for History. ‘History helps us make sense the present, whether through family stories, local issues or world politics.’

Poland votes for a new president in a first round of elections on Sunday. Lecturer Jan Meijer points out: ‘The result will have a lot of impact on Donald Tusk's liberal government and its plans for reforms.’

How can you persuade researchers who are used to conducting research within clearly defined disciplines to adopt an interdisciplinary approach? Newly appointed distinguished professor Arnold Tukker explained.

Leiden University Libraries holds an internationally unique collection of unofficial poetry from China. Produced outside the System over the last fifty years or so, this poetry is hugely influential yet hard to find beyond the informal networks through which it travels. To address this paradox, the…

Being a student member of the faculty board? Ebrar Kaya fulfilled this role last year as assessor of the Faculty of Humanities. In September, Anne Wellink took over from him. In this interview, we look back and ahead at the assessorship with them.

Seven interdisciplinary projects involving Leiden University academics have been awarded up to €27,000 in seed funding. They will work with Una Europa alliance partners to advance topics including academic freedom, AI in the humanities, sustainable mining and maternal health care.

Research into our history of colonialism and slavery, heart-to-heart conversations at a Keti Koti table, exhibitions, lectures and podcasts that establish the link between present and past. Staff and students participated in the national Slavery Memorial Year in many different ways. What have we learned…

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.

When Floris Harm took up his role as director of the Leiden Asia Centre, he made a remarkable discovery on the university website. It turned out that a past family member was one of Leiden University’s first sinologists.

De Europe Hub verbindt onderzoekers van verschillende faculteiten. Het netwerk biedt hun de kans snel vakkennis uit te wisselen en projecten gezamenlijk te beginnen. Door de hub is een nieuwe minor in ontwikkeling en hij biedt kansen voor onderzoeksfinanciering.

Four projects led by the Faculty of Humanities have been awarded KIEM grants. The researchers will receive €10,000 to carry out their plans.

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.

Students used to live with a landlady or even with the professor whose course they were taking. Student accommodation has since become more professional, making it something the new government will have to tackle. What should the new government do?

In the complex academic playing field, it is crucial that researchers and research support professionals know how to find each other. At Leiden University, these collaborations are indispensable too, say professor Gilles van Wezel and project manager Mariana Avalos Garcia. ‘Without support, this project…

Six Leiden University members of staff recently received the Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility grant for exchange projects with non-European partner universities. The total award of around 357,000 euros is used for approximately 50 international mobilities.

Sarah Cramsey was appointed professor by special appointment of Central European Studies at the Institute of History on 14 September. 'I am keen to incorporate different scholarly approaches into my work and raise the profile of Central European Studies in Leiden.'

Sacrificing yourself for the greater good: in China, martyrdom and hero worship have been strongly encouraged by the Communist Party for the past decade or so. University lecturer Vincent Chang tells us more about this far-reaching development.

Last week, Humanities Lab honours students presented their research through creative posters and pitches at the Capstone Conference in PLNT Leiden. It was a special edition, where alumni and teachers reminisced over the programme’s 10-year history.

What with coronavirus, the American elections and the Brexit botheration, we had almost forgotten that something miraculous happened in 2020: the repressed people of Belarus rallied against dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for 26 years. Months later, what remains of the protest?…

Betty de Jonge is a household name in our faculty. As the person behind AskBetty, she knew how to answer every question about Office. Starting this month, she has officially retired.

Over 20,000 students, lecturers, administrators, support staff and many others protested on 25 November against the plans to make billions of cuts to higher education. Students and staff from Leiden University also travelled to The Hague to voice their objections to the disastrous plans.

Het College van Bestuur laat door een postdoc een eenjarig vooronderzoek doen naar het koloniale en slavernijverleden van de Universiteit Leiden.