LIAS aims to advance the globally conscious vision of area studies, both within and outside the academic community. Focusing on Asia and the Middle East, the institute is a meeting place of multiple fields of inquiry, theories and methods, historical periods, and areas.

Saeedeh Shahnahpur defended her thesis on 13 September 2016.

On the 2nd of July, Axel Palmér successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Axel on this achievement!

A linguistic test of hypotheses rooted in genetics and archaeology.

This is the first reference work to describe the history of embroidery throughout Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent from the medieval period through to the present. It offers an authoritative guide to all the major embroidery traditions of the region and a detailed examination…

On the 20th of April, Chams Benoît Bernard successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Chams on this achievement!

On 8 December, Leiden University Press will present a new international series on Persian poetry and literature. The series will be edited by Asghar Seyed Gohrab (Middle Eastern Studies).

Protests have been raging in Iran for two months since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The role of social media in the protests against the Iranian regime should not be underestimated, says Senior Assistant Professor and Iranian Babak RezaeeDaryakenari.

On 29 February there appeared a column by Maaike Warnaar in the Volkskrant on the Iranian elections.

Hester Bijl, the Rector Magnificus of Leiden University, was handed a ‘shockingly long list’ of names of missing Iranians in her office at the Administration and Central Services department on 13 December 2022.

Conflicting reports about an airstrike on a school in Iran are causing international concern. Helen Duffy, Professor of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights was asked to clarify states obligations under international law. In Euro News she called in for a swift and independent investigat…

Neither technology, nor Pan-Islamism, but only the codification of law could prevent Iran from falling even further behind the Western world. So wrote the 19th century intellectual Mustashar ad-Dowla in his tract Yak Kaleme. The translation of this work was presented in Amsterdam on 8 December.

Area studies is an approach to knowledge that starts from the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present, through the relevant source languages, with central regard for issues of positionality.

On Wednesday 20 November 2024 Sara Mirahmadi successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Women behind the front play an important role in a large proportion of Iranian novels, written on the Iran and Iraq-war (1980-1988). But their martyrdom is an uncommon theme. Saeedeh Shahnahpur will give a lecture on this subject on 16 February.

The Ancient Worlds Network brings together staff and graduate students in LIAS working on the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world.

This project intends to provide an integrated linguistic assessment of the hypothesised migration route of the Tocharians.

On Tuesday 11 June 2024 Olivia Ramble successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On the 13th of April, Federico Dragoni successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Federico on this achievement!

The Layered Heart : Essays on Persian Poetry is published in celebration of the poet and scholar Dick Davis, dubbed “our pre-eminent translator from Persian” by The Washington Post.

Stella Morgana defended her thesis on 31 March 2021

Jeffrey Kotyk defended his thesis on 7 September 2017

On Thursday 21 November 2024 Jake Benson successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

A linguistic reconstruction of the migration of the Tocharians from Europe to China

A linguistic prehistory of the Tarim Basin in Northwest China

LIAS is comprised of three research schools with expertise in different areas:

This book presents an in-depth grammatical description of Kumzari, a mixed language spoken in remote villages on the Musandam Peninsula in northern Oman.

Dialogue is a multi-dimensional communication mechanism whose processes can only be examined by means of an interdisciplinary approach.

Contacts between Tocharian A and B and Khotanese and Tumshuqese, four languages once spoken in today’s Xīnjiāng Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China, lack a comprehensive treatment and are still a controversial topic. This work contains the first systematic investigation of the matter from a…

President Trump believes that Iran’s economy is collapsing, and that this will leave Iranians no choice but to surrender to the demands of the United States. But these expectations might not come true, says Arash Pourebrahimi at the website of the Harvard Kennedy School.

This thesis discusses the development in Proto–Indo–European, Latin and Romance of a word–formation pattern which the most adequate terminology in use dubs ‘verbal government compounds with a governing first member’; I use the shorthand ‘pickpocket compounds’.

Set up in 1991, this unique project aims to identify and describe the common lexical heritage of the most important Indo-European languages and language branches. The project has thus far resulted in twelve volumes published as The Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series (Brill, Leiden).

On the 6th of November, Niels Schoubben successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Niels on this achievement!

On 24 January 2023 Tobias Jones successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.