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…

Catia Antunes is a Professor of History of Global Economic Networks at the institute for History.

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.

Dr.(mult.) Andrew DJ Shield is Assistant Professor of Migration History, and affiliated with the interdisciplinary research project “Social Citizenship and Migration.” He is the chair of Leiden’s LGBT+ Network. Shield specializes in sexuality, race, and diversity in Europe since 1945. He holds two…

Elisabeth Dieterman is a PhD candidate at the Institute for History.

Pieter Slaman is Leiden University's university historian, with support of the A.E. Cohen Foundation. He is also a specialist in the history of education. His book ‘De glazen Toren. De Leidse Universiteit 1970-2020’ covered the institutional and cultural developments at Leiden university since the 1…

Joost Augusteijn is Senior University Lecturer at the Institute for History and Programme Chair of the BA International Studies and the Joint MA European Politics and Society.

Miko Flohr is a lecturer in Ancient History studying the social and economic history of the Greco-Roman world, with a special interest in urban commerce and everyday work in Roman Italy, particularly in Pompeii, Ostia and Rome. Educated as a classicist, and with a Ph.D. in archaeology, he teaches on…

Lionel Laborie is assistant professor at the Institute for History.

Bart van der Boom is university lecturer at the Institute for History.

From Galileo Galilei to Albert Einstein and from Anna Maria van Schurman to Anton de Kom: only a selection of the 25 authors who's books and ideas had extraordinary historical impact, in some cases even to this day. Leiden University Libraries and the National Museum of Antiquities jointly present the…

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…

Patrick Dassen is a guest at the Institute for History.

Jacqueline Hylkema is Assistant Professor of Cultural History at Leiden University College and Senior Scaliger Fellow at Leiden University Libraries’ Scaliger Institute. Her research focuses on forgery in early modern print culture, particularly in the Dutch Republic and Britain. Hylkema is currently…

Hans Mol is Professor Emeritus by Special Appointment of Medieval Frisian History on behalf of the Fryske Akademy at the Leiden University Institute for History.

Maarja Seire is a PhD student at the Institute for Area Studies.

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.’

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.”

Johan Visser is a PhD candidate at the Institute for History.

At the Dies Natalis Willem Otterspeer, Professor Emeritus of University History, presented the fourth and final volume of Groepsportret met Dame, his series on the history of Leiden University. De 'Strategie van de Aanpassing' covers the period 1876-1975. Otterspeer talked about his book in a podcast…

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…

Alistair Kefford is a historian and urbanist. He is a specialist in the development of cities and society in the modern era. His current research focuses on the rise of real estate development and its far-reaching impacts on cities and citizens all over the world. He is chair of Leiden's Urban Studies…

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?

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.

Damian Alan Pargas is Professor of the History and Culture of North America at Leiden University and executive director of the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies in Middelburg. He is mainly specialized in the history of slavery and its aftermath.

Eefke de Haan is a dual PhD candidate at Leiden University Dual PhD Centre. Working title:

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…

Gert Oostindie is Professor Emeritus of Colonial and Postcolonial History at Leiden University and former Director of the KITLV / Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies.

Giliam de Valk is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. He is specialized in methodology of intelligence analysis. He wrote his PhD on the Quality of Intelligence Analysis [2005] and is currently focusing on the methodology on how not to miss threats.

Three new initiatives will provide a more diverse view of Leiden’s academic history, literally and figuratively: a historical study on the background of students and scientists, a new book about the Academy Building, and two new sculptures of female scientists, Ewine van Dishoek, Professor of Molecular…

Adam Fairclough is Professor Emeritus of American History at the Leiden University Institute for History (Leiden University Chair of the History and Culture of North America, from 2005 to 2016).

Henk den Heijer is Professor Emeritus in Maritime History at the Leiden University Institute for History (chair from 2010 to 2015).

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…