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.

The Academic Language Center Leiden offers Korean language courses at various levels and customized Korean language training. The courses are practical in nature: focused on the use of the language. More information can be found here >

The Master’s in Korean Studies at Leiden University offers a unique opportunity to conduct graduate level research, on various aspects of pre-modern and contemporary Korea, and to spend a full academic year at a university in South Korea.

If you really want to understand East Asia, you can't overlook Korea. At the Bachelor's programme Korean Studies at Leiden University you will discover a fascinating mix of age-old traditions and modern customs through intensively studying culture, history and language.

On some Sunday evenings the NVIC is presenting NVICinema. We bring a varied programme of Dutch or Flemish films, Egyptian classics as well as contemporary Egyptian feature films and short films from young talented directors, all with English subtitles.

The Film Studio in Huizinga 0.13 has facilities to record professional videos for a range of educational and/or research purposes.

What makes South Korean films successful? In the first part of the video series 'The World of the Korean Wave', University Lecturer Peter Verstraten discusses the recent success of South Korean cinema.

Four famous alumni introduced their favourite films at Leiden International Film Festival.

The Question of Medium Specificity in Contemporary Moving Images

‘Going Beyond Gender’ reveals how diverse women's experiences and backgrounds can be and how this diversity can affect their opportunities and career in academia. The entire film was recorded in and around the Kamerlingh Onnes Building as well as the Academy Building. The five women featured in the…

Leiden University has made history with its many scientific discoveries; a history that is also illustrated in a variety of books and films.

Do you enjoy a great story? In the Bachelor's programme Film and Literary Studies at Leiden University you study the stories behind the stories. Because what makes a novel fascinating or a horror movie frightening? Study film, literature and media from around the entire world and discover the differences…

Explore the history and theory of photography, film and video in a one-year master’s programme that connects visual media with broader cultural and academic contexts.

This programme video is presented in Dutch

Korea specialist Koen De Ceuster has combined 1200 posters from North Korea in one database. He believes the posters are extremely valuable for researchers who want to make a more in-depth study of this closed country. The database will be launched on 15 June in Leiden.

Are you thinking about studying Film and Photographic Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

South Korean smash hit Squid Game is on track to becoming the most successful Netflix production ever. The series is number one in over 90 countries. Professor and Korea expert Remco Breuker can see why South Korean pop culture is becoming so popular, also outside Asia.

On Wednesday 14 February 2024 Yorum Beekman successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Film screening

If Dutch cinema is examined in academic studies, the focus is usually on pre-war films or on documentaries, but the post-war fiction film has been sporadically addressed.

Show People offers a comprehensive history of the film star from Mary Pickford to Andy Serkis, traversing more than one hundred years and drawing on examples from America, Britain, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

On Sunday, November 9 2025, Prof. dr. Sarah Cramsey presented a film at the “Eastern Neighbors” Film Festival in The Hague.

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Aarts, Prof.dr. J.M. van Ruitenbeek

In Film and Video Intermediality, Janna Houwen innovatively rewrites the concept of medium specificity in order to answer the questions “what is meant by video?” and “what is meant by film?”

Thomas Mes defended his thesis on 9 January 2018.

On 7 September 2023 Didem Durak Akser successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The annual Korean Screen Culture Conference (KSCC) is dedicated to exploring all aspects of Korean screen culture, including television, K-pop, internet, computer gaming, webtoons, and film from both North and South Korea.

Seven prominent North Korean exiles will shed new light on the dictatorial state in a conference hosted by Leiden University on 17 and 18 September. All of the speakers once held high-ranking positions in the regime and now reveal its inner workings.

The greatest threat to the North Korean regime is not the outside world but its own developing private market and the growing frictions at the top. This was the argument put forward by North Korean exile Jang Jin-sung in his lecture in Leiden on 18 September 2014.

In this Ph.D. thesis we study the interaction of low energy electrons with thin materials, namely layered materials (graphene, hexagonal boron nitride, molybdenum disulfide) and organic films. At these low energies the quantum mechanical wavelength of the electron wave function is in the order of a…

The short documentary film was selected to the short film corner of the Cannes Film Festival.

This study aims to examine how South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and Japan, two neighboring countries in Northeast Asia, have been responding to and mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

Film and Photographic Studies master’s students Vanessa and Deirdre created a film programme about the Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon for the Jewish Cultural Quarter. Due to the pandemic, they could no longer hold a physical screening and they decided to move their project online.

The notion of North Koreans as brainwashed and unable to think critically about their heritage and what it means to be North Korean is pervasive. More so, it is untrue, argues Christopher Green: ‘North Koreans, like any other people are diverse in their opinions and self-understanding.’ PhD defence…

North Korean labourers are still being forced to work in the European Union. According to researchers, including Professor of Korean Studies Remco Breuker at Leiden University, Dutch companies are buying ships from a dockyard that uses North Korean workers.

What is the role of technology and cyberculture in Korean social structures and in the potential formation of a new collective subjectivity? How do we reorient disoriented souls?

In her dissertation, Xiao Ma takes education as a lens to reveal the dynamic relations of three groups of South Koreans – parents, students, and educational agencies – to nation-states of both the origin and arrival. Her study shows the temporality and ambivalence of population movements between two…

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…