Alicia Schrikker, Director of Research at the Leiden University Institute for History shed light on the importance of preserving archives of natural disasters. Her lecture titled History, Memory, and Archives of Disaster looked at the 1883 Krakatoa eruption through archival records of the colonial government…

The central aims of this project are to establish the shapes of the various urban hierarchies existing in the provinces of the Roman Empire and (especially) to use the quantitative properties of these hierarchies to shed new light on levels of economic integration.

This project investigates how early print media covered distant but urgent geopolitical conflicts, using newspapers from the Low Countries, north and south.

The thesis reconstructs Carl Schmitt's 1956 monography on 'Hamlet'. By scanning and unearthing books, essays, think-pieces, articles, personal diaries and private correspondence, this investigation fully addresses the unwritten philosophy of history -partially developed- in Schmitt's late thought. The…

The main question of this research project concerns the extent to which light verbs in West Germanic languages participate in processes of language change.

This special issue of Contemporary Levant critically explores, at a micro and macro level, the structural role and religious, cultural and political interactions of the Greek-Orthodox, Melkite and Syriac communities in late Ottoman and Mandate Syria and Palestine.

D.P. Kok defended his thesis on 10 October 2017

This project investigates language choice and language use among Swiss mercenaries in the VOC and in the Dutch Colonial Army.

Since my master's thesis on the landed property of the Frisian monasteries in the Middle Ages I am highly interested in the do ut des-aspects of the relation between religious houses and the lay world. Key words here are: property, power, patronage and the role of religious institutions in the 'salvation…

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

On 4 and 5 November 2021 an ICOG-workshop will be held on the cognitive turn in history. It is possible to attend this workshop online. The participants of the workshop are cultural and intellectual historians of the pre-modern periods and/or of the historiography of academia from a long-term perspective,…

The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration provides a complete exploration of the prominent themes, events, and theoretical underpinnings of the movements of human populations from prehistory to the present day.

This dissertation, Layered Loyalties: The Natuurkundige Commissie in the Netherlands Indies (1820-1850), studies the Natuurkundige Commissie.

Slavoj Žižek is one of the most prominent public intellectuals of the left. His central claim holds that “today, it is more crucial than ever to continue to question the very foundations of capitalism as a global system”.

Does the political context (e.g., democracy vs. authoritarianism) influence what makes people perceive authorities as legitimate?

This project sets out to map, document and analyze instances of squatting in Leiden from 1970 to 1990, in order to set up an online Digital Archive of Squatting in Leiden. This archive will function as an online resource for academic research, as well as a starting point for public activities such as…

Ariadne Schmidt, Isabelle Devos and Julie de Groot provide you with refreshing insights concerning the study on urban singles in the period between 1200 and 1900.

What was the environmental impact of the industrial mining revolution that transformed southern Africa? Specifically, what was the impact of industrial mining when viewed from a more than human multi-species perspective?

KIGS is a research project on communication patterns in the social sciences and humanities. Counting of publications and citations are common methods to measure international scientific impact. Based on citation analyses, various calculation methods and indicators have developed in recent years. However,…

This programme aims to identify the intellectual contexts that were of importance for the architectural theory of the period, and especially to clarify the relation of architectural theory to primitivism.

Why did 'character', 'habit', and 'virtue' serve as key terms in late 19th and early 20th-century scholarly correspondences, biographies, and obituaries? Why did scholars around 1900 display so much interest in the working habits and character traits of what they called the 'scholarly self'?

‘Islam and Muslims are not something that happened to Europe; they are part of Europe. In fact, Islam is one the biggest constants in European history,’ argues Professor Maurits Berger in the new eight-part History of Islam in Europe podcast series of the Leiden University Faculty of Humanities.

In this article, Ben de Jong, research fellow at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, examines the relationship between double agents and their handlers.

This study is an attempt to reconstruct the muted violent past by breaking the monopoly of the Turkish state over the memory of the Armenian genocide.

Due to an overwhelming amount of enthusiasm for Touching Treasures: The History of Photography, another workshop will be organised on 13 May 2019, from 15.00 to 17.00. There, the Beyond Content thematic program will continue in the Vossiusroom at the Leiden Univerisity Library (UBL). The workshop will…

The underwater world around present-day Indonesia has changed greatly in recent centuries as a result of human activity. University lecturer Johannes Müller has been awarded an NWO XS grant to map the history of the Indonesian ecosystems.

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…

Vijf jaar na de overhandiging van ‘A History of Russian Law’, overhandigde emiritus hoogleraar Ferdinand Feldbrugge op 16 januari het tweede deel van zijn unieke overzichtswerk aan decaan van de Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid Joanne van der Leun.

The project GRADIENTS investigates what it meant to be European in colonial Africa where identification as European often did not depend on skin colour and was understood on a spectrum with many gradients.

Volume 4 and 5 of the Leiden series 'Dutch Sources on South Asia' are now available, written by Markus Vink (vol.4) and Carolien Stolte (vol.5).

The Institute for History of Leiden University seeks to expand its academic staff by appointment of a university lecturer with teaching and research expertise in the field of Medieval History. Deadline: 20 January.

The Department of Art & Culture, History, and Antiquity of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is seeking to appoint an Assistant Professor (tenure track) in Medieval History. Deadline for applications: July 5.

The Yearbook for Dutch Book History publishes Dutch and English-language articles on the book history of the Low Countries in all time periods. For the 31st edition of the Yearbook, to be published in 2024, we welcome in particular contributions concerning the theme ‘Controversy’. Deadline: 1 March…

How did nineteenth century scholars evaluate each other and each other’s work through more or less informal practices of peer review?

This project contests the assumption of criminologists that gender differences in recorded crime are static over time and that women are in general less likely to commit a crime than men.

The production of history is a process of power. This is particularly relevant in Africa, where during both the colonial and the post-colonial era history has been written by hegemonic regimes. This historiography has in turn (re-)produced structures of domination, social exclusion and division.…

On Thursday 29 January 2026 Uğur Derin successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The book on Turkey. A Modern History written by Professor Erik-Jan Zürcher, Professor of Turkish Studies, is now available in nine different languages. Arabic and Polish versions have now been published.

Carmen Gonsalves has been the Dutch ambassador to Chile since this autumn. She studied history in Leiden. How useful has her degree been and what’s it like to be an ambassador? ‘Diplomacy is fascinating.’ We spoke to her just before the presidential elections.

The Department of History and Art History externe link at Utrecht University is looking for a candidate for the PhD-project “The (R)evolution of Reconstruction: an analysis of digital facsimiles”. This project analyses the value of digital facsimiles for researchers, heritage institutions, and museum…

The Executive Board has appointed Herman Paul (Institute for History) as Professor of History of the Humanities. He will take up the role from 1 January 2019.

In the eighteenth century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) housed its enslaved people on ‘Slave Island’ in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Today ‘Slave Island’ is under serious threat from property developers. Senior lecturer Alicia Schrikker, together with her Sri Lankan colleagues Iromi Perera…

Bernhard Rieger leaves University College in London to research European History after 1945 at Leiden University. He will start as professor of European History on January 15th 2018.

The revolutionary organizations in Paris and Berlin around 1848.

The University of Groningen is looking for an Assistant Professor in Medieval History. The deadline for applications is: 14 February 2021.

Numismatic research of Roman coin hoards in the Netherlands. The use of numismatic sources is incorporated in Claes’s research project “Dialogues of Power”. This project aims to analyse the legitimising dialogue between Roman emperors and their Germanic legions during the so-called “crisis of the third…