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Cody Bahir defended his thesis on 1 June 2017.

English The purpose of this research is to identify and examine the challenges faced by African States in the field of foreign investment with a view to contribute not only to the academic debate, but also to foster awareness and develop the capacities of these States with regard to the drafting, negotiation…

This centre brings together the research of the members of the Institute of Philosophy and affiliated academics whose work focuses on the history of philosophy broadly conceived. Research interests range from ancient to near-contemporary philosophy in various regions of the world, and cover all subdisciplines…

Team History of Africa and the Americas

Assesses the importance of Merleau-Ponty to current and ongoing concerns in contemporary philosophy.

While Nietzsche's works and ideas are relevant across the many branches of philosophy, the themes of contest and conflict have been mostly overlooked. Conflict and Contest in Nietzsche's Philosophy redresses this situation, arguing for the importance of these issues throughout Nietzsche's work.

If you want to maintain a valid penal system, you have to continue to ask the big questions on punishment. Why do we punish people? What is permissible for the government and what is not? Philosopher of Law Jeroen ten Voorde examines these kinds of questions and keeps his academic colleagues and the…

This master’s programme introduces the student to philosophical issues concerning the foundations of law, politics, and policy. This master’s programme is meant for students who wish to combine a master’s in Law, Political Science, Public Administration, or an adjacent discipline with master’s coursework…

The Great Rift Valley in Africa is a real treasure trove for discovering early human fossils. The fossils found in this part of Africa have determined our view of human evolution. But was the Great Rift Valley really the place where evolution took place or just a place where fossils are well preserved…

Study information, Online Experience

The Institute for Philosophy at Leiden University is host to the NWO programme,

This project investigates the causes of the major archaeological change in the period of 40.000-20.000 BC in South Africa.

The studies outlined in this volume explore how connectedness continues to change Africa and how Africa continues to shape the social life of connections.

VODAN Africa started as a platform to enable access to critical data needed from Africa to fight the novel COVID-19. The initiative was inspired by the experience from the Liberia Ebola Virus outbreak in 2014: early detection requires contact tracing. Inclusion of the most vulnerable is critical to…

Festschrift for Prof. Dr Raymond H.A. Corbey in celebration of his 70th birthday

The Leiden University Network for Health in Africa (LUNHA) aims to shift the focus of global health to be more about justice, fairness, and inclusion.

On the 16th of September, Bert van Pinxteren successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Bert on this achievement!

How can party bans be justified? Which parties were banned in post-war Europe – and why? Do militant democracy instruments work? Is an international militant democracy concept in the making?

History of Africa and the Americas

Across cultures, parents help their children master the social and linguistic codes needed in adult life. Recent research on language socialization found important cross-cultural differences, pointing out the need for more diversity for a full understanding of this process.

This monograph by Robert Ross provides a detailed narrative of the Kat River Settlement in the Eastern Cape of South Africa during the nineteenth century.

Nietzsche’s concept of the agon or Wettkampf, a measured and productive form of conflict inspired by ancient Greek culture, has attracted a good deal of interest in Nietzsche studies and beyond. This book, by a leading expert on the topic, brings together research conducted over 20 years with a focus…

While self-driving cars and autonomous weapon systems have received a great deal of attention in media and research, the general requirements of ethical life in today’s digitalizing reality have not been made sufficiently visible and evaluable.

Nietzsche says

How to interpret the concept of truth is a much debated topic in the history of philosophy. The issues related to truth involve language, reality and their correspondence relations.

Across cultures, parents help their children master the social and linguistic codes needed in adult life. Recent research on language socialization found important cross-cultural differences, pointing out the need for more diversity for a full understanding of this process. Deaf communities form…

This research project seeks to understand the dynamics in the relationship between social media, mobile telephony and the social fabric under duress in Africa's mobile margins. It combines studies on mobility/migration, conflict and communication in an attempt to uncover these new dynamics, which have…

The aim of the project is to contribute to the process of archive formation ongoing in Post-Apartheid South Africa through the inclusion of photographs that have been either unacknowledged or excised from the national canon.

This dissertation offers a reconstruction of the propositional contents of the writings of Karl Popper, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt while bringing these into discussion with their performative meanings, such as polemical forms of reasoning, analogical and metaphorical uses of language, and hidden…

In this book, Lydie Cabane examines the history of disaster management in South Africa.

This project aims at providing a broad perspective of the state of Science Technology and Innovation (STI) in Africa with a focus on global funding flows, in order to inform research funders in the continent, in particular those participating in the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI). The project…

This project will study the influence of Arabic, Iberian, and Italian representations of Africa, as well as the impact of local African knowledge, on Dutch imaginations which were public in nature, and thus affected a shared European understanding of African alterity.

This project uses archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence to investigate urban development in Roman-period North Africa, compiling this in a GIS-linked database in order to analyse the development of urban settlement spatially over time.

This programme starts from the idea that cultural discourse is one of the main engines of intellectual history and the history of ideas.

Africa is seen as a potential leader in green hydrogen production for domestic consumption, export and greening industry. One key barrier to realising this potential is the mismatch of skills between those required by industry and the capability of local workforces.

In recent years, and especially since the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, a growing body of research, media reporting, and scholarly literature has focused on the role of ‘Arab youth’ as the drivers of social and political movements across the Middle East and North Africa.

Unlike the predominant and excessive focus on the problems of food production and food insecurity in Africa, this project views African culinary tradition as a vibrant and rich cultural heritage, intertwined with language use.

After years of being housed in the Matthias de Vrieshof 4 building alongside the Witte Singel, the Institute for Philosphy will move to the Reuvensplaats 3-4 in August.

Southern Africa has a rich tradition of social history, one inspired by the tumultuous changes that have regularly convulsed the region from the 1780s onwards. Scholars have always sought to understand what these changes meant for everyday life and emphasised a perspective of marginal groups, how these…

This book presents an introductory survey of the major themes, thinkers and texts, philosophical genres and profound insights of the Chinese philosophical tradition. Its coverage ranges from the foundational history of Chinese thought in the 6th–5th centuries BCE up to the present day.

In this dissertation I argue that the proto-daoist text the Zhuangzi and the ethical relation of Levinas are fruitful resources to reconsider the self-other relation in comparative philosophy.

This book offers readers an alternative history of the origins of the discipline of International Relations.

COUNTERRR examines domestic responses to jihadist armed groups in Africa, analyzing variation in state repression, community resistance, and the evolution of security across Mali, Nigeria, and Mozambique.

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…

On 1 September, Susanna Lindberg will start as Professor of Continental Philosophy at Leiden University. Lindberg will teach and research in the areas of continental philosophy and the relationship between technology and humanity.