On 1 January Minna Valjakka was appointed Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory from a Global Perspective. Valjakka sees her appointment as 'extremely topical' because of the discussions about the decolonisation of the arts: 'Art teaches us not just about art, but also about contemporary…

ACPA Professor of Auditory Culture and Music Philosophy Marcel Cobussen and ACPA PhD Supervisor Vincent Meelberg are, together with composer and Simon Fraser University Professor Barry Truax, editors of the recently published Routledge Companion to Sounding Art.

Modern scientific discovery increasingly depends on High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems that combine traditional processors with specialized accelerators such as GPUs.

Research in and through art is an inseparable part of the artistic or design practice of the researcher. Consequently, research-in-art (as opposed to research-about-art, such as art history) does not have a set goal or expected result, nor are there predetermined general procedures. The outcome of the…

The recent rise in global migration movements and the simultaneous attempts to prevent migrations to the Global North in general and Europe in particular have produced numerous images and narratives that try to record and convey these events and their actors.

Democratic citizenship refers to the capacity and willingness of citizens to actively influence the functioning of state institutions. While considered a vital correlate of democratization and the rule of law, its largely western-oriented literature rarely studies the forms of democratic citizenship…

Many students dread writing a thesis. Master’s student Laura Robustella's practice-based thesis shows that it is well worth the effort. She developed an art exhibition based on her master’s thesis.

There’s a change of staff at ACPA. The institute is bidding farewell to Professor Janneke Wesseling and welcomes Anke Haarmann, who is not only a new professor, but will also take over Wesseling's responsibilities as Director of PhD Arts. In this interview we look back and ahead with them.

The short film Alma & Esperanza , directed by Itandehui Jansen, a PhD candidate (directing supervisor Professor Dr. Kitty Zijlmans) of the Leiden University Academy for Creative and Performing Arts, has been selected to the Short Film Corner of this year’s edition of the Cannes International Film Fe…

This collaborative project aims to explore the history of the concept “barbarism” in Europe from the 18th century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the role of literature and art in the concept’s shifting functions.

This doctoral trajectory explores sound, its image and its role in relating humans and our technologies to the environment.

Where in the model of contemporary art, which can be described as a hybrid and joint undertaking between artists, institutions, curators, theory and discursivity, is the actual 'object' of art located and generated? Where and by whom and in what configuration of positions is it produced? Who or what…

Steven Frost defended his thesis on 6 June 2017

The second and final volume of this co-authored study has just been published by J.B. Metzler. This second monograph explores the history of the concept of barbarism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

This doctoral project by artist and educator Luiz Zanotello engenders a postcolonial understanding of time, space and movement by means of artistic research methods. The project examines the contradictory effects of the abyssal line of thought within the tropics as a starting point.

How does a Leiden alumnus end up working at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met)? In the case of Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide, it was partly down to chance, luck, fate. But that was preceded by a unique degree in decorative arts in Leiden.

For all the artworks that Riccardo Giacconi creates, he begins by conducting extensive research. He discovered three stories about rebellious characters that were transmitted through unofficial channels: as characters in puppet shows or in folk tales. He translated the three stories into three cycles…

Bruno Munari (1907–1998) was a prolific and influential artist, designer, and writer. Alessandro Colizzi’s study is the first extensive, detailed record of Munari’s graphic design production, and as such provides a substantial base for a full understanding of his oeuvre.

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.

How can we view societal challenges from a different perspective? At the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), Robert Zwijnenberg, Emeritus Professor of Art and Science Interactions, will call for more collaboration between artists and scientists.

The subject of the research is ‘difference and repetition’, an area which bears a direct relationship to Wjm Kok’s practice, in which the production of work always emerges and passes through series.

A new outreach initiative for the communication of artistic research!

Astronomer and Marxist Anton Pannekoek was a remarkable figure. This book aims to study the connections between his life as a socialist theorist and as a pioneering scientist through the prism of Pannekoek's biography.

In his Inaugural lecture of February 10th Prof. dr. Henk Borgdorff advocated positive understanding of artistic research, of reasoning in and through art, within academia.

This study links up the concept of place with memory, with the idea of transience and the transition from life to death.

On 16 May 2023, Jan Aart Scholte presented research on the Regional Internet Registries to the annual conference of GIG-ARTS in Padua.

On Thursday 12 October 2017 Janneke Wesseling will give a lecture as part of the Studium Generale Programme at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

For twenty years, the Art History study programme had its own journal, the highly successful Decorum, which was written and edited by students. When the last editor left, the magazine ceased publication. Now, more than 20 years later, it’s time for a new Art History journal.

Heloisa’s doctoral research examines classical music performance from a curatorial perspective, reflecting upon and challenging the traditional configuration of performance environments.

Even as a teenager Asa Splinter was determined to study Japanese in Leiden. A HAVO diploma and a change in legislation threatened to throw a spanner in the works, but Asa persevered. After ten years of studying, Asa obtained a master’s degree in Japanese and was nominated for the IHLIA thesis award…

What was the relationship between women and modern media in different parts of Asia in the 20th century? Under what historical and social conditions did women achieve prominence in popular music in Asia?

On January 25th, artist Jonas Staal will defend his dissertation which explores the development of propaganda art from the 20th to the 21st century.

Students who also want to develop their artistic talents can take a year-long art class – Practicum Artium – at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. ‘I can express my creativity and am learning to approach subjects in a visual way.’

A successful series of lectures on interior design, a symposium on four-poster beds and a new series of study afternoons on the horizon. University lecturer Alexander Dencher knows how to hold the attention of a growing audience. How does he do it? And what makes the history of interior design so fa…

Come to the Night of Arts and Science in Leiden 's historic city centre on 17 September. You can enjoy music, interactive experiments, theatrical plays, lectures, modern dance, comedy and much, much more. Many of the activities are in English.

In Humanity’s End As A New Beginning, Emeritus Professor Mineke Schipper reflects on myths about ‘the end’.

This research will investigate which aspects of On the sublime received attention in the intellectual milieu of the seventeenth century and how the sublime found its way in the political and artistic discourse of that time. Thus I aim to shed light on the role of art in politics and society in this…

Geometrical patterns serving as decorations do more than just that; they always have a meaning, according to art historian Arthur Crucq. Doctoral defence 17 May.

This project investigates the transposition of natural historical material, knowledge and vision, between different media (collection, scientific drawing, academic texts, the visual arts and/or literature) – a transmission that happens in the borderline between the traditional, emblematic worldview…

The subject of this thesis is Alverata, a twenty-first-century typeface whose design was inspired by the shapes of Romanesque capitals such as those found in inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

An artwork by Guy Livingston has been chosen to launch into space and be exhibited on the International Space Station.

On the 22nd of April, Liszt Vianna Neto successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Liszt Vianna Neto on this achievement.

This dissertation deals with Hegel’s theory of the sublime (das Erhabene). I focus specifically on die heilige Poesie (sacred poetry), a form of art that he identifies with the Judaic Psalms and which I claim to be the core of Hegel’s approach to sublimity. I claim that Hegel’s apparent lack of interest…

The transformation of the myriad of medieval kingdoms, principalities, local lordships, city-‘states’ and peasant ‘republics’ into ‘modern’ states, claiming some measure of sovereignty, remains one of the core themes of European history, because it gets down to the very root of the (idea on the) Europe…