The 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to French writer Annie Ernaux (1940). In an explanation, the Swedish Academy praises Ernaux 'for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory'.

How to understand the simultaneously dis- and reappearance of letters in contemporary culture, and how does this Neo-Epistolarity relate to media-technological change?

The Swahili coast has a long-standing history of transoceanic Islamic connections dating back to the 25th century. Yet, print, has changed the world – not only ours. This project unravels unique forms and archives of intellectual history emerging from within South-South connections. In East Africa Indian…

On 1 May, Casper de Jonge will be appointed Professor of Greek Language and Literature. ‘Greek literature did not come from Athens alone: authors from Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor also wrote in Greek.’

From 17 to 19 September, the University of Granada organized the 27th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (SELIM).

'Consider languages in their shared context.' That is the message of Professor and Arabist Beatrice Gründler, who will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on 8 February. ‘I would like people to learn that Arabic history has a close connection with Europe.’

From 6 to 9 May the Law's pluralities conference was held at the Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen. Highly interdisciplinary in the areas of literature, art and law.

Reading & Panel Discussion

Whether implicitly or explicitly, we all have ideas about how the law is supposed to function, whose interests it should represent, and what role it should play in society. This project explores the ways in which these questions are addressed in the works of the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus…

In Renaissance Florence, humanists wrote Latin poems fashioning their city as the new Rome, and members of the Medici family as Roman rulers. How can we explain this practice?

Philosophy alumna Naomi Rebekka Boekwijt returns to Leiden University on 20 June to present her latest novel Stemmen (Voices) in Plexus. ‘I wanted to show that things could be done differently in psychiatric care.’

The fragmentary is everywhere: we encounter fragments in social media (Tiktok, Twitter), in personal memories from our childhood, and in traditions from our cultural heritage.

Quietly read a book in our new reading nook, listen to interesting and bizarre stories set in early twentieth-century Leiden, walk past literary locations in Leiden and watch the best film adapted from a Leiden novel as decided on by you. April is Literary Leiden month! A month in which we pay special…

As Scaliger professor, Erik Kwakkel is responsible for the academic context of the complete Special Collections of the Leiden University Library. His inaugural lecture on 15 May will focus mainly on the section closest to his heart: Medieval books.

Joost van den Vondel is considered to be the greatest Dutch poet and playwright of his time, but he certainly wasn’t the most popular. The 17th- and 18th-century public preferred to watch ‘Spanish theatre’. University lecturer Olga van Marion has written a book about this, together with Frans Blom (University…

Every month a member of the Institute for History tells about a book that inspired him or her. Afterwards, the pen is passed on to another colleague. This month dr. Robert Stein tells about the book 'La Vérité sur l'affaire Harry Quebert' by Swiss writer Joel Dicker. It is not so much the whodunit that…

Spycraft, by professor Nadine Akkerman and Pete Langman has been selected by History Today and The Economist as one of 2024’s best books

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

Lecture

It was long thought that the early development of Japanese children's books served mainly as a propaganda tool of the state: the literature was supposed to have been written to shape children into perfect citizens. PhD student Aafke van Ewijk nuances this image. Children's book writers wanted to have…

At the invitation of the Centre for Early Christianity and Its Reception (CECIR), Peter Liebregts, Full Professor of Modern Literatures in English (LUCAS), visited the University of Kent in Canterbury from March 17 to 20, to give a lecture and a masterclass.

At the end of the fifteenth century, two intriguing Christian epics were written in Virgilian Latin by the poets Sannazaro and Vida. They did so in accordance with the wishes of the pope. These epics, both praised and criticized by contemporaries, are often seen as innovative for their specific combination…

Emma de Vries, PhD researcher at LUCAS, has been awarded with a Fulbright Grant and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Scholarship. From September 2015 onwards, Emma will spend a full academic year in the Unites states, to work at UCLA and Harvard on her PhD research on Neo-Epistolarity.

The Ancient Worlds Network brings together staff and graduate students in LIAS working on the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world.

Hifadhi ya Dijiti ya Ustadh Mau

Since 1 January Leiden has a new graduate school. The Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA), previously based at the University of Amsterdam, has moved to the Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS).

This project investigates the full ecosystem of Middle Dutch prayerbooks in order to answer questions about their role in – and impact on – religion, culture, and society in the late medieval Low Countries.

Nadine Akkerman has received a subsidy of two million euros from the European Research Council (ERC) for research into 16th and 17th century English manuscripts. Akkerman: ‘Working with handwritten texts and unravelling their mysteries is one of my passions, and it’s especially rewarding when this work…

Bredero (1585-1618) was known for his farces and comedies, but he also wrote one tragedy. According to Olga van Marion and Tim Vergeer, the play's main protagonists Rodd’rick and Alphonsus were not competing for the love of a lady, but were in love with one another.

The city centre of Leiden is covered in them: wall poems. When roaming around, you come across poetry written in the Latin alphabet, but also in scripts that might be more difficult to understand for the average person living in Leiden. In a new series of videos, Tijmen Pronk talks more about this.

Who doesn't love to turn on a horror film on a rainy evening? Fortunately, it is only fiction - or is it? According to university lecturer Evert Jan van Leeuwen, modern horror says more about our society than we think. He has been nominated for the Klokhuis Science Prize for his research into addiction…

Lecture

Lecture

Women behind the front play an important role in a large proportion of Iranian novels, written on the Iran and Iraq-war (1980-1988). But their martyrdom is an uncommon theme. Saeedeh Shahnahpur will give a lecture on this subject on 16 February.

Professor Peter Bisschop has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. He will invest the 2.5 million euros in his research into puranas: ancient texts, commonly written in Sanskrit, that are up to fifteen hundred years old.

What is the name of the medieval Persian poet Nezami (✞ ca. 1209) doing on the cover of an Eric Clapton rock album? Asghar Seyed Gohrab, associate professor at the Institute for Area Studies, talks about it in a new blog for the Leiden Medievalists Blog.

Lecture, Lunch Time Talk

'How do you write a slogan to win an election?' Steven Ooms answers this question in his PhD research into ideas about good prose in the time of Caesar and Emperor Augustus. This period is considered a high point for the development of literature. The Roman Cicero and the Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus…