On 11 January 2022, the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences opened the new year during a livestreamed reception. Dean Paul Wouters and Executive Director of Studies Kristiaan van der Heijden were the hosts. After several faculty prizes were awarded, our Dean expressed a new year’s resolution…

Orange the World 2025

Exploring logging's real impact: Insights from Anthropologist Tessa Minter in the Solomon Islands.

It is said that robots replace human interaction, but not always. This spring, the robots were the reason why the eLaw Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University in the Netherlands and Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) Law School in Lithuania got together.

Wolves in the Netherlands mainly feed on wild animals such as wild boar and red and roe deer. But in areas such as Drenthe where these are scarce they also prey on free-roaming cattle used for nature conservation

Lecture, LIMS seminar

On 30 April, Prime Minister Mark Rutte was presented with the manifesto of the NWO Youth Challenge, which contains advice for policymakers, scientists and administrators on the empowerment of youth in the time of coronavirus. The manifesto is based on research questions submitted to the science community…

The Dutch universities as a whole are lobbying for a 'normal' academic year from the end of August, where on-campus teaching will be possible. It's a view that Leiden University shares. Rector Hester Bijl talks about what teaching will be like then. She also looks back on a year of lockdown.

After a detour via the ANWB in Munich, alumna Manon Schouten works as a history teacher at two schools. ‘It's so rewarding to see the material resonate with students.’

Aesthetic attraction plays a big role in orangutans’ mate choice, behavioural biologist and PhD candidate Tom Roth has observed. But to discover just how big that role is, more research is needed into the emotions of the great apes.

On 15 April Susanne Deen will start as Diversity & Inclusion Coordinator for Leiden Law School and the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. The aim of this new position is to contribute to establishing an inclusive community where all students and staff feel valued and respected, and can achieve…

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…

Matheus Mendes was awarded the 12th Jaap Doek Thesis Prize at a ceremony on 13 December 2024 for his thesis on the right to read. The prize honours outstanding master’s theses in children’s rights.

There are differing opinions about healthcare for transgender young people. Lieke Vrouenraets investigated the ethical dilemmas.

Three Leiden professors have recently been awarded the most prestigious scientific accolade in the Netherlands: Maria Yazdanbakhsh and Marc Koper have been awarded a Spinoza Prize and Judi Mesman a Stevin Prize. They received their prizes on 13 October.

In the academic year 2022-2023 the Social Resilience and Security interdisciplinary programme will offer a new minor for students who are interested in studying interpersonal violence and who are entering the third year of their Bachelor's degree. You can register for this minor (from 2 May) in your…

‘Let us not forget the power of genuine engagement,’ dean Sarah de Rijcke stressed at the New Year's Reception on 7 January 2025, which was also attended by Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl and addressed the Faculty of Social Sciences.

The perception of the Middle East is riddled with stereotypes that have had dire consequences on its people. What is myth and what is reality? How did these stereotypes come about? What consequences have they had? All of these questions and more are answered within this reading list.

Professor Caroline Vout, Cambridge University, was awarded the Leiden University Byvanck Chair in 2020. In a pre-Covid-19 world, the Byvanck Chair would stay in Leiden for seminars, lectures, and research activities. Instead, the pandemic disrupted this schedule. Last month, Vout taught her masterclass…

Lots of employees celebrated special successes in 2023. Here’s a list of all those scholarships, awards and honours.

In 2025, our colleagues from the Institute of Psychology once again made a strong presence in the media. From (inter)national newspapers to podcasts, discover where they shared their expertise in the media this year.

Anthropology students investigate how care is perceived in LGBTQ+ communities in the Netherlands, winning the prestigious Speckmann Prize. Insights on safe spaces and community diversity.

113 Suicide Prevention gave a guest lecture about suicide prevention at the Spanish Steps in Wijnhaven

During this lecture on Wednesday, 31 May Josephine Ross will discuss questions like about bodily integrity, what a 'victim’s perspective' looks like, and how to redefine 'consent' within the context of police encounters.

Dansō is a Japanese term that literally means "male clothing" and is used to describe women who crossdress as men. Since 2014, I have been conducting an ethnographic study of a community of dansō working as non-sexual escorts in Akihabara, Tokyo. My aim has been to understand why dansō choose to crossdress,…

This is a difficult time. Above all, for all those directly involved in this horrible case – unacceptable behaviour by a professor and his removal from the University – the case we went public about on 18 October and that has been reported in the media. This is painful and tough for the complainants…

Lecture, Histories Connected: Work-in-Progress

Your toddler refuses to eat vegetables, your child is being bullied at school, or you’re simply overwhelmed by everything on your plate. How can parents manage these situations effectively? During this Week of Parenting, our researchers and lecturers share practical advice for parents.

2025 was a year to remember at our faculty. We celebrated our 450th anniversary, launched new degree programmes and welcomed many inspiring speakers, yet we also felt the weight of budget constraints. Our year in a nutshell:

You are kindly invited to attend a Symposium on Women’s Rights on 17 May 2023. Participants of the Advanced Master’s Programme European and International Human Rights Law will present on ‘sexual and reproductive rights’ and ’violence against women by their kin, business and the state’. They embrace…

In hun klinische stage leren Psychologiestudenten mentale steun bieden aan anderen, maar hoe zorgen zij als toekomstige therapeut ook voor zichzelf? Met video’s, podcasts en een panel wil Kelly Ziemer haar studenten de nodige zelfzorg-skills bijbrengen.

On Monday 14 November 2022, our faculty student workgroup Diversity & Inclusion + Student Wellbeing will start working. The workgroup consists of seven motivated student assistants under supervision of the Faculty Coordinator Susanne Deen will get started on making the topics diversity & inclusion and…

At least six people are off to a good start of the summer, because they are the recipients of a Meijers grant. For the next few years, these researchers will be able to devote themselves to their PhD research. Let’s meet these new PhD candidates!

On Wednesday the 11th of October Prof. Anne Allison (Duke University) will visit us to give a talk about her new book Being Dead Otherwise (Duke University Press 2023). The talk will take place in our Faculty building, room TBA.

Making Meaningful Lives argues that an anthropology of the elderly is uniquely suited to examine the competing values of dependence and independence, sociality and isolation, intimacy and freedom, that people must balance throughout all of life's stages.

CMGI Brown Bag Seminar

CMGI Brown Bag Seminar

What are the ways of listening to the affective intensities of intergenerational harm? What does it mean to listen to what lies beyond verbal articulation, and how can such endeavors be accomplished? How can the un-speakable regulatory regimes of genre, sexuality, race, and ethnicity, sedimented in…

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

The “facts” that would allow us to construct a coherent biographical account of Izumi Shikibu’s life are flimsy at best and tell us little about the actual events and conditions that shaped it. It is through her poetic compositions, a diary Izumi Shikibu nikki attributed (not without contention) to…

In collaboration with Defence for Children, Leiden University’s Department of Child Law will hold the 12th Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award ceremony on Friday 13 December from 14.00 onwards. The prize will be awarded for the best master’s thesis in the field of children’s rights. From the…

Asia is the world’s fastest-aging region, and Japan along with South Korea and Singapore lead this trend. Today, twenty-nine percent of Japan’s population is sixty-five or older, the highest proportion in the world. By 2040, that figure is projected to reach thirty-one percent. Acknowledging the country’s…

The Faculty’s traditional New Year’s reception, like everything else these days, was transformed into an online event this year. Dean Paul Wouters as the host led us through the programme filled with the Casimir Teaching Award, the Pieter de la Court Medals, the Master’s Thesis Prizes, and a short lecture…

For centuries, enslaved individuals were trafficked to Yemen – mostly from the Horn of Africa across the Red Sea – and forced to support local societies through their labor. As Ḥusayn al-ʿAmrī's pioneering scholarship and my recent studies have highlighted, their contributions in medieval…

So much has happened this year! 2023 was an eventful year in which several wars raged about which our experts could offer interpretation. It was also the year in which the government made apologies for the slavery past. Leiden humanities scholars were at the forefront of this with their research on…

Caribbean literature holds a unique position in the world. Literature produced in the Caribbean region is extremely diverse, not only because of the wide variety of languages spoken, but also due to distinct colonial legacies that exist in the archipelago. Despite cultural specificities, the region…

Lecture