This dissertation presents a description of Sandawe, a Khoisan language spoken by approximately 60 000 speakers in Dodoma Region, Tanzania.

This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Mediterranean in the last centuries BCE and the first centuries CE, integrating debates about Roman urban space with discourse on Roman urban history.

This dissertation addresses the semantics of pluractional verbs in Hausa.

South African professor Lungisile Ntsebeza will receive an honorary doctorate on the Foundation Day of Leiden University on Friday 7 February. Ntsebeza is an authority in the democratisation of rural South Africa and poverty reduction.

Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) is one of seven institutes housed within the Faculty of Humanities.

What does it mean to live in an era of ‘posts’? At a time when ‘post-truth’ is on everyone’s lips, this volume seeks to uncover the logic of post-constructions – postmodernism, post-secularism, postfeminism, post-colonialism, post-capitalism, post-structuralism, post-humanism, post-tradition, post-Christian,…

This volume examines how the history of the humanities might be written through the prism of scholarly personae, understood as time- and place-specific models of being a scholar.

A large group of researchers from Leiden University will convene a panel or present a paper at the 10th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), which will take place from 25 to 28 June in Prague.

Maarten Mous, Professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University, looks back on the 50th edition of the Colloquium of African Languages and Linguistics (CALL) and explains why this birthday was a celebration like no other.

On the occasion of the retirement of Robert Ross, Professor in African History at Leiden University, his successor and former student Jan-Bart Gewald wrote a valedictory note.

The Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) is a centre of excellence for multidisciplinary research on drug discovery and development.

Like any language, the natural sign languages (henceforth: SLs) of deaf communities differ from each other in their grammars and lexicons. A growing number of studies indicates that SLs make use of the gestures of hearing speakers to build linguistic structure. This implies that variation and similarities…

Online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) have become part and parcel of everyday media use. Journalists incorporate posts from politicians into newspaper reports, scientists share their insights in short posts or videos, and the judiciary uses social media to explain their…

Maarten Mous, Professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University, looks back on the 50th edition of the Colloquium of African Languages and Linguistics (CALL) and explains why this birthday was a celebration like no other.

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…

This dissertation provides a description of the language Tadaksahak as it is spoken by the Idaksahak, a people group of about 30,000 living in the most eastern part of Mali and several isolated places in western Niger.

The rise of the digital age affects public governance in many ways. Digitalisation and data impact every aspect of public governance and policy. Within Leiden University’s Public Administration institute, based in The Hague -the administrative capital of the Netherlands- our centre seeks to understand…

Beehive Student Centre, Turfmarkt 104, 2511 DC, The Hague

Lecture and Exhibition

In A History of Plague in Java, 1911–1942, Maurits Bastiaan Meerwijk demonstrates how the official response to the 1911 outbreak of plague in Malang led to one of the most invasive health interventions in Dutch colonial Indonesia.

Carsten Stahn has just published Confronting Colonial Objects: Histories, Legalities and Access to Culture. The book is part of the OUP Cultural Heritage Law and Policy Series.

Which plants in the Mediterranean garden were already known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and how were they utilized?

Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR) studies religion as human activity, in all its diversity.

LUMC Main Building, Albinusdreef 2, 2333 ZA, Leiden

Wijnhaven, Turfmarkt 99, 2511 DP, The Hague

The CMCB brings together microbial cell biology expertise in Leiden. It aims at optimal resonance between the groups and maximal exploitation of the available infrastructure and to develop innovative cross-boundary technology platforms.

The Centre for Legal Entrepreneurship and Innovation focuses on stimulating entrepreneurship and innovation in the legal sector. It builds a bridge between study and practice.

Are you thinking about studying Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

African researchers want more international research collaborations for better representation in the scientific community. As of now, their voices are often not heard, even when it comes to topics of interest to the African continent.

The Centre for Public Values & Ethics (CPVE) is an interdisciplinary, academic centre of expertise aiming to conduct and disseminate scientific research on normative issues in the public sector, in particular the fulfillment of public office and the planning, making and executing of public policy, both…

The high number of students that we are used to in the West would never have been possible if Latin were still the language of instruction in our universities. In his PhD defence on 16 September, Bert van Pinxteren will argue that Africa could gain a lot from a similar language switch in secondary e…

This thesis focuses on the social dimensions of crane and wetland conservation in rural landscapes in Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Researchers from the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) and the University of Ghana are organising the first-ever pan-African summer school for deaf academics from the African continent (from 1 – 15 August).