In the seminars you meet in small groups to discuss historical themes, sources, methods and historiographical debates. These courses focus on acquiring knowledge, learning analytical and practical skills, and exchanging ideas and reflection. Assignments are usually assessed with writing assignments and presentations. Research MA students can choose their literature seminar and research seminar within one track, or build their programme across the tracks. The Historical theory seminar is designed for the Research Master students specifically.

In the second and third semester, you have the freedom to develop a tailor made programme that meets your specific research interests. The tutorial, optional courses and second research seminar enable you to specialise in a specific theme or field, and may include an internship within or outside the university. You will also take research courses offered at the national research schools, while the Skills for Research seminar critically prepares you for a research-oriented career after graduation.

For your Tutorial and Research MA Thesis, you have the freedom to choose a historical topic that you want to investigate further. You can choose your supervisor from the entire teaching team of the institute, and thus make use of all the knowledge and expertise that Leiden has to offer.

The university encourages cross-listing of courses between the MA tracks, which offers you a very wide range of courses and allows you to make use of the wealth of expertise available within the Institute for History.

The Literature Seminar (10 EC) is the introductory course of the MA Track that every student begins with. In this intensive two-hour weekly seminar, you will delve deeper into key themes and academic debates related to the track's focus, using by secondary sources such as monographs and academic articles.

The Research Seminar (10 EC) is a seminar in which students conduct research using primary sources and literature, presentations are given and a paper is written. The Research seminar is a 2-hour per week course for twelve weeks that is concluded with a substantial paper.

This course is compulsory for all Research MA students. It discusses major problems in historical theory or philosophy of history through close readings of relevant texts. Topics that will be addressed include explanations, models, intentions, representations, narratives, paradigms, comparisons, objectivity, and ethics. The course is valued at 10 EC.

This course prepares  you for possible research careers after graduation. You will discuss various types of successful research projects and reflect upon the organization of academic research. You will develop your own proposal, developing a good research question and including debate, feasibility, and innovative character. The course will guide you through this process. Senior researchers will visit the class to comment upon their own ongoing research projects. The course is valued at 10 EC and is compulsory for all Research MA students.

Within the Research MA History, you will take courses at a national Research School, amounting to at least 10 EC. You will compose this set of courses yourself, together with the Coordinator of Studies. Research Schools courses offer training in both methodology and area specific knowledge. Research MA students choose courses at the Research school that relates most with their possible area of research.

The tutorial is the mainstay of our Research MA as it offers intensive, eye-to-eye discussions with one of Leiden’s many specialists. During the tutorial you will explore the field and determine the subject and research question of your thesis. The tutorial is valued at 10 EC.

You will also choose a number of optional courses, worth up to a total of 20 EC. You are advised to study these courses abroad. The optional courses may also be spent on a research internship, or at courses (level 500) offered at any department of Leiden University or at another Dutch university.

The programme concludes with a thesis, based on original source research and a final oral exam. Together they are valued at 30 EC. The level of the thesis will have to meet high standards. In principle, the (shortened) thesis will have to be worthy of publication in an academic journal. During the final ceremony you are expected to present and defend your thesis vis-à-vis with your thesis supervisor and a second examiner.

Prof.dr. Jürgen Zangenberg

Long before any Roman set foot on what is now the western coast of modern Turkey, however, cities like Ephesus, Miletus or Smyrna had been hubs of cultural exchange for centuries. This seminar will examine examples of cultural exchange, focusing for example on Greek oracles, the healing god Asklepios, indigenous priests of the Roman imperial cult and women prophets from rural Phrygia.

Dr. Miko Flohr            

An important development in the history of the Ancient Mediterranean was the emergence and intensification of trans-regional networks of economic, social, cultural and political exchange. People, cities, and regions were increasingly connected over longer distances, and this had a profound impact on the everyday lives of people, their ideas, expectations and ambitions. A key question in ancient history is how these ‘global’ networks intersected with ‘local’ situations. In this Research Seminar we explore how the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ interacted in Greece,  Italy and elsewhere in the Mediterranean between ca. 400 BCE and 200 CE – from the late Classical Greek period, until well into the Roman imperial period. How does increasing longer-distance connectivity redefine sanctuaries, cities, politics, economic life, and cultural practice, and how is this reflected in our sources, material and textual?

Prof.dr. Damian Pargas

A perusal of American history reveals that illiberal and anti-democratic values and movements—aimed at obstructing democratic participation and nullifying liberal rights—have played an important role for over two centuries. This course examines illiberalism and anti-democracy from the Revolution to the present.

Dr. Henk Kern

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was for long time considered to be the definitive watershed moment in Russian history, but historians now discern deeper continuities between the old regime, the communist regime and in its post-communist present-day form of a presidential republic. In this seminar we’ll have a fresh look at the Russian Revolution of 1917 in its larger context of War which started in 1914 and was more or less ended in 1921. We’ll make an analysis of the successive efforts by historians to explain and (re)frame this war-revolutionary era.

Dr. William Michael Schmidli 

This course traces and analyzes the significance of war, human rights, and democracy for the American people, U.S. institutions, and U.S. foreign relations from the 1940s to the early 2000s. The central research question framing this course is: how did war shape the structures, practices, and values of U.S. democracy from the Second World War to the War on Terror?             

Dr. Soledad Valdivia Rivera

In the last decades the Latin American region has seen the proliferation and empowerment of social movements, ranging from the Zapatista Movement in Mexico in 1994 to the Student Movement in Chile and ‘#’ movements such as #NiUnaMenos and the most recent wave of social protest at the end of 2019, dubbed the ‘Latin American Spring’. The course first introduces the main scholarly debates on Latin American Social Movements. It then examines the role of social movements in the political scenario and takes particular interest in understanding why social movements such a recurrent and influential actor in Latin America.

Dr. Carolien Stolte

What would a truly global history of peace advocacy look like? In this course, we will first delve into the thoughts and actions of twentieth century peace activists from around the world. What political, philosophical or religious ideas informed their thinking? Next, we will look at what happens when peace activists from different regions work together in international organizations for peace. How do their ideas of peace interact, clash, and change in the process?

Dr. Lionel Laborie

The early modern period saw numerous episodes of forced migrations as a result of state persecution and religious violence. These communities have traditionally been described as ‘diasporas’ and studied separately from one another. In recent years, however, scholars have drawn attention to the existence of both intra- and extra-diasporic networks and increasingly questioned the very notion of ‘diaspora’ because of the social cohesion, mutual trust and cultural homogeneity it implies. This seminar will discuss some of the best-known examples of early modern diasporas (Mennonites, Sephardim and Ashkenazim Jews, Huguenots, Catholics, Jacobites, Moravians…) from a both systemic and cross-cultural perspective. 

Prof.dr. Marieke Bloembergen

In this research seminar we will study histories, politics and ethics of heritage formation in colonial and postcolonial Southeast Asia (and beyond), in the light of debates on decolonization, restitution and environmental care. We focus on practices of knowledge production on, and care for, both natural/ environmental and cultural objects in and from the region – or objects classified as such. We attempt to cross the nature/ culture divide in heritage formation, aiming to understand 1. how heritage politics in colonial and postcolonial times helped creating this divide, and 2. how nature has shaped and transformed cultural heritage and vice versa.

Prof.dr. Gabrielle van den Berg and Prof.dr. Jos Gommans

In the thirteenth century, the Mongols created a vast empire that covered large parts of Asia, the Middle East and Europe. The Mongols heralded a new era of globalization by creating unprecedented opportunities for cultural transmission and exchange. In this course, we will look at the immediate and long-term impact of the Mongols and their descendants (e.g. the Timurids and Mughals) on the course of Eurasian history. And how did the Mongols themselves fashion their legacy and to what extent were they able to construct their own image and memory in e.g. art, literature and history-writing?

Dr. Nadia Bouras Dr. Rebekka Grossmann

This course explores the interconnected histories and memories of Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe and North Africa from the late nineteenth century to the present. It examines how colonialism, migration, and nation-building shaped Jewish–Muslim relations, producing moments of coexistence, conflict, and solidarity. Taking a transnational and postcolonial approach, the course follows these interactions across imperial, national, and diasporic contexts, including Morocco, Algeria, France, and the Netherlands.

Dr. Paul van Trigt and prof.dr. Catia Antunes

Inequality is a pressing societal issue that has garnered recent attention from historians, social scientists, and politicians. However, inequalities cannot be comprehended, influenced, or altered without understanding their historical roots. Inequalities and the disparities they generate have persisted throughout history, particularly during moments of social and economic upheaval and affirmation. This course addresses why inequalities emerge in human societies between 1500 and 2000. We adopt the multifaceted concept of (social, symbolic, and economic) capital as conceptualized by Bourdieu to grasp the mechanisms underpinning the formation of unequal societies.

Dr. Jelle Brunning

This course examines the daily life experience of Muslims during the first four centuries of Islamic history, when caliphs ruled from Medina, Damascus and Baghdad respectively over an area that stretched from the Atlantic coast in the west to the Hindu Kush in the east. The course focuses on Egypt, one of the Muslim empire’s most prosperous provinces. The course studies the social history of this province through the lens of a unique but largely neglected type of sources that gives unfiltered and unpolished insight into these Muslims’ society: their own private letters, administrative documents, legal deeds, and other texts written on papyrus that have been preserved today.

Dr. Soledad Valdivia Rivera

In the last decades the Latin American region has seen the proliferation and empowerment of social movements, ranging from the Zapatista Movement in Mexico in 1994 to the Student Movement in Chile and ‘#’ movements such as #NiUnaMenos and the most recent wave of social protest at the end of 2019, dubbed the ‘Latin American Spring’. The course first introduces the main scholarly debates on Latin American Social Movements. It then examines the role of social movements in the political scenario and takes particular interest in understanding why social movements such a recurrent and influential actor in Latin America.

Dr. Bart Verheijen, Dr. Maartje Janse

Er wordt wel eens gesteld dat kritiek op kolonialisme een recent verschijnsel is. De bronnen laten echter laten zien dat die kritiek er altijd geweest is. Dit research seminar analyseert de woorden en daden van critici van het Nederlandse kolonialisme van de late achttiende eeuw tot nu. Er klonk kritiek op uitbuiting, slavernij en andere vormen van gedwongen arbeid, rechtsongelijkheid en excessief geweld, en uiteindelijk steeds meer op het koloniale stelsel als zodanig.

Dr. Claire Weeda Prof.dr. Judith Pollmann

Vanaf de late middeleeuwen tot het midden van de achttiende eeuw ging de groeiende macht van de Nederlanden gepaard met het bijeenbrengen en vermarkten van kennis. In ons seminar denken wij na over de relatie tussen kennis en macht in die vroegmoderne context van de Nederlandse steden en hun verbinding met de wereld daarbuiten, en van praktijkkennis tot institutionele en wetenschappelijke kennis. Hoe was kennis in de stad verbonden met machtsstructuren binnen en buiten de stad? Hoe haalden steden kennis binnen, transformeerden ze die en zetten ze kennis in voor eigen doelen?

Dr. Dennis Bos  Dr. Diederik Smit

In dit vak onderzoeken we het koloniaal project van de negentiende en twintigste eeuw niet als een afzonderlijk beleidsterrein, als een exotische sideshow, of als een verschijnsel waarvan het einde ‘historisch noodzakelijk’ zou zijn geweest. In plaats daarvan kijken we wat er gebeurt als we het kolonialisme als een integraal bestanddeel van de Nederlandse politieke geschiedenis opvatten en vragen stellen naar de bijdrage van koloniale uitbuiting aan de modernisering van Nederland. Wat was bijvoorbeeld de invloed van teruggekeerde ‘Indischgasten’ in de Tweede Kamer, of de rol van koloniaal geweld overzee bij de totstandkoming van een nationale identiteit hier? Misschien kan dit vak zelfs antwoord geven op de prangende vraag hoe het tegenwoordige succes van identiteitspolitiek wortelt in het koloniaal verleden van Nederland.