Word from the LUCSoR Chair: July 2025
It is mid-July and as I sit in my office in the Herta Mohr building, I notice how quiet it is around campus. Yet, this is in direct contrast with a flurry of activity by LUCSoR colleagues and students in recent weeks. I highlight just a few examples here.
Our former colleague, Mriganka Mukhopadhyay, successfully defended his PhD Thesis, titled ‘The Occult World of Bengalis: The Theosophical Movement in Colonial South Asia and its Global Entanglements, 1882-1942’. Congratulations, Dr. Mukhopadhyay! Students in Dr. Elpine de Boer’s course, Practising Religious Studies, were once again featured in the ‘Leren met de Stad’ initiative for their research on combatting loneliness. As usual, colleagues have also been busy organising events and disseminating their academic work in various ways. For instance, Dr. Nathal Dessing was in charge of organising ‘A University Conversation on Israel/Palestine’, Prof. dr. Jürgen Zangenberg was featured in a YouTube Series, ‘Nakomelingen van Abraham’ (article in Dutch), and Prof. dr. Maurits Berger has a new podcast series out called ‘Tatars in Poland: Adopted Homeland’. Even just yesterday, it was announced that Dr. Verena Meyer has been awarded a prestigious and highly competitive Dutch Research Council (NWO) Veni Grant for her project on ‘Indonesian Islamic Manuscripts in the Digital Age’. Congratulations, Dr. Meyer!
As we look ahead to the Autumn semester, I want to personally invite everyone to the Opening of the Academic Year taking place on Tuesday, 2 September. The official invitation will follow soon by email, but mark your calendars for an afternoon of coffee, tea, roomboterkoekjes, an opening lecture by Yves Menheere (University Lecturer in Chinese Religions), a classic borrel at Café de Keyzer, and, most of all, gezelligheid!
Wishing everyone a very good summer break. Enjoy your friends and family, take some rest, and I’ll see you at our Opening in September!
Best,
Dr. Corey L. Williams
Chair of Religious Studies Programmes
Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR)