This monograph by dr. Kim Beerden compares Greek divination to divinatory practices in Neo-Assyrian Mesopotamia and Republican Rome.

Home to a rapidly rising superpower and the two largest economies in the world after the US, a global East Asia is seen and felt everywhere. This dynamic text views the global square from the perspective of the world’s most important rising global center.

Turkic nomadic rulers established large empires in the Middle East and Asia between the 11th and 14th centuries. This project will explore the link between their political ideology and the production of art and literature, via the cultural heritage of five cities along the Silk Road: Kashgar, Samarkand,…

How can the emergence of primary justice systems be facilitated and furthered?

In Vietnam, foreign trade and culture are pervasive. Therefore, the need arises for students to learn more about cultural differences and intercultural communication. This dissertation focuses on improving training in intercultural communication in Vietnamese higher education.

Xiao Ma defended her thesis on 26 September 2018

The aim of the project is to contribute to the process of archive formation ongoing in Post-Apartheid South Africa through the inclusion of photographs that have been either unacknowledged or excised from the national canon.

This is the first reference work to describe the history of embroidery throughout Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent from the medieval period through to the present. It offers an authoritative guide to all the major embroidery traditions of the region and a detailed examination…

Material Crossovers

This recently released book takes a critical view of conceptual issues and practical problems that inevitably emerge when ‘excellence’ takes center stage in science systems in the Global South. What is ‘excellent science’? And how to recognize and assess it? After decades of inquiry and debate there…

On the 10th of November, Sara Petrollino succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Sara on this great result.

The MA Arts and Culture at Leiden University offers two specialisations: Art History and Museum Studies.

The main aim of this project is to reveal and unravel the invisible histories of the UN, transcending the dominant Western perspective to recover the historical agency of Global South actors. The research will investigate how the UN has both facilitated and limited their role in shaping global order…

This book sheds new light on domestic forced migration by examining the experiences of American-born slave migrants from a comparative perspective.

This pilot project will initiate research on how heritage has been and can be mobilized to address climate change governance in Himalayan Asia. Climate adaptation strategies frequently include the sourcing of heritage, encompassing landscapes, built environments 4 and cultural practices. However, effective…

This book offers readers an alternative history of the origins of the discipline of International Relations.

This study aims to examine how South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and Japan, two neighboring countries in Northeast Asia, have been responding to and mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

Language offers new insights into our history, cultural differences, migration, and the way in which our brain processes information. This knowledge can in turn help us understand what it means to be human, as well as opening the way to many practical applications. In order to realise these goals, linguists…

Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece pursues a new approach to ancient Greek narrative beyond the taxonomies of structuralist narratologies.

The Robben Island field school in January and February 2011 investigated and documented the tangible and intangible heritage of Robben Island, encompassing the remains associated with various political prisoners, the Muslim exiles, the lepers and lunatics, the WWII soldiers and Navy personnel, the prison…

In this book, Vanessa Newby provides the first detailed examination of credibility’s essential place in peacekeeping.

Bachelor, Master

Bachelor, Master

Bachelor, Master

On 10 november 2021, Carmel van Niekerk-Jacobs defended the thesis 'Realising the right to reproduce with assistance in South Africa'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.J. Sloth-Nielsen and Prof. T. Liefaard.

The main case study of the project is the cultural geography of Saqqara, the necropolis of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, and its development.

What socio-cultural transformations did indigenous communities in the Lesser Antilles undergo from the late precolonial to the early colonial period in response to Amerindian­ European-African cultural encounters? How did Amerindian populations realign themselves in response to the colonisation…

Otrar as a Case Study for a 6-10th century Transition Zone

The fourth volume of Ex Novo has the pleasure to host Heleen van Londen, Marjo J. Schlaman, and Andrea Travaglia as guest editors of the special issue titled The Natural and The Cultural. Integrating Approaches in Landscape Heritage Management. This timely collection of peer-reviewed papers and short…

The Dutch and English East India Companies were formidable organizations that were gifted with expansive powers that allowed them to conduct diplomacy, wage war and seize territorial possessions. But they did not move into an empty arena in which they were free to deploy these powers without resista…

The one-year master in South Asian Studies, a specialisation of Leiden University’s master in Asian Studies, offers a large and varied selection of subjects and the freedom to choose the areas on which you will focus.

Mathilde Mechling defended her thesis on 28 january 2020.

‘Three books published within a year – that happens only once in a lifetime!’ This was the reaction of Katarzyna Cwiertka, Professor of Modern Japan Studies at Leiden University, on the publication of Cuisine, Colonialism and Cold War, one of her three new books. The book sketches the colonisation of…

Inaugural Lecture

New policies, institutional configurations, and state-market relations are emerging outside of East Asia, as new developmental states move beyond the historical experience of East Asian development. Yet, the ‘developmental state’ is still relevant. This book, edited by Jewellord Nem Singh (Institute…

The Hortus botanicus Leiden has one of Europe’s largest collections of living plants from the Asian region. This rich resource is no longer the sole domain of botanists. Multidisciplinary research, teaching and the general public are equally at home in the Hortus. This is the view of Paul Kessler, professor…

How are contemporary art practices from Southeast Asia negotiating notions of art and tradition?

Humanities, Institute for Area Studies

2017 was the Leiden Asia Year. Leiden has had connections with Asia and built up extensive knowledge of the continent over many centuries. This Leiden-Asia link has been in the spotlight for the past year.

From gay rights in Asia to water management in the Philippines and from the Silk Road to current tensions with North Korea. Come to the Tour of Asia on 14 September to find out all you wanted to know about Asia and more.

A study of Dutch Fort at Galle, Sri Lanka