This project aims to study the Aesopian fable from 1500 to the present day in its complex relationship between text, illustration and education, adopting a broad, transnational perspective.

Promotores: Prof.dr. P.M. Brakefield, Prof.dr. B.J. Zwaan (Wageningen Universiteit)

Archives were a common target during the Second World War, and hundreds suffered damages. Among these archival losses, the losses to medieval manuscript collections stand out.

The changing status of anatomical collections from the early modern period to date.

The aim of this PhD dissertation project is to study the effect of private foreign investment outside the realm of economics in the context of a colonial structure in Indonesia between c. 1910 and c. 1960.

The Turn of the Soul: Representations of Religious Conversion in Early Modern Art and Literature

Maps play a crucial role in our view of the past, yet few historians are sufficiently skilled in cartography to genuinely integrate maps into their research. This project breaks down the long-standing barriers between history and cartography by inviting emerging scholars (ResMA) to reflect on maps as…

News, events, announcements, social media and more about the building of the new Middle Eastern Library in Leiden

This project explores themes at the intersection of maritime history and environmental history by looking at the problems Dutch ships encountered in the different climates of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds, and the solutions they could provide.

In what way is constructivist logic able to account for both the role of the judging agent in inference and the universal claims of logical validity?

This thesis attempts to establish a dialogue between the modern and the medieval traditions in logic, by means of ‘translations’ of the medieval logical theories into the modern framework of symbolic logic, i.e. formalizations.

Dr Sri Margana succeeded Bambang Purwanto last September as professor in the Faculty of the Humanities. Margana is a specialist in the early modern history of Indonesia. The appointment will run for five years.

Are you thinking about studying Cities, Migration and Global Interdependence? Learn more and watch the videos.

The second major collection of papers from the Bridging the Unbridgeable project.

This special issue of Media History (22-3/4, 2016), co-edited with Helmer Helmers (University of Amsterdam), develops a new perspective on the early modern communication revolution. It discusses news as a specific kind of information – by its nature continuous, unreliable, and diffuse – which needed…

Soil bacteria can produce a wealth of antibiotics that are new to us, claims Gilles van Wezel, Professor of Molecular Biotechnology at the Institute of Biology Leiden. His research group has developed a method that can rapidly identify and produce these unknown compounds.

How did early modern people find out about new knowledge? And did that make them more willing to accept innovation? In the coming years, we will study how and to what effect, new knowledge anchored among the wider public in the early modern Low Countries.

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…

Two statues of gorillas abducting women: they were what led PhD candidate Dick van Broekhuizen to write a new type of history of nineteenth-century sculpture. ‘If you view nineteenth-century art history from a less narrow perspective, the narrative changes completely.’ PhD ceremony on 21 June.

We asked a lot of everyone last year. The Personnel Monitor showed that the workload was high in 2022 and Covid took its toll. I therefore think everyone deserves some downtime. Time away from the daily grind.

As of 1 August 2017, Damian Pargas is the new Leiden University Chair of the History and Culture of North America.

Mining the unusually rich diaries, memoirs, and poems written by Netherlandish Catholics, Judith Pollmann explores how Catholic believers experienced religious and political turmoil in the generations between Erasmus and Rubens.

Slavoj Žižek is one of the most prominent public intellectuals of the left. His central claim holds that “today, it is more crucial than ever to continue to question the very foundations of capitalism as a global system”.

Subproject of the ERC project 'Challenging the Liberal World Order from Within: The Invisible History of the United Nations and the Global South'.

Natural product inspired antibiotics to address resistance

Migration is an important topic of academic, public and political debate. Migration research generates a wealth of articles. The Journal of Migration History (JMH) is the first to specialize in the field. Articles on migration history either appear in journals that specialize on current issues, or in…

About nine million people worldwide contract tuberculosis each year. Research into new treatment for this disease has received fresh stimulus with more efficient techniques and a new understanding of how the tuberculosis bacteria works.

On the 1st of October a new project funded by the Joint Industry Programme (JIP) started at the IBL on the potentially negative effects of sound on fish. Behavioural biologist and bioacoustic specialist Dr. Hans Slabbekoorn leads the international research team.

Over the last few years, human Rights have become subject of intense debates in historiography. Sam Moyn’s provocative book The Last Utopia (2010) made in particular clear how important it is to investigate precisely which meaning human rights have been given in a particular context. During the research…

On 10 November Guanmian Xu successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On the28th of September Didi van Trijp successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Visiting Researchers at the Leiden University Institute for History

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.

As of 1 September 2015, Michiel van Groesen is Professor of Maritime History at Leiden University. He succeeds Professor Henk den Heijer, who retired and gave his farewell lecture at 25 September. Den Heijer held the chair from 2010 to 2015. Before coming to Leiden Van Groesen worked as Associate Professor…

This book published by Oxford University Press discusses religion and trade in world history.

Are you thinking about studying Arts and Culture: Art History and Museum Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

The aim of this Research Traineeship will be to analyze the underexplored reception of ancient religions in popular culture, taking Dutch spiritual magazines as a case study. There are five such magazines: Paravisie (1986- ), Paraview (1997- ), Happinez (2003- ), Bres (1965- ), and Prana/Mantra (1975-…

Ann Marie Wilson and Andrew DJ Shield have been recently awarded a Leiden Global Interactions SEED grant to support the launch of a new platform for sexuality studies at Leiden University: the Leiden Queer History Network (LQHN).

Subproject of