In this thesis the most dominant academic perspectives pertaining to the relationship between myth and philosophy are questioned and repositioned and Plato’s use of myth is analyzed to demonstrate this reevaluation.

This subproject studies engraved scenes on Etruscan bronze mirrors.

Despite the fact that transnational movement and intercultural encounter are the signs of our present time, questions of belonging and legitimation of citizenship in most West-European countries still largely depend on monolingual norms and the problematic conflation of the idea of a national language…

One often sees gloomy Dutch newspaper headlines about pupils’ arithmetic skills in elementary schools. But is the situation really so bad? Marian Hickendorff is conducting intricate research on performance in and the teaching of arithmetic. The conclusions she draws beg to differ.

How did African actors engage with the idea of Eurafrica?

This Collaborative Research Group acts primarily as a platform for discussion of historical issues related to the African continent, its place in the world and in African Studies.

The master’s in African Studies at Leiden University is an advanced area studies qualification that combines world-class scholarship with practice-based learning.

The research master's in African Studies at Leiden University is unique in continental Europe for the interdisciplinary range of subjects offered and the variety of perspectives.

Africa has a population of 1.5 billion people. In 30 years’ time, this will be 2.5 billion. The continent’s impact on the global economy, but also on the environment, will therefore increase drastically.

In this dissertation, the life account is constructed of of the founder of Bon Religion, Shenrab Miwo.

African oral literatures, new media and technologies: challenges for research and documentation

Do you have an open-minded and unprejudiced worldview and do you want to get the know the African continent? In the Dutch-taught Bachelor's programme African Languages and Cultures you will dive into the fascinating culture, history and literature of Africa, and you will learn how to read and speak…

Humanities, Institute for History

Conference

This book systematically evaluates the empirical evidence for legitimacy decline in established democracies, the explanatory power of theories of legitimacy decline, and promises new routes in investigating and assessing political legitimacy.

Published by Brill Nijhoff and written by leading experts including national judges, academics and practitioners East African Community Law is the first comparative as well as open access textbook on EAC law. The book provides a key resource for the research, teaching, and practice of EAC law. It also…

In the last couple of decades an ‘animal turn’ has taken place in the social sciences. This has led to a call to study social issues by including non-human animal perspectives. This Collaborative Research Group thinks it's high time that African Studies joins the chorus of minds that try to contribute…

How do Central African refugees navigate through uncertainty in a new and hostile environment in the DR Congo?

African Studies Centre Leiden

The ASCL Research Programme for the years 2019-2024 is called ‘Strident Africa: Societal and Environmental Change in the Context of 50 Centuries of History’. It examines the dramatic changes taking place on the continent in terms of population growth, urbanization, the role of external actors and the…

Madeleine Hosli, Professor of International Relations at Leiden University, together with two other authors, wrote a chapter in Group Politics in UN Multilateralism. This chapter assesses the composition and functioning of the African Union (AU) within the United Nations.

Bob van Grieken and Jaroslaw Kantorowicz published an article in the journal Geopolitics which explores the determinants of China's official financing of Pacific Island states.

In the South African context, certain iconic images have been a dominant source for public understandings of historical events. The emphasis given these images tends to overshadow the historical value of other more personal photographic sources – like studio or amateur photography. This project looks…

The project Multimedia Research and Documentation of African Oral Genres: Connecting Diasporas and Local Audiences (Director: D.Merolla) focuses on multimedia as technology that allows scholars to share documentation and scientific knowledge with the cultural owners of the collected oral genres.

Festival

Promotores: H.A. Udo de Haes, H.H.T. Prins, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

This book celebrates Maarten Mous, professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University.

Part of ‘Moralising Misfortune: A comparative anthropology of commercial insurance’, an ERC Consolidator project of Erik Bähre.

In African societies today, growing inequality and continued exclusion due to ethnicity, gender, religion, disability or sexual orientation give rise to both contestation and cooperation for social change. How does the written or spoken word lead to collaboration and contestation in areas of social…

How has interreligious encounter in Ogbómòsó created multiple religious belongings and identities among individuals and groups?

How do old and new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) relate to new social and political movements in Central Africa? What does this tell us about Africa and the Information Age?

The project

This study seeks to partially fill the knowledge gap about national culture in Africa, basing its research on data on ethnolinguistic groups (instead of administrative regions).

Kalsang Gurung is the first Tibetan to obtain his PhD in Leiden. He carried out research into the accounts of Shenrab Miwo, the founder of the Bön religion. Gurung demonstrates that these accounts do not reflect historical reality. PhD defence: 31 May.

The authors in this volume explore how external innovations (products, technologies, services, institutions and processes) have been appropriated in African societies in order to be acceptable and relevant to local conditions, expectations and demands.

On 28 and 29 August, Dr. Ben Van Rompuy and Dr. Armin Cuyvers gave a two-day training to the Competition Commissioners of the newly established East-African Competition authority.

Lecture

How does the management of Elephant Marsh Fishery in Malawi relate to wider contexts of policies, theories and regions? And how can the current management system be adapted to achieve long-term sustainability of the fishery?

The Rabobank has awarded Leiden University 50,000 euro for a ‘study-related' purpose. The gift is to be used to allow two African students to follow the research master’s programme in African Studies in Leiden.

As of 1 September Jan-Bart Gewald has been appointed as Professor of Southern African History in the Leiden Institute for History, in conjunction with the African Studies Centre, Leiden.

An interesting Ottoman History podcast that deals with the slave trade and the African Diaspora in Ottoman Izmir.

This book is about the workings of networks of the mobile in Africa, a continent usually associated with the ‘global shadows’ of the world.

Every month a member of the Institute for History tells about a book that inspired him or her. Afterwards, the pen is passed on to another colleague. This month dr. Meike de Goede tells about the book 'Between Tides' by Valentin Mudimbe. The novel, little known beyond the circles of Africanists and…

On 29 and 30 April 2015 the Leiden Centre for East African Law (LEAC) hosted its first Annual Conference in Kigali, Rwanda. The conference was organized in cooperation with the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) and compared integration through law in the EU and the EAC.

African Studies is a field notoriously lacking in African scholars. Miriam Siun, research master student in this field, noticed this from the moment she started the programme. She decided to take matters into her own hands and hold a seminar reflecting on this issue.