During the master’s programme in Modern Dutch Literature at Leiden University you will learn to scientifically analyse literary texts, as well as other Dutch cultural texts, such as those found in hiphop songs and diaries.

Hekmat Dirbas defended his thesis on 14 February 2017

The center studies the many ways in which issues of law and justice are dealt with in art and literature with a focus on liminal issues and cases. These are issues and cases where law comes to the limits of what it is capable of dealing with and art and literature explore the implications of what is…

Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? And that the Middle East under Muslim rule was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship? Want to learn more? Then sign up for the new MOOC…

Leiden University is famous for its library’s large collection of Oriental manuscripts. Part of this collection is a group of 104 Arabic documents written on papyrus and paper (Or. 8264 and 12885). These documents date from the 7th through 10th century CE and cover a wide range of subjects (private…

Are you thinking about studying Arts, Literature and Media? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Reading & Panel Discussion

The one-year, English-taught master's programme in English Literature and Culture focuses on the interaction between literature and key political and social issues such as identity, migration, memory and the metropolis, but also between literature and the literary tradition, and literature and film.

Develop your knowledge of French and Francophone literary works and genres with the Master’s programme in French Literature and Culture at Leiden University.

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

Historicising Art and Literature is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

On 1 September 2022 Afke van Ewijk successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This project will study the cultural meaning of the mythological figure of Orestes within the ancient Greek imagination, as it emerges from various literary sources from the archaic and classical periods.

This MA programme offers an excellent qualification in Italian literature and culture on an advanced level through lectures and seminars led by specialists in the field.

The master’s programme in German Literature and Culture at Leiden University offers the largest number of German-language master’s courses in the Netherlands and covers the fields of literary and cultural studies from the Middle Ages to the present.

We will use Artificial Intelligence to make an intelligent, multilingual search engine for archaeological texts, which will enable new discoveries about the human past.

Lecture, research seminar

Taught from primary school to the university level – where new courses on the globalization of the Arabic writing system have cropped up (Abdallah 2014) – the Arabic script, with all its orthographic peculiarities and multiple facets, continues to shape languages other than Arabic, their communities…

This project aims to revisit the relationship between the European cultural agenda and the local identity formation process, and social and religious transformations of Arab Christian communities in Palestine, when the British ruled via the Mandate. What was the role of culture in European policies…

On the 8th of March, Bushra Alkhamees successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Bushra on this achievement!

This is a Special Issue of the peer-reviewed journal 'Social Sciences and Missions', which provides a forum for exploration of the social and political influence of Christian missions worldwide.

Neo-Baroque construction and deconstruction of the concepts of paradise in fiction.

In Leiden University’s master’s programme Literature in Society. Europe and Beyond you will develop your knowledge of the interactive relationship between literature and society, focusing on key political and social issues from a transnational perspective.

The available tools for academic literature search return a list of ranked documents, which might not be ideal for some tasks. To facilitate these tasks, I am creating a visual representation of the academic search space where the user can browse academic topics.

The master in Cultural Analysis: Literature and Theory at Leiden University focuses on the study of literature from a comparative and theoretical perspective, with a special emphasis on literary movements and genres of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. It covers a wide range of languages and cultures…

Engin Kiliç defended his thesis on 11 june 2015

The ethics of ghosts, spectres, and mediums in postcolonial literature

This interdisciplinary research master offers the best of three worlds (arts, literature and media) through a programme of well-designed courses, combining theoretical and historical training with free space for specialisation.

'Consider languages in their shared context.' That is the message of Professor and Arabist Beatrice Gründler, who will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on 8 February. ‘I would like people to learn that Arabic history has a close connection with Europe.’

Are you thinking about studying French Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the videos.

Are you thinking about studying Italian Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the videos.

Are you thinking about studying English Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the videos.

Are you thinking about studying German Literature and Culture? Learn more and watch the videos.

Are you thinking about studying Cultural Analysis: Literature and Theory? Learn more and watch the videos.

Haneen Omari defended her thesis on 29 October 2019

This article is aimed to shed light on the Swahili-‘Ajam ī manuscripts, focusing on the major Swahili classical genre: the

This thesis seeks to examine the emergence of Persian novels and short stories during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).

Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries presents a ground-breaking comparative approach to the study of multicultural literature.

Beauty is a central concept in the Italian cultural imagination throughout its history and in virtually all its manifestations. It particularly permeates the domains that have governed the construction of Italian identity: literature and language.

Are you thinking about studying Literature and Society. Europe and Beyond? Learn more and watch the videos.

In late medieval and early modern times, books, as well as the people who produced and read (or listened to) them, moved between regions, social circles, and languages with relative ease. Yet, in the multilingual Low Countries, francophone literature was both internationally mobile and firmly rooted…

The skin has recently gained attention within body studies for its many specific cultural and social associations, in addition to its biology. This project aims to examine the different layers of meaning and the functions invested in the skin in ancient Greece: how did ancient Greek literary and medical…

Dina Ishak Bakhoum defended her thesis on 21 January 2021

Research on papyri has provided new insights into the history of the origins of Islam. Petra Sijpesteijns’s book,'Shaping a Muslim State', is based on these ancient Arabic letters and documents. Her new research on a Viennese collection of untranslated papyri is expected to produce more discoveries.

This project examines the intriguing relationship between Greek literary criticism and Latin literature in Rome (first centuries BC and AD).

The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages.

The recent rise in global migration movements and the simultaneous attempts to prevent migrations to the Global North in general and Europe in particular have produced numerous images and narratives that try to record and convey these events and their actors.

By examining the impact of Islam on the daily life of those living under its rule, the goal of this project is to understand the striking newness of Islamic society and its debt to the diverse cultures it superseded. Questions will be the extent, character, and ambition of Muslim state competency at…

From the mid-19th century until the 1970’s, the Middle East witnessed the presence of various European missionaries who played a fundamental role in the birth and the development of humanitarianism. Since these Christian missionaries were well integrated in the local Middle Eastern societies via their…