Investigation of 1.) The whereabouts of the epistemological dissonances in art criticisms on Post-war contemporary art from Japan between two different language realms, in this case in English and Japanese; and 2.) What the dissonances disclose, disturb, and contribute in the process of the establishment…

The Leiden Academic Course Center offers a large variety of visual art courses. Our courses are offered for beginners as wel as more advanced students. In the lessons everybody will be guided according to their experience. All the art supplies are included in the price of the physical courses. For…

Knowledge and culture subproject 3:

The Leiden Lectures in Media | Art | Politics (MAP) is a series of talks organized by Pepita Hesselberth and Yasco Horsman. Speakers from various academic backgrounds and in different stages of their careers reflect on diverging ways in which technological and social changes challenge and transform…

Become an indispensable contributor to the wellbeing of our societies in culture, policies and economies!

Troughout the ages, art has always had a large impact, from the first cave drawings until modern art forms. In the Bachelor's programme Art History at Leiden University you will not just get to know art from the Netherlands and Europe, but also from North-America, Asia and Africa. Study art from the…

The master’s programme in Arts and Culture at Leiden University is uniquely positioned at the intersection of Art History and Museum Studies. Informed by leading interdisciplinary research, this degree provides you with a strong academic foundation for a variety of careers in museums, galleries and…

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

Spirit priests and ancestor cults in new guinea's far west

Inaugural lecture, delivered upon acceptance of the Chair in Theory of Research in the Arts, at the Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University, on 10 February 2017, by Professor H.A. (Henk) Borgdorff.

ARC (art_research_convergence) is an outreach initiative of Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, and the University of the Arts The Hague, for the active communication of artistic research.

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

Visit an exhibition, a concert or learn to paint.

This dissertation focuses on a new field of artistic research in which a visual artist takes on the role of researcher. The main research question is whether performance art integrated in an ecumenical service, combined with artistic directions from the artist, can enhance the religious experience of…

The Secret Life of Art Works. Exploring the Boundaries between Art and Life is the first collection of essays to present case studies from the visual arts, architecture, sculpture and numismatics, and to engage critically with theoretical perspectives from art history, psychology, aesthetics and ant…

Visual art today is strongly interlinked with today’s society, a connection which is reinforced and deepened by social and other media. In Arts, Media and Society, a specialisation of our Art History bachelor's programme, you will explore this relationship and analyse how it reflects and impacts the…

Bernini and Pallavicino, the artist and the Jesuit cardinal, are closely related figures at the papal courts of Urban VIII and Alexander VII, at which Bernini was the principal artist. The analysis of Pallavicino's writings offers a new perspective on Bernini's art and artistry and allow us to understand…

Humanities

Dirk Huyge (Director) & Wouter Claes (Vice-Director)

How an initially valueless object becomes worth hundreds of millions. And vice versa.

Exploring cultural production in Europe, Latin America and Africa, the institute’s research programme focuses on the continuous interconnectedness of the Arts and Society in both the textual culture of literature, learning and public debate and the visual culture of art, architecture, film, photography…

In what ways can visual art play a vital role in countering the discriminating stigma experienced by transgender communities?

This publication aims at the analysis of the performance of a corpus of Fongbe stories that I collected in three villages in the south of Benin in 1976 and 1977. The corpus consists of 37 stories (57.000 words). The stories aim at children’s education.

How would you like to combine your studies at Leiden University with high-level education in the arts? The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts will give you a unique opportunity to develop your academic and artistic talents.

Study Information, Online Experience

At ACPA, the collaboration between Leiden University and the University of the Arts The Hague, artistry and academia meet at the highest level.

The purpose of LENS is to foster, coordinate and support research of visual media of analog and digital photography, film, and video, and the visual arts.

Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is dedicated to ground-breaking and interdisciplinary research dealing with the relations between culture and society.

The arts and science: for years, they were seen as opposite extremes. One calls on emotion and the other on reason. The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) proves that nothing could be further from the truth. ACPA is where the knowledge and expertise of Leiden University and the University…

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.

On 14 September 2021, Bram van der Sar defended his thesis 'Fiscale geheimhoudingsplicht: art. 67 AWR ontrafeld'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.P. Boer and Prof. A.O. Lubbers.

Practicum Artium (PA) is a programme specially developed for students of Leiden University with a talent for visual arts and an interest in artistic research. Art and research feed on one another and are intertwined in many ways. In Practicum Artium, you will explore artistic practices and methods,…

A contextual approach to anthropomorphic figurines in the Pavlovian (Central Europe, 29-24 kyr BP) (2001)

This dissertation is a study of North Korean art as a site where politics, history, and culture meet.

This research intends to study the why, what, how and the possible outcome of internationalisation in higher education institutions of fine art and design.

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…

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.

'Politics of Withdrawal' considers the significance of practices and theories of withdrawal for radical thinking today.

On 19 February 2019, Mirjam Sombroek-van Doorm defended her thesis 'Medisch beroepsgeheim en de zorgplicht van de arts bij kindermishandeling in de rechtsverhouding tussen arts, kind en ouders'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. A.G. Castermans en Prof. mr. C.J.J.M. Stolker.

This study by artist Jonas Staal explores the development of propaganda art from the 20th to the 21st century.

How can the concept of Critical Making be expanded into a general approach that ties the critical methodology of artistic research, and the established concepts of artistic autonomy, together with contemporary creative-technological development?

Sophie Ernst’s doctoral thesis is an artist’s contribution to media art theory.

This programme adopts a new approach based on the paradoxical nature of these responses in early modern Italy: it draws on rhetorical discussions of lifelikeness and living presence, and it uses the anthropological theory of art as agency developed by Alfred Gell.

Protestant missionaries have provided the earliest and most detailed sources regarding the ritual art of the Papuan peoples of the Geelvink Bay.

How digital technologies affect the way we conceive of the self and its relation to the world, considered through the lens of media art practices.

This book examines how renewed forms of artistic activism were developed in the wake of the neoliberal repression since the 1980s.

The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is one of the few research institutes in the world in which researchers in the field of literature, art, architecture, design and media studies come together to conduct research into the cultural production of the western world, from classical…

The MA in History, Arts and Culture of Asia is designed for students interested in taking a humanities-related approach to the study of countries or regions in pre-modern, modern or contemporary Asia.