At the heart of this study is a thorough inquiry of categorisations of social identity used in the VOC’s record-keeping bureaucracy. How were service, occupational and caste groups classified and shaped by the VOC?

Doctoral research on recent developments in museological practices by “critical” curators, interventionist artists, and personnel initiatives, focusing on ‘queering’ as an entrance point to broader intersectional issues; resulting in a report on the ‘Queer Baseline’ (to be launched in 2020), a popular…

The lecture will be hosted on THURSDAY, 12 JANUARY 2023 AT 18:00 UTC+02

Beyond Empires explores the complexity of empire building from the point of view of self-organized networks, rather than from the point of view of the central state.

The war in Ukraine is leading not only to human suffering. Ukraine's cultural heritage is also experiencing the consequences of the war: museums are being bombed and 'Russification' in the occupied territories means children no longer learn Ukrainian. Researcher Evelien Campfens was commissioned by…

This research deals with the royal houses of the Vijayanagara Empire and four of its successor states: Ikkeri, Tanjavur (under both the Nayaka and Bhonsle rulers), Madurai, and Ramnad. This study is thus concerned with dynastic politics and imperial legacies in south India between the 14th and 18th…

The oil pipeline in Dakota, the widening of the motorway near Stonehenge, the construction of dams in Turkey and Iraq: newspapers and social media are full of alarming articles about threats to heritage as a result of large-scale construction work. Heritage experts at Leiden University have developed…

On 2 Juni 2021, Maarten Manse defended his thesis 'Promise, Pretence and Pragmatism: Governance and Taxation in Colonial Indonesia, 1870-1940'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. R. Arendsen.

Unlike most city histories, this book focuses exclusively on the city’s connections with colonialism and slavery.

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

How geographical and institutional openness in Dutch Guiana fostered a unique colonial economy. This publication is part of the Early American Places Series.

Why did some Eurasians opt for staying in the former colony while others left for the metropolis or another country?

On January 28 and 29, 2021 the conference ‘Imperial Artefacts: History, Law and the Looting of Cultural Property’ took place online. This first of its kind event at Leiden University was an interdisciplinary online conference and brought together (post-)colonial historians, legal historians, curators,…

The project re-examines the role of the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox missionaries in the cultural and social developments of the Middle East and their interactions with the indigenous communities, from the nineteenth century until today. It seeks to discover and retrace such ‘entangled histories’…

The project ‘Founding an Inclusive Space’ investigates the histories of various LGBT+ archives in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Attitudes towards cultural heritage have long been characterised by an ‘endangerment sensibility’ concerned with preventing losses. Recently, however, critical heritage scholars have argued that loss can be generative, facilitating the formation of new values and attachments. Their arguments have focused…

There is no heritage without emotional sharing and clashing. This article explores the involvement of divergent emotions in heritage making by discussing the debate series of Imagine IC and the Reinwardt Academy and zooming in on the commemoration of slavery and imagery of ‘Black Pete’ in the Netherlands.…

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…

Doctoral research on the history of the critical visitor and their efforts at founding alternative archives including LGBT+-focused, feminist, disability and digitizing projects, resulting in a traveling exhibition on findings (with audio-guides), popular and scholarly article, and a dissertation.

How was time understood during the colonial period by Tlaxcaltecan Naua communities? What is the relationship between time, spirituality and ritual in the present-day Naua community of Santa Catarina? What does this tell us about the strengths and values of Indigenous heritage and about the impact of…

In 'White Lies and Black Markets. Evading Metropolitan Authority in Colonial Suriname, 1650-1800' dr. Karwan Fatah-Black offers a new account of the colonization of Suriname in the period between 1650-1800.

Since the emergence of humankind people have maintained social contacts and traveled widely, establishing interaction networks in which goods are traded and ideas are transmitted, increasingly on a global scale.

Colonial Soldiers in Europe, 1914-1945:

For hundreds of years, the island of Sri Lanka was a crucial stopover for people and goods in the Indian Ocean. For the Dutch East India Company, it was also a crossroads in the Indian Ocean slave trade. Slavery was present in multiple forms in Sri Lanka—then Ceylon—when the British conquered the island…

This project aims at recording and safeguarding parts of the intangible cultural heritage of the Dogon in central Mali. A major song cycle, the baja ni, forms an integral part of Dogon funeral traditions. The song cycle is attributed to Abirè, a blind Dogon poet/prophet, probably from the 19th c., who…

This research project analyses the use of different, often competing, stereotypical images of Rome in Humanist Latin Poetry, by considering it as strategic appropriation of the classical heritage.

Subproject of the NWO Smart Culture Grant research project 'The Critical Visitor'.

Lecture

Reproducing past, present and future: colonial visions and experience in Asia in the residencies

This study elucidates a critical facet of modern global Buddhism that has escaped the attention of the scholarly community by exploring the life, teachings and influence of Master Wuguang 悟光上師 (1918-2000).

What was the function of the Dutch Protestant Church in Sri Lankan society? Why did people relate to the Church and how did conversion influence their life course?

Subproject of

The Central Asia Initiative is funded by the Leiden research profile area Asian Modernities and Traditions with the purpose to establish Central Asian Studies at Leiden University.

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

This publication of the School of Advanced Study of the University of London is one of the outcomes of the Landscapes of Early Roman Colonization project and the Colonial Rural Networks project (NWO, Dr. T.D. Stek). The volume, edited by Tesse Stek and prof. Gert-Jan Burgers of the Free University Amsterdam,…

Walsh

Colonialism Inside Out: Everyday Experience and Plural Practice in Dutch Institutions in Sri Lanka (c. 1700-1800)

During the one-year master’s programme in Colonial and Global History you will learn about the importance of a comparative perspective for understanding transnational processes such as imperialism, colonialism, islamisation, modernisation and globalisation.

Heritage Quest is a large-scale citizen science project in the field of archaeology that allows anyone to contribute to scientific research. It is the first large-scale archaeological citizen science project in The Netherlands and one of the few of its kind in the world. As part of the Cultural Heritage…

Crossing borders and connecting people in archaeological heritage management. Essays in honour of prof. Willem J.H. Willems

Subproject of the NWO Smart Culture Grant research project 'The Critical Visitor'.

The Centre for Global Heritage and Development has been successful in applying for a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on the topic of threatened heritage at ICTO, the platform for innovation and education at Leiden University.

Leiden and The Hague are home to many museums with large numbers of artefacts and archives. Leiden University also and Leiden University also houses special collections. Museums, Collections & Society stimulates research and education and raises ethical questions regarding the collections’ origin.

The Heritage Sector at a Crossroads: The way of Intersectionality. This project investigates how heritage institutions can achieve inclusion and accessibility within their organization, collection, and exhibition spaces that meets the breadth of demands placed by today’s “critical visitors.” Fifteen…

Archaeologist Eduardo Herrera Malatesta reflects on the unfamiliarity with the pre-Columbian past that he encountered during fieldwork in the Montecristi province in the Dominican Republic.

Call for Papers: Imperial Artefacts. History, Law, and the Looting of Cultural Property

Maritime History encompasses humankind’s relationships to the seas and oceans of the world.

Shifting the Compass: Pluricontinental Connections in Dutch Colonial and Postcolonial Literature