German courses at the Academic Language Centre: General language courses and Tailor-made and In-company training.

German Language and Linguistics at Leiden University offers in-depth knowledge of German linguistic theory and practice.

Humanities, Centre for Linguistics

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.

Germany has an important position in Europe, both economically as well as politically and culturally. In the Bachelor's programme German Language and Culture you will dive into the rich language, history and literature of this influencial country and discover what it has to offer!

This dissertation focuses on the systematic vowel alternations displayed by the Proto-Germanic n-stems. The fact is, that many of these nouns now appear to have preserved the ablaut system of the Indo-European proto-language spoken some five millennia ago. In this respect, the n-stems are truly comparable…

In the globalised world of today, traditional definitions of national Self and national Other no longer hold. The unmistakable transformation of German and Dutch societies demands a thorough rethinking of national boundaries on several levels.

A scientific assessment of the site selection for the ‘Frontiers of the Roman Empire’ Unesco World Heritage Site.

This dissertation provides a thorough review of the words belonging to the oldest layer of Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic and answers the question of how these words were adapted to the Proto-Slavic accentual system.

How was the Scholarly Self cultivated in professorial families of the humanities, in German-speaking Europe between 1860 and 1930?

Parliaments in democratic systems serve as the people’s representatives, legislators and overseers of the executive. They have the power to define the framework in which the executive can act and must report about its action. For parliaments to fulfil their roles, though, they depend on access to information.…

The main question of this research project concerns the extent to which light verbs in West Germanic languages participate in processes of language change.

This study investigates how two social and political developments, in the UK and Germany, impacted on the experiences of minorities and the attitudes of majorities vis-à-vis tolerance in those two countries. The results provide a thought-provoking picture of the views of minority and majority groups…

Pursuing Whiteness in the Colonies offers a new comprehension of colonial history from below by taking remnants of individual agencies from a whiteness studies perspective. It highlights the experiences and perceptions of colonisers and how they portrayed and re-interpreted their identities in Afric…

Assistant professor and dual PhD candidate, Pieter Slaman writes in Binnenlands Bestuur about the fact that the German occupier lengthened the period of mandatory education in The Netherlands.

While Old Germanic studies might seem dated and, regrettably, occupies a less than secure position in various academic institutions, exciting new research presented by young researchers shows that the field is still vibrant and may have a bright future. On Thursday, the 7th of April, the ‘Junius Symposium…

The German Archaeological Institute is a world leading research institute, which conducts and facilitates research in the archaeological sciences and classical studies. Professor David Fontijn was appointed for his work on the European Bronze Age.

Startup In Ovo received a large investment in October for the further development of a method to determine the sex of chicken eggs, which would save the lives of millions of newly hatched male chicks per year. German TV channel n-tv came to Leiden to film an item about the spin-off company of Leiden…

On Friday, the 24th of April 2015, the Junius Symposium voor Jonge Oudgermanisten, a symposium for junior researchers in the field of language, culture and history of the (early) medieval Germanic tribes, was organized by Peter Alexander Kerkhof (LUCL) and Thijs Porck (LUCAS).

Five questions about the event ‘Germany after the Elections: implications for Foreign Policy and European Security’ answered by one of the experts at the event: Joachim Koops. Come by at the Spanish Steps in Wijnhaven on Friday 15 October or join the event online (link below).

Earlier this month, the Europa Institute organized an internal discussion on the German PSPP-judgment. For the first time, the German Constitutional Court declared acts of EU institutions as manifestly excessive and thus as ultra vires acts under German constitutional law. During an online debate, various…

Moritz Jesse, Associate Professor at the Europa Institute in Leiden, provided the key-note lecture at this year’s annual conference of the German-Dutch Lawyers Association. The lecture was titled “The other’s amongst us – Third-Country Nationals and Brits in the EU”.

Recently, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) issued its second preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Following its earlier reference on the European Central Bank’s bond buying programme Outright Monetary Transactions, the German court now…

Environmental scientist Nadia Soudzilovskaia has been awarded the prestigious, international Bessel-Forschungs prize issued by the Von Humboldt foundation. This German award is issued to outstanding foreign mid-career scientists that collaborate with German researchers. ‘The combination of different…

This volume provides a sample of the most recent studies on Spanish-English codeswitching both in the Caribbean and among bilinguals in the United States.

Riese presented on 3 December 2018 the reason of state as the preservation of the state through exceptional measures.

This dissertation investigates A'-dependencies in Standard German, Zurich German and Dutch where the dislocated constituent is indirectly, i.e. not transformationally, related to the position where it is interpreted. The analysis is carried out within the Principles & Parameters framework.

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.