Over the last few years, human Rights have become subject of intense debates in historiography. Sam Moyn’s provocative book The Last Utopia (2010) made in particular clear how important it is to investigate precisely which meaning human rights have been given in a particular context. During the research…

Read on these pages all about the history of Leiden University, the oldest university in the Netherlands. The Academia Lugduna Batava was founded in 1575 and its motto is: Libertatis Praesidium ('Bastion of Freedom').

The humanities consist of various academic fields. What is the common ground of all these different academics and students? Why does their work matter in today’s world? Academics, students, and alumni of the Humanities Faculty tell their story in the documentary 'Humans of Humanities'.

This book rovides an economic history of Portugal over the course of eight centuries, from 1143 through to 2010 and situates Portugal's economic growth within the context of European development. It also responds to fundamental questions about when, how and why the economy expanded, stagnated or co…

In the Humans of Humanities series, we will do a portrait of one of our researchers, staff members or students, every other week.

Welcome to the Graduate School of the Faculty of Humanities.

Why did 'character', 'habit', and 'virtue' serve as key terms in late 19th and early 20th-century scholarly correspondences, biographies, and obituaries? Why did scholars around 1900 display so much interest in the working habits and character traits of what they called the 'scholarly self'?

The master's programme in Philosophy of Humanities at Leiden University allows you to specialise in conceptual and methodological issues in the Humanities.

Leiden University is a unique international centre for the advanced study of languages, cultures, arts, and societies worldwide, in their historical contexts from prehistory to the present.

What is nationalism and how can we study it from a historical perspective? Writing the History of Nationalism answers this question by examining eleven historical approaches to nationalism studies in theory and practice.

Confucianism has been a major force in the cultural history of China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam for thousands of years, affecting the art, literature, science and politics of all these countries.

Thirteen Centuries of Creed, Conflict and Coexistence

PhD Defence

How did the invention and implementation of the lightning rod change the perception of thunderstorms on a scientific, technical, religious and artistic level, in the Netherlands and beyond, during the period 1752-1830?

For thousands of years, societies have fallen under the reign of a single leader, ruling as chief, king, or emperor. In this fascinating global history of medieval and early modern dynastic power, Jeroen Duindam charts the rise and fall of dynasties, the rituals of rulership, and the contested presence…

What are interactive effects of human pressures on aquatic communities?

On the 11th of October, Micheal Swanton succesfully defended his PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Micheal on this great result.

What is the role of the noradrenergic system in human cognition?

Disciplinary History and Epistemology

In the History of the Roman Emperors, what does Herodian’s method of composition consist of and how does it relate to his writing intention, particularly in terms of political and moral idea(l)s?

Nichiran kankei-shi o yomitoku [Revisiting the History of Dutch-Japanese Relations] is a new, two-volume Japanese publication with a chapter written by Wulan Remmelink. Both volumes offer a new look on the historical relations between Japan and The Netherlands during the Edo period by examining various…

This dissertation studies the formation of the wage laboring class in the Iranian oil industry during the first decades of the 20th century.

When people migrate, they leave an old environment behind and move to a new one. What exactly happens? How do the migrants feel? How does the host society respond to them?

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a synthetic work, authored by an international team of researchers, covering twenty national cultures and 250 years. It goes beyond the conventional nation-centered narratives and presents a novel vision especially sensitive to the cross-cultural…

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a synthetic work, authored by an international team of researchers, covering twenty national cultures and 250 years. It goes beyond the conventional nation-centered narratives and presents a novel vision especially sensitive to the cross-cultural…

An important hormone excreting gland in the human body is the pituitary

Recently, Ingrid Leijten’s book Core Socio-Economic Rights and the European Court of Human Rights was published with Cambridge University Press. The monograph was published in the series Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy (edited by Laurence Gormley and Jo Shaw) and deals with the protection…

This volume examines how the history of the humanities might be written through the prism of scholarly personae, understood as time- and place-specific models of being a scholar.

Jasmina Mačkić, Assistant Professor of Human Rights Law at the Europa Institute, has published her book, Proving Discriminatory Violence at the European Court of Human Rights. This work is based on her doctoral dissertation, which she defended in May 2017 and which was funded by the Netherlands Organisation…

On Tuesday 23 May 2017, Jasmina Mackic defended her doctoral thesis ‘Proving discriminatory violence at the European Court of Human Rights’. The supervisor of the research is Vice Dean and Professor of Public International Law Larissa van den Herik. A brief summary of her thesis is provided below.

Show People offers a comprehensive history of the film star from Mary Pickford to Andy Serkis, traversing more than one hundred years and drawing on examples from America, Britain, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

Cwiertka wants to investigate how waste is produced and disposed of in modern East Asian society. With her research group she will be carrying out a comparative analysis on two levels: the international level (between China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) and the inter-regional level (between East Asia…

Promotor: P. T. de Zeeuw, Co-promotor: N. Neumayer; G. van de Ven

By analysing neglected (continental) spy centres and integrating these groups of female intelligencers into the traditional, male-orientated historical narratives, this project will proceed towards a gendered history of early modern espionage.

The Research Handbook on Labour, Business and Human Rights Law edited by prof. Janice Bellace of the University of Pennsylvania and ass. prof. Beryl ter Haar of Leiden University. The book is publisehd in Edward Elgars series on Human Rights.

This PhD research sets out to unravel and explain the socio-structural and cultural impacts of oil-industrialization on the local Bakhtiari community in general and the industrial laborers it provided in specific.

The narrow but long stretched stript of Frisian land along the North Sea was already occupied before Roman times. However, man repeatedly suffered setbacks when he tried to extend his living space, both in the tidal marshes and the peat area south of them.

Zeynep Sarlak defended her thesis on 25 August 2020

The Executive Board has appointed Herman Paul (Institute for History) as Professor of History of the Humanities. He will take up the role from 1 January 2019.

Leiden’s Faculty of Humanities is one of the broadest of its kind, offering courses in no fewer than 80 different languages and a very broad spectrum of academic disciplines.

From William Shakespeare to Marilynne Robinson, A Literary History of Reconciliation is the first study to examine representations of interpersonal reconciliation in work of literature across a long-term period, from the early seventeenth century to the present day, focusing on how these representations…

The first comprehensive and authoritative history of work and labour in Africa; a key text for all working on African Studies and Labour History worldwide.

This collaborative project aims to explore the history of the concept “barbarism” in Europe from the 18th century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the role of literature and art in the concept’s shifting functions.

The acquisition and administration of the possessions of the “Teutonic House” in Utrecht, and its dependencies, in the Middle Ages until c.1600.

How did digital intermediality symbolise and facilitate the transfer of content from popular culture into policy statements and vice versa in the period between 1945 and the new millenium?

Considering the ways in which the ‘global turn’ is changing the theory and practice of historical disciplines, Explorations in History and Globalization engages with the concept and methodology of globalization, challenging traditional divisions of space and time to offer a range of perspectives on…

Promotor: J.A. Bouwstra Co-promotor: A. El Ghalbzouri

Historical migration studies have long focused primarily on the European and Atlantic worlds. In this programmatic and long term project, we aim to broaden the perspective to include the full migration experience of the non-Western world.

Human trafficking is a very topical social problem, which because of both its social and legal complexity, can only be studied in an interdisciplinary way. Combating human trafficking currently features high on national and international policy agendas.