Conference

LIAS aims to advance the globally conscious vision of area studies, both within and outside the academic community. Focusing on Asia and the Middle East, the institute is a meeting place of multiple fields of inquiry, theories and methods, historical periods, and areas.

This study addresses and explains the issue of negative descriptions of the Arab Other in modern Iranian thought.

Abdolreza Alamdar Baghini defended his thesis on 5 December 2019.

This research investigates everyday lives and workplace experiences of Iranian workers employed at textile industry, which was the second biggest industry after oil following the latter’s discovery in 1908.

Ideology and Actions

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

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.

On 8 December, Leiden University Press will present a new international series on Persian poetry and literature. The series will be edited by Asghar Seyed Gohrab (Middle Eastern Studies).

Behrouz Karoubi defended his thesis on 15 June 2016

The primary aim of this project is to recover, order, and assess Persian Epic Cycle material in order to provide the field of Iranian studies with the first comprehensive and balanced analysis of the form and contents of the epics within the Persian Epic Cycle.

In the study of West-East relations, difference often takes centre stage. This holds for both culturalist and postcolonial perspectives. By contrast, in my investigation of Netherlands-Iran political relations in the 1960s and 1970s, I will focus on the role of SIMILARITY. What lay at the root of the…

Saeedeh Shahnahpur defended her thesis on 13 September 2016.

A linguistic test of hypotheses rooted in genetics and archaeology.

This is the first reference work to describe the history of embroidery throughout Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent from the medieval period through to the present. It offers an authoritative guide to all the major embroidery traditions of the region and a detailed examination…

The chief aim of this study is to explore how classical Persian poetry and the Persian mysticism that is interwoven with the poetry have been used in the new politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially during the Iran-Iraq war.

Serhan Afacan defended his thesis on 23 June 2015

Peyman Jafari defended his thesis on 11 October 2018

Maral Jefroudi defended her thesis on 11 October 2017

For 2022, The Iranian-German project 'The Iranian Highlands: Resilience and Integration of Premodern Societies' announces the second round of fellowship grants. The fellowship is open for both iranian and non-iranian researchers, especially in archaeology but also in other interdisciplinary fields focussing…

The Ancient Worlds Network brings together staff and graduate students in LIAS working on the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world.

LIAS is comprised of three research schools with expertise in different areas:

Turkic nomadic rulers established large empires in the Middle East and Asia between the 11th and 14th centuries. This project will explore the link between their political ideology and the production of art and literature, via the cultural heritage of five cities along the Silk Road: Kashgar, Samarkand,…

Lecture, Studium Generale

Women behind the front play an important role in a large proportion of Iranian novels, written on the Iran and Iraq-war (1980-1988). But their martyrdom is an uncommon theme. Saeedeh Shahnahpur will give a lecture on this subject on 16 February.

Hester Bijl, the Rector Magnificus of Leiden University, was handed a ‘shockingly long list’ of names of missing Iranians in her office at the Administration and Central Services department on 13 December 2022.

On 29 February there appeared a column by Maaike Warnaar in the Volkskrant on the Iranian elections.

Neither technology, nor Pan-Islamism, but only the codification of law could prevent Iran from falling even further behind the Western world. So wrote the 19th century intellectual Mustashar ad-Dowla in his tract Yak Kaleme. The translation of this work was presented in Amsterdam on 8 December.

Protests have been raging in Iran for two months since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The role of social media in the protests against the Iranian regime should not be underestimated, says Senior Assistant Professor and Iranian Babak RezaeeDaryakenari.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

Leiden University’s Master’s in Middle Eastern Studies programme is a one-year, full-time Master’s programme that is taught completely in English. Building on a tradition of more than four centuries of studying the Middle East, we offer highly relevant and up to date insights into a wide variety of…

The research profile ‘Asian Modernities and Traditions’ (AMT) aims to raise the strength and visibility of research, teaching and dissemination on Asian studies at Leiden University. AMT focuses on those areas where there are clear strengths or exciting new developments ahead, bundled into five them…

This project intends to provide an integrated linguistic assessment of the hypothesised migration route of the Tocharians.

Area studies is an approach to knowledge that starts from the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present, through the relevant source languages, with central regard for issues of positionality.

Jeffrey Kotyk defended his thesis on 7 September 2017

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme in Assyriology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme in Assyriology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Egyptology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Classics offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Assyriology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

On the 13th of April, Federico Dragoni successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Federico on this achievement!