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.

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.

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.

Saeedeh Shahnahpur defended her thesis on 13 September 2016.

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

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

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.

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…

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

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).

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,…

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.

Lecture, Studium Generale

Lecture

LUCIS Discussion Panel

Lecture, Studium Generale

Lecture, Studium Generale

Lecture, Studium Generale

Lecture

Ideology and Actions

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

Serhan Afacan defended his thesis on 23 June 2015

Maral Jefroudi defended her thesis on 11 October 2017

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.

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

Peyman Jafari defended his thesis on 11 October 2018

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme in Assyriology 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.

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.

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…

Lecture

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Assyriology 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 (Research) programme in Egyptology 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.

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

Paolo Sartori is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Iranian Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. In Leiden he will deliver one guest lecture on Twilight of the Persianate: The Vernacularization of Central Asia (18th - early 20th Centuries) on 12 April and a masterclass on How can we…

The Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS) is devoted to the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present time in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective.