Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period. It inspired people to strive for social and political change, including sometimes by violent means, and prompted in return strong reactions against their religious activism.

Nature and History, Towards a Hermeneutic Philospohy of Historiography of Science

Recent concerns about cultural identity emphasise the ongoing political and social importance of the question of how, and with whom, people identify. Changing and conflicting identities were highly relevant for pre-modern Europe. Paradoxically, the more powerful states became, the more their rulers…

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.

By comparing the archaeological evidence at Sedgeford and other sites located on both English and Continental coastal zones, what evidence is there for a shared maritime culture between these North Sea communities? Also if evidence is found, can we reveal to some extent a separate coastal identity to…

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?

In this project the already developed parcel based historical GIS (HISGIS) for the Dutch province of Friesland (Frisia) will be extended with a series of crucial datasets and map layers.

Being a Slave brings together scholars and writers who try to come to terms with the histories and legacies of European slavery in the Indian Ocean.

Liu Puning defended his thesis on 25 April 2018.

Ahab Bdaiwi, University Lecturer of Islamic history, religion and philosophy, was received the first Faculty Impact Award. His interest lies in ‘everything that has to do with antiquity’, especially the religious and philosophical ideas that arose at that time. ‘They can move people. And many of those…

Wenxin Wang defended her thesis on 26 October 2016

This project will explore how Chinese digital networks are grounded in real-world institutions, and how interest groups and individuals use digital infrastructures to shape public discourse on national history.

This project, South American population history revisited: multidisciplinary perspectives on the Upper Amazon (SAPPHIRE), investigates population dynamics in western South America on the basis of traces in the geographical, genetic, archaeological, ethnological, and linguistic record.

Op 22 februari leidt Karst Schuil (Wenen) het derde seminar (online) van de seminarreeks van de Onderzoekschool Mediëvistiek: Emotionality and Late Medieval Self-Transformative Processes. Hij onderzoekt de relatie tussen pelgrimages en emoties en zal zijn prospectus (een uitgewerkt voorstel) van zijn…

How do old and new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) relate to new social and political movements in Central Africa? What does this tell us about Africa and the Information Age?

A defining fixture of our contemporary world, video games offer a rich spectrum of engagements with the past.

Which genes are involved in woodiness and associated traits such as drought tolerance, flowering time, stem elongation, life span, and plant herbivory, and how do these gene regulatory pathways overlap?

The 7th European Congress of Medieval Studies of the Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales (FIDEM) will be organized by the Department of Arts, Media, and Philosophy of the University of Basel, Switzerland. There is a number of slots for papers (20 minutes) and special sessions…

What are the origins of the Islamic Empire? And what was daily life like there? Two new Ted Ed animations answer these questions in simple language. Arabists Petra Sijpesteijn and Birte Kristiansen explain what the process of developing the videos was like.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Louis Sicking's Maritime Conflict Management in Atlantic Europe was awarded an 'Internationalisation in the Humanities' grant from NWO. What can we learn from how maritime conflicts were managed in the past?

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

Nadeera Seneviratne defended her thesis on 21 January 2016.

A History of Dutch Corruption and Morality showcases 300 years of change, continuity, and diversity in the history of Dutch political corruption and public morality. It analyses a series of corruption scandals and shows how the following debates were connected to the big changes of that time: from the…

The Centre is the proud home of several research programmes.

Athens is universally known as a symbol of democracy, philosophy, and ancient Greek aesthetics. Some of the most famous classical monuments, including the Parthenon and the temple of Hephaestus, can be found here.

Debates on political legitimacy in Dutch parliament in the 1880s, 1930s, and 1960s