In recent years, and especially since the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, a growing body of research, media reporting, and scholarly literature has focused on the role of ‘Arab youth’ as the drivers of social and political movements across the Middle East and North Africa.

Debate, Workshop

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Conference, Round Table Discussion

Faculty Roundtable | MENA Cultures & Global Aesthetics

As Lila Abu Lughod pointed out in 1989, North Africa has been one of the geographical ‘zones of prestige’ for the development of canonical approaches and crucial theoretical debates regarding the comparative study of Islam.

The Issues beneath the Surface

Aesthetic formations and cultural repertoires give meaning to our reality in ways that are never neutral. Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its global interlocutors, this project brings together a team of scholars from Leiden University who bring in inter-disciplinary, inter-area…

Since 2017, NVIC offers an interdisciplinary semester in Middle East Studies for students of Dutch and Flemish universities, primarily in the fields of International Studies. Half the semester (15 ects) is devoted to Arabic language acquisition, both Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Colloquial…

Aesthetic formations and cultural repertoires give meaning to our reality in ways that are never neutral. Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its global interlocutors, this project brings together a team of scholars from Leiden University who bring in inter-disciplinary, inter-area…

The D&I Expertise Office is in close contact with various student and staff networks regarding diversity and inclusion.

Designed for high-achieving students, Leiden University's master's in Middle Eastern Studies (Research) offers you unmatched resources and expertise.

The one-year (60 EC) master’s in Middle Eastern Studies provides intensive and comprehensive training. The programme prepares you for a range of careers requiring specialist language, cultural, or political knowledge.

This research programme seeks to understand the dynamics in the relationship between social media, mobile telephony and the social fabric under duress in Africa's mobile margins. It combines studies on mobility/migration, conflict and communication in an attempt to uncover these new dynamics, which…

This project uses archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence to investigate urban development in Roman-period North Africa, compiling this in a GIS-linked database in order to analyse the development of urban settlement spatially over time.

After an initial suggestion of a move toward Israel, India’s Prime Minister Modi has signaled a significant recalibration of his government’s engagement with the Middle East region. Now, India seems to be prioritising strong ties with the Gulf states.

Special Issue in: Visual Anthropology, Volume 29, Issue 3, 2016

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. It deals with a wealth of fascinating, inspirational, and highly-relevant topics.

This project investigates the rich linguistic history of the crucial language groups in East Africa and includes a search for words that indicate earlier lost languages. These outcomes, combined with recent archaeological and genetic research, will contribute to a new understanding of East Africa’s…

LUCIS affiliated members are researchers outside Leiden University who are actively involved in the study of Islam and/or Muslim societies and who regularly participate in LUCIS activities. LUCIS affiliate membership offers possibilities to cooperate with LUCIS as well as network opportunities. Contact…

This project investigates the causes of the major archaeological change in the period of 40.000-20.000 BC in South Africa.

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! series

From the mid-19th century until the 1970’s, the Middle East witnessed the presence of various European missionaries who played a fundamental role in the birth and the development of humanitarianism. Since these Christian missionaries were well integrated in the local Middle Eastern societies via their…

Leiden University offers its students a wide range of bachelor's, master's and minors that explore sustainability or climate. Here, you find an overview of those programmes in the academic year 2020-2021.

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.

Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence, and Environment, vol.16. Edited by Noriyuki Shirai.

Global Political Economy, a specialisation of the master in International Relations, provides you with a rigorous understanding of the global political economy and the different approaches to its study.

Lecture, Language Policy and Practices Series

The project re-examines the role of the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox missionaries in the cultural and social developments of the Middle East and their interactions with the indigenous communities, from the nineteenth century until today. It seeks to discover and retrace such ‘entangled histories’…

Presenting case studies by both senior and emerging scholars, it makes mandatory reading for anyone interested in the challenges of governance, citizenship and development faced by the people of India’s North East.

How did interests outside the scope of the Dutch chartered trading companies influence the career-paths of Dutch colonial governors?

If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

How did free agents oppose the monopolies held by the VOC and WIC in court?

Humanities, Centre for Linguistics

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Science with the University of Pretoria.

This anthology contributes to a historically grounded understanding of the complex relationship between Christian missions and the roots of humanitarianism and its contemporary uses in a Middle Eastern context.

Political Islam is not new to the Middle East, but the appearance of ISIS has stretched the phenomenon to the extreme.

The VVI seeks to advance knowledge of the formation and functioning of legal systems in their social contexts, the impact of these systems on society and vice versa, their effectiveness in governance, and their contribution to development.

On young Muslims seeking to understand their place and make their way in a transformed world.

This project aims to revisit the ways in which religious minorities in the Middle East participated in, contributed to, and opposed the Arab nationalism of the post-war years, when the British and French ruled the region via the Mandates. Research question: How did religious minorities in the Middle…

Do you want to discover a language and culture that is completely different from the Netherlands? In the Bachelor's programme Middle Eastern Studies you will study the connections between the different cultures in the Middle-East in the past and present. You will be able to choose from the languages…

The Great Rift Valley in Africa is a real treasure trove for discovering early human fossils. The fossils found in this part of Africa have determined our view of human evolution. But was the Great Rift Valley really the place where evolution took place or just a place where fossils are well preserved…

On Friday 2 October journalist Sander van Hoorn starts his lecture series ‘The Middle East doesn't exist’, which was organised by the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS). ‘If all goes well, people will understand the Middle East that bit less after my lectures.’