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

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…

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.

The conquest by Rome brought profound changes to large parts of Europe. Unprecedented infrastructural works were created, towns sprang up, a ribbon of fortresses was laid out along the frontiers.

The areas around the Mediterranean Sea have a rich and fascinating past. Do you want to explore these ancient and diverse cultures of the Mediterranean World? In the Dutch-taught Bachelor's programme Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Leiden University you will study the world of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia…

The Central and Eastern European Studies Centre is an interdisciplinary platform of Leiden University scholars aiming to bundle, strengthen, and disseminate existing research into the history, politics, and culture of Central and Eastern Europe.

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…

Humanities, Institute for Area Studies

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

This series of publications brings together new material on wellconsidered themes within the wide area of Early Modern Studies.

Jews and Christians in the Middle East

At Leiden University you can study Islam and Muslim societies within two Dutch-language BA and various MA programmes and specializations.

This book bij Hasan Çolak is based on rigorous research on unpublished and unexplored Ottoman correspondence between the Ottoman central administration and the Eastern Patriarchates, published Greek patriarchal documents, and French missionary and diplomatic sources.

The Centre for Modern Urban Studies (MUS) is a multidisciplinary research institute that looks at historic and current changes in large cities. Our research is focussed on socio-cultural, economical, legal or technological change and the ways all these elements interact.

Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden

This research cluster centres on regional, national, and global intersections and interactions between a variety of artistic expressions and society. It focuses not only on objects (artistic, literary, cinematic, and medial), but also on practices (aesthetic, political, and cultural).

This research project of the Catholic University of Leuven was created in 1976 by Professor Dr Pierre Vermeersch, who assumed its direction until 2003. The present director is Professor Dr Philip Van Peer.

Early Modern Medievalisms: The Interplay between Scholarly Reflection and Artistic Production

The fourth edition of the Middle Eastern Culture market was a great success with more than 2000 visitors over the weekend. Attendees participated in the many workshops, attended lectures, and shopped at the market stands.

This volume, edited by Erika Kuijpers, Judith Pollmann, Johannes Müller and Jasper van der Steen, discusses practices of memory in early modern Europe.

The Issues beneath the Surface

Huda Abi-Fares defended her thesis on 10 January 2017.

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…

An Introduction and Field Guide, Second and Revised Edition (15 December 2014)

For early modern Europeans, the past was a measure of most things, good and bad. For that reason it was also hotly contested, manipulated, and far too important to be left to historians alone.

This project focuses on the study of Neanderthal and early modern human behavior, primarily on the basis of stone tools, fauna and spatial patterns

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.

The main focus of this research project is to investigate why people in Eastern Arabia chose to reuse ancient tombs and how this can be linked to collective memory.

How can legal education in Indonesia become more relevant for supporting the rule of law and providing legal services that common citizens need?

This research cluster explores processes of cultural creation, reception and transformation within a wide range of societal contexts from the early Middle Ages until c. 1800.

The Case of the Painted Plaster

Nobuaki Murai defended his thesis on 24 January 2018.

This research cluster centres on regional, national, and global intersections between a variety of artistic and cultural expressions and their role in society from 1800 onwards.

Who assembled the collections of museums? The answer to this question seems to point to men as collectors. Apart from for rare exceptions, female collectors hardly seem to exist. Yet there were indeed women collectors. For the project Museums, Collections and Society, researcher Holly O'Farrell will…

A dance form that is open to very diverse forms of movement. Characteristics of modern dance are working from the center of the body, breathing technique, contact with the floor and frequent use of turning and swinging movements.

Current status and future prospects

This project compares and contrasts how and why several Turkish and Iranian women were compelled to participate in leftist guerilla movements in the 1960s and 1970s.

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…