Conference

Lecture

Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is dedicated to ground-breaking and interdisciplinary research dealing with the relations between culture and society.

The socio-political and cultural memory of the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire played a very important role in Antiquity and later ages. This book is the first to systematically chart these multiform ideas and associations over time and to define them in relation to one another, as Persianism.

Ceramics and Society in the Aegean from the 7th to the 20th century A.C. A Case Study from Boeotia, Central Greece (2003)

The aim of this Research Traineeship will be to analyze the underexplored reception of ancient religions in popular culture, taking Dutch spiritual magazines as a case study. There are five such magazines: Paravisie (1986- ), Paraview (1997- ), Happinez (2003- ), Bres (1965- ), and Prana/Mantra (1975-…

This research programme encourages the analysis of nascent Islam within the framework of religious studies.

From Friday evening 23 October Leiden University will receive 120 refugees in our University Sport Centre (USC) on the Einsteinweg in Leiden. The refugees will stay for a week, up to and including Friday 30 October. This measure has consequences for students and staff. Sporting activities in the sport…

The Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies (LAMS) is an academic initiative housed at the Leiden University Institute of Philosophy. It brings together researchers and academics working on one or more aspects of late antiquity and medieval studies, across the fields of philosophy, history, theology,…

In ancient times, the steppe in the hinterland of Petra (Jordan) was transformed into a green oasis. This project tries to shed insights in the agricultural, water management and societal processes resulting in this transformation. This will be accomplished by practicing an interdisciplinary research…

This study aims to make a practical contribution to a new understanding and use of 3D reconstructions, namely as ‘laboratories’ to test hypotheses and visualize, evaluate and discuss alternative interpretations.

This NWO project, which is being be carried out in close cooperation with the universities of Oxford (contact: Prof. Robert Hoyland) and Princeton (contact: Prof. John F. Haldon) and the UMR 8167 (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS, University Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV, University Panthéon-Sorbonne,…

This new handbook by Frits Naerebout and Henk Singor places the history of the Greeks and Romans within the larger context of the contemporary Eurasian world.

On Monday 7 March 2016 the Minister of Antiquities, Dr Mamdouh Eldamaty, and the governor of Minya, General Tariq Nasr, visited the site of Dayr al-Barsha, where they were guided around by Prof. Harco Willems. After the recent events, the minister and the governor have expressed their support for the…

In ancient Greece and Rome, nighttime encompassed a distinctive array of cultural values that went far beyond the inversion of daytime. Night was a mythological figure, a locus of specialized knowledge, a socially significant semantic space in various literary genres, and a setting for unique experi…

The proposed research project examines the social role of two monk-bishops in seventh-century Egypt, Abraham of Hermonthis and Pesynthios of Koptos, by reconstructing their social networks on the basis of their archival documents.

Different ways in which physical environments impacted on the cultural imagination of Greco-Roman antiquity.

The objective of many European countries is to provide reception facilities for refugees in their own region. Here in the Netherlands a new coalition agreement is in the making and Professor Jorrit Rijpma reflects on his own research to give advice and tips.

To what extent can Nietzsche's Amor Fati be seen as a Stoic concept?

Asylum seekers wanting to get to Australia often end up in a detention centre on the tiny island state of Nauru. What effect does this ‘outsourcing’ of asylum seekers have on human rights? PhD candidate Patrick van Berlo went to Australia to investigate.

From 1 December 2019, Miguel John Versluys, Professor and Chair of Classical & Mediterranean Archaeology at the Faculty of Archaeology, will join the Supervisory Council of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden (RMO).

This research will investigate which aspects of On the sublime received attention in the intellectual milieu of the seventeenth century and how the sublime found its way in the political and artistic discourse of that time. Thus I aim to shed light on the role of art in politics and society in this…

The board of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) has agreed on June 27 on a plan for closer collaboration with Leiden University and the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO). The plan includes the launch of a NINO research institute with an annual budget of approximately 300.000 euro.

The Centre is the proud home of several research programmes.

From Caspar Reuvens to the royal grave in Oss, and from ancient images in the Hortus to a table from Naturalis. The National Museum of Antiquities is 200 years old, and throughout this whole period there have been close contacts between museum and university. Curator Annemarieke Willemsen explains this…

What does the excavated material tell us about the continuation and/or change of urban life during the transitional phrases from Antiquity to the Middle Ages on Crete and in the eastern Mediterranean more generally?

In Renaissance Florence, humanists wrote Latin poems fashioning their city as the new Rome, and members of the Medici family as Roman rulers. How can we explain this practice?

The key questions posed in this dissertation centre on the interaction between spectator and artwork. What happens between a spectator and an artwork? How do we experience ‘meaning’ in an artwork? How may the process of interpretation be understood and articulated?

Renate Dekker defended her thesis on 7 November 2017.

The key questions posed in this dissertation are centred on the interaction between spectator and artwork. What happens between a spectator and an artwork? How do we experience ‘meaning’ in an artwork? How may the process of interpretation be understood and articulated?

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets, Co-promotor: Dr. V.S.F.T. Merckx

Authority and Control in the Countryside looks at the economic, religious, political and cultural instruments that local and regional powers in the late antique to early medieval Mediterranean and Near East used to manage their rural hinterlands.

This is the first comprehensive commentary on a section of Xenophon's Anabasis in English for almost a century.

This research focuses on figurative Byzantine mosaic-floors that have been excavated in the geographical area of the ancient provinces of Palestina and Arabia (current Israel, PA and Jordan) dating to the Late 5th, 6th and early 7th centuries C.E.

Learn about the newest research from the researchers who are performing it.

The material and intellectual presence of Egypt is at the heart of Western culture, religion, and art from Antiquity to the present. In his book ‘Beyond Egyptomania. Objects, style and agency’, archaeologist Miguel John Versluys not only presents the Nachleben of Egypt as a major constituent of (European)…

The theme for this year’s Week of the Classics (19 to 27 March) is war in Classical Antiquity. Leiden Classics scholars are organising various activities, including the popular Know-Your-Classics Pub Quiz.

Until the 18th century, Latin annotations of well-known classical texts were an important source of scientific knowledge, but over the course of time the texts lost their authority. Classical scholar Maarten Jansen re-examines the annotations of Virgil's Aeneid. PhD defence 20 September.

The small piano studios at the LAK are available to rent for practice purposes. You can either rent the studios per hour or get a subscription. There are Yamaha pianos available in the studio's, but you can also use the space to practice with your own instrument.

The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is one of the few research institutes in the world in which researchers in the field of literature, art, architecture, design and media studies come together to conduct research into the cultural production of the western world, from classical…

Ibrahim Saweros defended his thesis on 9 November 2016

The Pioneer Years of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, 1818-1840

Two previous English translations of this classic essay by Georg Simmel have been in wide circulation, shaping the worldwide reception of Simmel’s urban theor

Alumni Event

Conference, Byvanck Style Symposium

‘From formal equality to transformative equality: the road to “other law” according to Holtmaat?’

This book by Dirk Jacob Jansen traces the career of Jacopo Strada (Mantua 1515-Vienna 1588), examining his role at court in Vienna, where he served as Imperial architect and antiquary. Strada’s career was unusually wide in scope and cosmopolitan in outlook even for a Renaissance artist.

The journey of sugar from east to west