This work analyzes ritual practices and knowledge related to the Mesoamerican calendar with the aim of contributing to the understanding of the use and conceptualization of this calendar system in the contemporary K’iche’ community of Momostenango, in the Highlands of Guatemala.

This subproject studies the material traces of rituals and symbols.

Spirit priests and ancestor cults in new guinea's far west

A study concerning the collective memory in the region of the Bene lo Ya/ Ene lo I'ya, Sierra Norte, Oaxaca.

Carina van den Hoven defended her thesis on 16 February 2017.

LIAS PhD program activities include skills training, library training, thematic coursework (the PhD Seminars), social events, and so on. The list below will be updated as event details are confirmed. Detailed announcements for each events are circulated to all PhD candidates on email.

Time, Religion and Sacred Discourses of the Ayuuk People

Protestant missionaries have provided the earliest and most detailed sources regarding the ritual art of the Papuan peoples of the Geelvink Bay.

How was time understood during the colonial period by Tlaxcaltecan Naua communities? What is the relationship between time, spirituality and ritual in the present-day Naua community of Santa Catarina? What does this tell us about the strengths and values of Indigenous heritage and about the impact of…

Migration imposes special pressures on the meaning, experience and organization of lifecycle rituals. These pressures are felt most strongly by Muslim migrants to Western Europe. In this innovative study, Nathal M. Dessing examines the effects of migration on the life cycle rituals of Moroccan, Turkish…

This dissertation focuses on a new field of artistic research in which a visual artist takes on the role of researcher. The main research question is whether performance art integrated in an ecumenical service, combined with artistic directions from the artist, can enhance the religious experience of…

Mei-Wen Chen defended her thesis on 29 June 2016

A post-colonial approach to the concept of time in the past and present Maya culture

Contemporary Maya Calendars

Stefan Belderbos was the first visual artist to undertake PhD research in the arts at Leiden University. His doctoral defence is on 2 December. Not only will he defend his dissertation on the integration of performance art in liturgy, he will also exhibit the material results of his research in the…

This study documents and translates the Saa (Zapotec) cultural heritage of the Bene’ Ya’a/En’ne I’ya peoples, the Zapotec inhabitants of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca.

Important dates in the Academic Language Centre calendar.

From 29 October until 31 October 2018 the conference 'Interpreting Rituals: Historiographical Perspectives and Pluralistic Contexts' will be held at Leiden University. The conference is organised by the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR), the Dutch Association for the Study…

There are issues with the webmail calendar. All existing appointments are visible, but they cannot be edited and no new items can be added.

The Etymology Calendar for 2020, which was compiled by five linguistics students from Leiden University, has now hit the shops. After the resounding success of the first Etymology Calendar last year, this year’s version is being published by big-name publishing house Brill.

Protestant missionaries have provided the earliest and most detailed sources regarding the ritual art of the Papuan peoples of the Geelvink Bay. Raymond Corbey brings these sources to bear on circa 300 ritual objects and their itineraries in the book KORWAR - Northwest New Guinea ritual art according…

What can the composition and arrangement of urnfield graves tell us about the social and ideological believes of the urnfield period societies?

The Indigenous Calendars of Mexico and Guatemala

Cultural biographies of persons, objects and 'natural' places in the Bronze Age of the Southern Netherlands, c. 2300-600 BC.

What does the UN seek to achieve though global observance days, weeks and years and how have these initiatives impacted the role of the organization in forwarding the agenda of human rights?

On 12 January 2018 Jorrit Rijpma, associate professor of the Europa Institute and Jean Monnet Professor, held the yearly Meijers lecture. In the well-attended lecture he spoke on the topics of his Jean Monnet Chair on Mobility and Security: the aftermath of the refugee crisis and the effects on free…

The feature drama film In Times of Rain will have its world premiere at the Guanajuato International Film Festival (#GIFF 2018) in Mexico. The film is a result of the Leiden University project ‘Time in lntercultural Context’, funded by the European Research Council.

The European Research Council has awarded an Advanced Grant to Prof. dr. Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen for the research project

Organisation of settlement space and residence rules among the Taino, the indigenous people of the Caribbean encountered by Columbus

On November 25, Dr Araceli Rojas presented her book El tiempo y la sabiduría: un calendario sagrado entre los ayöök de Oaxaca. The event took place in the Central Public Library of the State of Oaxaca, in the heart of Oaxaca City, at 7 pm.

How the systematic destruction of valuables created value in Bronze Age Europe, c. 2300-500 BC

Lecture

Case Studies in Etruscan Ritual Behaviour

Every year, in the last month of the Islamic calendar, millions of Muslims from around the world come together in Mecca to perform the Hajj, the pilgrimage that all capable Muslims should perform at least once in their lives. In 2013, the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden organised the exhibition…

PhD Defence

Of jars and gongs deals with the traditional ritual art of Ot Danum Dayak subsistence farmers from a stretch of tropical rainforest in the heart of Borneo. Together with the Ngaju, their neighbours to the south, they gloried in one of the most elaborate secondary mortuary rites in the world.

This project examines the notion of sacred fertility and sacred landscapes, associated rituals and material culture, both archaeological and ethnographic manifestations in the Horn of Africa.

Conference

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PhD Defence