What is the cost of visual complexity? This dissertation sets out to determine the effect of the complexity of word formation on the legibility of Arabic and the role that vocalization plays in reading.

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

In August 2006 a young American called Raed Jarrar discovered Arabic’s potency. Detained by four guards at New York’s Kennedy Airport for wearing a T-shirt with “We will not be silent” on it in Arabic, he was told that he may as well be entering a bank with a T-shirt announcing “I am a robber.”

Library of Arabic Literature: Critical Edition and Translation of Ibn Qutaybah’s Faḍl al-ʿArab.

We offer General Language Courses and custom-made language training.

This project investigates generational dialogues about the legacies and memories of labour, student and communist movements in the Arab world. The research focuses in particular on video and installation art by young makers born in the 1980s that address the generation of their parents and the events…

Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam

This book contains the first three Leiden-Aramco Lectures on Arabic Language and Culture delivered by Petra Sijpesteijn, James E. Montgomery and Geert Jan van Gelder.

This open access book investigates the transnationally connected history of Arab Christian communities in Palestine during the British Mandate (1918-1948) through the lens of the birth of cultural diplomacy.

Literary salon

LIAS aims to advance the globally conscious vision of area studies, both within and outside the academic community. Focusing on Asia and the Middle East, the institute is a meeting place of multiple fields of inquiry, theories and methods, historical periods, and areas.

The institute offers private Arabic tutoring to the general public, taught by the NVIC staff teachers. We offer classes in both Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, on all levels.

Throughout the year, the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo organises Arabic Language courses for the general public. Please note: due to the Corona pandemic, Arabic group courses have been suspended for the time being,

If you are working or studying in Egypt, but find it hard to communicate in spoken Egyptian Arabic, then this course is perfect for you. In ten weeks’ time, you will be equipped with the communicative skills in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic needed to engage in basic social interactions. Scheduled in the…

The Institute organises Arabic courses for universities, but also for companies, international organisations and individuals.

This doctoral research project in design seeks to shed a light on legibility in the context of visually impaired beginning readers.

Arabic and its Alternatives discusses the complicated relationships between language, religion and communal identities in the Middle East in the period following the First World War.

This project aims to revisit the relationship between the European cultural agenda and the local identity formation process, and social and religious transformations of Arab Christian communities in Palestine, when the British ruled via the Mandate. What was the role of culture in European policies…

Promotor: J.N. Kok, Co-promotor: M.S. Lew

Knowledge and culture subproject 3:

This project examines changes in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century representations of the legendary twelfth-century general Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159-1189) and how they reflect not only developments in themes of representation, but also changes in the focus of early modern and modern Japan’s…

Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? And that the Middle East under Muslim rule was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship?

Research projects which are assisted by the NVIC in the field of Arabic studies.

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

Are you eager to explore traditional and experimental audiovisual methods for ethnographic research? Do you consider translating your research findings into a documentary? Are you highly motivated, committed and hard working? Then Visual Ethnography is the right specialisation for you! Visual Ethnography…

Anyone who creates a page for a magazine, a PowerPoint presentation, a brochure, a poster or dreams up an idea for an infographic is faced with important questions:

The edited volume 'Arabic in context: celebrating 400 years of Arabic at Leiden University' edited by Ahmad Al-Jallad is out. The volume contains the contributions to the 2013 conference with the same title, held at Leiden University and was published as part of Brill's the Studies in Semitics Language…

In what ways can visual art play a vital role in countering the discriminating stigma experienced by transgender communities?

The Leiden Academic Course Center offers a large variety of visual art courses. Our courses are offered for beginners as wel as more advanced students. In the lessons everybody will be guided according to their experience. All the art supplies are included in the price of the physical courses. For…

From Sunday 8 till Tuesday 17 January 2023, NVIC organizes a new edition of the TAFL course. This intensive, interactive course is developed for (future) teachers of Arabic. It addresses both the practical aspects of teaching Arabic as a foreign language as well as the underlying linguistic and cognitive…

Hekmat Dirbas defended his thesis on 14 February 2017

Wouter Eekhout, our data magician, came in 3d place in the ‪#‎LinksSDGs‬ - Natural language processing and data visualization challenge.

With the dramatic growth of the image data on the web, there is an increasing demand of the algorithms capable of understanding the visual information automatically.

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.

Vitamin A or retinol is essential in embryonic development, the visual cycle and the immune system.

Tijmen Baarda defended his PhD thesis on 8 January 2020