Recent concerns about cultural identity emphasise the ongoing political and social importance of the question of how, and with whom, people identify. Changing and conflicting identities were highly relevant for pre-modern Europe. Paradoxically, the more powerful states became, the more their rulers…

Medieval and early modern Europe was a world of constantly shifting borders, strong local political traditions, profitable transnational trade, and dense networks of international relations. In this world, ‘identity’ was never monolithic.

What issues arise in the changing landscape of privacy, identity and data protection?

In my research I am concerned with the possibility of a politics of sexuality without reverting to identitarian conceptions of sexuality. In a reading of the work of the American author James Purdy, I propose to move towards a politicizing of the concept of narrative identity as developed by the French…

Memory and Identity is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

How does the religious identity of islamic primary schools in the Netherlands relate to the social demands?

Honorata Mazepus and Jaroslaw Kantorowicz are assistant professors at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. Mazepus and Kantorowicz are one of the authors of this article in Nature on the role of national identity on public health support during global pandemics.

To what extent and how do identity processes influence health behavior?

A new paper written by Jolien van Breen, Soledad de Lemus, Russell Spears & Toon Kuppens in the British Journal of Social Pscychology examines the impact of the 2008-2012 financial crisis on national identity in Spain.

Mr. Sujadi defended his thesis on 29 June 2017

Research in Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science focuses on the dynamics and the interaction of political institutions, individual decision-making, and collective behaviour.

This research cluster is a part of the Institute of Political Science’s research programme ‘Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviour’. Its members study phenomena such as migration, immigration, citizenship, integration, ethnic parties, minority and caste-based politics, borders and migration,…

The aim of the Indonesian-Dutch Literature Collective (which is allied to the Society of Dutch Literature (MNL)) is to support research into the literature of and about the Dutch Indies, from the era of the Dutch East India Company to the present. Starting in 1986, the collective has published its own…

Before the modern nation-state became a stable, widespread phenomenon throughout northern Europe, multilingualism-the use of multiple languages in one geographical area-was common throughout the region.

Research conducted in this group aims at furthering our understanding of how communities and individuals deal with social change, conflict and trauma through remembrance and commemoration as well as forgetting in the arts.

Marvel at our rare collections.

Aristocratic dynasties have long been regarded as fundamental to the development of early modern society and government. Yet recent work by political historians has increasingly questioned the dominant role of ruling families in state formation, underlining instead the continued importance and independence…

The research group Politics, Culture and National Identities 1789-present investigates a wide range of national political cultures in Europe and the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries. Instead of only analyzing high politics (the acts of governments and political parties), the research group focuses…

People in Asia increasingly feel the need for a strong identity. This is the consequence of developments such as globalisation and the realisation that Asian countries such as China and India are becoming new world powers. Professor Hilde De Weerdt studies how political ideas and national identity spread…

How and to what extent the historic house (re-)constructs identity through image-making in China.

This project studies the development of civic engagement in the Netherlands from the mid-eighteenth until the mid-nineteenth centuries, through a focus on the local and regional levels.

This research project focuses on the relation between identity marks and writing.

Cultural Anthropologist Erik de Maaker published, together with Monica Janoswki (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), Stories across Borders: Myths of Origin and Their Contestation in the Borderlands of South and Southeast Asia in Southeast Asian Studies (SEAS).

This study investigates and analyses didactical approaches in theory and practice of both scholars and expert teachers in Religious Education/Life World Orientation (for secondary level) in their role as Identity Agents in order to discover and develop didactical key components contributing to religious…

How do humans construct their self?

Islam exists in global history with its richly variegated cultural and social realities. When these specific cultural contexts are marginalized, Islam is reduced to an ahistorical religion without the ability to contribute to humanity. This limited understanding of Islam has been a contributing factor…

The focus of the research lies in the approach of reducing, denying, or taking away essential elements of music making in order to let the musician become theatrical.

The artefacts that still remain from the traditional culture of the indigenous Yukon, Canada, are spread over dozens of museums throughout the world. Yukon Indian Ukjese van Kampen carried out research to bring this culture to light. This is the subject of his dissertation entitled ‘The history of Yukon…

In this study I explore literary structures of identity-formation in the works of assimilated/acculturated Jewish writers: Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis” (“Die Verwandlung”, 1912) and David Vogel’s Hebrew novel Married Life. 1929).

Article by Leiden University political scientist Daniel Thomas about shifting norms for membership in international organisations.

In the master’s programme Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present at Leiden University you will be at the forefront of a new approach to understand how national politics and identities in Europe are conceived.

Noah Millman defended his thesis on 26 May 2015

On the 16th of September, Bert van Pinxteren successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Bert on this achievement!

At the heart of this study is a thorough inquiry of categorisations of social identity used in the VOC’s record-keeping bureaucracy. How were service, occupational and caste groups classified and shaped by the VOC?

The general aim of the project is a description and analysis of the Leiden anatomical collections from a humanities perspective. The project investigates how historical and cultural practices and concerns have shaped anatomical preparations and how exhibitions of the anatomical body have informed cultural…

On Thursday 11 January 2018, Xiang Li defended her doctoral thesis: “Collective Labour Rights and Collective Labour Relations of China”. The supervisors are Professor Guus Heerma van Voss and Professor Barend Barentsen.

The Museums, Collections & Society research programme is led by the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Archaeology and aims to promote collection-based research, stimulate Leiden education in this field, and raise ethical questions regarding the collections’ origins.

Between 1798 and 1813 successive regimes attempted to enforce a fundamental geographical and administrative redivision of the Netherlands. The provinces that had been sovereign states within the Republic of the United Netherlands for over two centuries were dissolved and replaced by ‘departments’, subordinate…

Does a shared idea of the ‘public servant’ exist in Europe? Sager, Overeem, and others explore.

Leiden and The Hague are home to many museums with large numbers of artefacts and archives. Leiden University also and Leiden University also houses special collections. Museums, Collections & Society stimulates research and education and raises ethical questions regarding the collections’ origin.

Anna Scott is a Canadian pianist-researcher interested in using the early twentieth century recordings of the Brahms circle of pianists to question persistent gaps between the loci of knowledge, ethics, and act in both modern mainstream and historically-informed performances of Brahms’s late piano w…

Politics, Culture and National Identities 1789-present investigates a wide range of national political cultures in Europe and the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ruobin Han defended her thesis on 21 March 2017

On 19 January 1935, the foundation of ‘Het Leids Papyrologisch Instituut’ took place. Prior to the year 1935, the founders – J.C. van Oven (1881-1963, Roman Law), B.A. van Groningen (1894-1987, Greek) en M. David (1898-1986, Legal History) – had already been teaching Greek papyrology at Leiden Unive…

Researcher: Hieke Huistra MSc. This PhD-project is directed at the historical and educational import of the Leiden University nineteenth-century pathological collections.

European integration is under pressure. At the same time, the notion of a European administrative space is being explicitly voiced. But does a shared idea of the public servant exist in Europe?

Welcome to the webpage of the Decolonising Collective of Leiden University, aka the Decolonising Collective Leiden. We are a bottom-up initiative of academic staff, support staff, and students who collaborate and share diverse knowledges for the aim of decolonising all aspects of knowledge production…

This project, executed by Marieke Hendriksen MA MRes, aims at an analysis of how the early modern anatomical collections of Leiden University were rooted in ideals of perfection in different fields of knowledge and expertise.

Leiden and The Hague are home to a wide range of museums and collections.