In this article, Samuels focuses on the active fostering of subjunctivity in processes of narrative worldmaking. Drawing extensively from the narrative of an HIV‐positive woman in Indonesia, she shows that by subjunctively leaving open multiple narrative trajectories and future possibilities, individuals…

In this article, Samuels elaborates the concept of narrative navigation to analyze the subjective and intersubjective ways in which people struggle through experiences of illness by constructing multiple, ambiguous and non-linear narratives that may continuously change, as they reposition themselves…

Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies analyses the role of religion in past and present understandings of Asia.

We analyse the link between media consumption and the attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS in Chile. We used data from a sample of 1000 people, obtained in the 2011 wave of the World Values Survey (WVS). We use a logistic binary regression model by maximum likelihood. Our results suggest that…

The project focuses on communication processes regarding spirituality and existential issues in the medical health care in the Netherlands

This book published by Oxford University Press discusses religion and trade in world history.

Despite the wealth of historical literature on the Second World War, the subject of religion and churches in occupied Europe has been undervalued.

Punching Back is a detailed ethnographic study that demonstrates that young Muslim women who kickbox develop agentive selves by challenging gender norms, challenging expectations, and living out their religious subjectivities.

Dr. Josien de Klerk, Associate professor in Global Public Health at Leiden University College The Hague recently published some of her work on HIV/AIDS. In collaboration with a team of interdisciplinary researchers from the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development she came to the conclusion…

We found that, next to the effectiveness of the intervention, it’s also very likely that the intervention is cost-effective compared to attention only.

To investigate the effectiveness of an online self-help programme for people with HIV and depressive symptoms.

How is tradition constructed and belief made plausible in fiction-based religion?

The eleven innovative essays in this volume explore the notion that all forms of modern mass politics, including liberal democracies, need such a form of sacralization of politics to function.

Markus Davidsen defended his thesis on 16 October 2014

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-…

Most of the vast Tibetan literature was authored by monks. They were Buddhists par excellence, educated in a system in which Indic- and Indian-inspired texts played a pivotal role. What they wrote was primarily religious or philosophical in nature, but also extended to ‘secular’ topics. Through the…

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

Article by Annemarie Samuels in History and Anthropology

How do ideas concerning the academic study of religion relate to the socio-cultural and political context in which they are developed?

The Europa Instituut is pleased to announce that on 21 November 2016 a new handbook “EU State Aids” (31 Chapters, 1500 pages) was published.

Religion in the ancient world, and ancient Egyptian religion in particular, is often perceived as static, hierarchically organised, and centred on priests, tombs, and temples. Engagement with archaeological and textual evidence dispels these beguiling if superficial narratives, however. Individuals…

Research in the field of Etruscology at the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University (UL; the Netherlands) aims at exploring the history of the religious and ideological mentality of the Etruscans by studying archaeological, epigraphical and ancient written sources.

On 23 October 2019, Yoram Stein defended his thesis 'Spinoza's Theory of Religion: The Importance of Religion in Spinoza's Thought and Its Implications for State and Society'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. P.B. Cliteur and Prof. A.A.M. Kinneging.

If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

Many people in Asia and the West are attracted to Buddhism. This is because of this religion’s ‘image’ of being exotic and authentic.

Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leiden, May 29 and 30, 2008

Time, Religion and Sacred Discourses of the Ayuuk People

Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for Area Studies

What are the foundations of the regulation of blasphemy, and in which manner, in legal as well as in extra-legal terms, has blasphemy developed over the last decades?

Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for Area Studies

What is the impact of Ramadan on patients with a bipolar disorder? What does it mean to be sensitive to psychiatric patients' religious beliefs? Driss Moussaoui, a Moroccan psychiatrist, talks about this in a video interview with Leiden University's Islam Centre LUCIS.

Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR) studies religion as human activity, in all its diversity.

On 15 July 2019 Hans-Martien ten Napel started a new series on freedom of religion or belief for the London School of Economics research-led interdisciplinary Religion and Global Society Blog.

On 8 October 2021 (15.00-17.00) Prof. Dr Lena Liepe (Linnaeus University, Sweden) will hold a lecture entitled: "Exhibiting the Sacred: Holy Matter in Museum Displays".

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.

Leiden and Jülich researchers discovered an elegant and simple approach to improve the sensitivity of graphene biosensors. These so-called ‘next generation graphene electronic biochemical sensor devices’ are able to detect very low amounts of HIV DNA thanks to their very low electronic noise.

Does foreign aid promote human rights?

A new paperback edition of Brian Heffernan's book Freedom and the Fifth Commandment. Catholic priests and political violence in Ireland, 1919-21 was published by Manchester University Press in September 2016.

Lezing, UMW Research Seminar

Mattias Brand defended his thesis on 10 April 2019

Religion and ethnicity are inextricably linked in discourse within and about Central Asia. One common narrative suggests that as a result of differences between historically sedentary and nomadic populations, ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks are naturally more religious and more likely to radicalise than their…