Languages and Cultures of the world
The key to mutual understanding
When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view of the world; the key to mutual understanding.
Latest news
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What we do
To confront global issues like migration, colonialism and heritage, you need to look beyond your own filter bubble. Instead, knowledge of different perspectives is crucial, both globally and over time.
With its language and culture expertise, Leiden University explores these issues from a multitude of cultures and historical periods. By studying languages, regions, history, religions, literature, art and philosophy in context, we create a broader view of the world.
Sources you can read in the original language are essential pillars here. The impact of a medium differs between clay tablets and social media posts and that also determines the way you use it. Cultural sources from classical antiquity to our contemporary world are studied in Leiden.
Leiden is expert in the regions of Africa, Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Oceania, and Russia and Eurasia.
Leiden scholars never study a language, whether modern or from Classical Antiquity, in isolation from its associated culture, regional history and social environment. Thus, Leiden research is known for the collaboration between linguists, archaeologists, historians, psychologists, pedagogues, biologists, geneticists and medics.
Research projects
Online module: Large language models and artificial intelligence
As this kind of software increasingly influences our professional, scientific and daily lives, it is important to be aware not only of its possibilities, but also of its limitations. This module guides you through some of the key issues involved in using this new technology: what is it? What are the challenges? And what are the ethical concerns? This module will help you use this technology responsibly.
Experts
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Florian Schneider Topics: china, chinese economy, chinese media, chinese studies, digital humanities, east-asia, languages and cultures of the world, political communication, traditional chinese political thought -
Emma Grootveld Topics: cultural translation and reception, early modern literature, environmental humanities • • •, history of cultures, knowledge and ideas, intermediality, media practices and media literacy, italian language and literature, languages and cultures of the world -
Olaf Kaper Topics: egyptian religion, egyptology, languages and cultures of the world, ptolemaic egypt -
Keiko Yoshioka Topics: japanese language, japanese language and linguistics, japanese studies, languages and cultures of the world, second language acquisition -
Victoria Nyst Topics: languages and cultures of the world -
Carmen van den Bergh Topics: digital humanities, film and culture, italian literature, italian modernism, languages and cultures of the world -
Martine Bruil Topics: cultural heritage, descriptive linguistics, indigenous languages, language diversity, languages and cultures of the world, south-america, south-american linguistics -
Alisa van de Haar Topics: cultural translation and reception, history of cultures, knowledge and ideas, languages and cultures of the world -
Peter Bisschop Topics: ancient cultures of south asia, languages and cultures of the world, sanskrit -
Jan van Dijkhuizen Topics: english literature, languages and cultures of the world, literature, scenses -
Esther Op de Beek Topics: dutch language and culture, dutch literature and culture, happiness and emotion in literature, languages and cultures of the world, new media and literature -
Petra Sijpesteijn Topics: arabic studies, embedding conquest, islam and society, islamic history, islamic studies, languages and cultures of the world, middle eastern studies, papyrology -
Lettie Dorst Topics: ai and society, automatic translation, computer-aided translation, corpus linguistics, languages and cultures of the world, literary translation, metaphor studies, subtitling -
Matthijs Westera Topics: ai and society, computation linguistics, languages and cultures of the world, natural language processing, questions, semantics-pragmatics interface, semantics-prosody interface, theoretical linguistics -
Thijs Porck Topics: early middle ages, english language and literature, heritage, languages and cultures of the world, medieval history, old english language -
Caroline Waerzeggers Topics: area studies, assyriology, babylonian history, biblical studies, cuneiform studies, heritage, history of mesopotamia, judaism, languages and cultures of the world -
Nancy Kula Topics: africa, descriptive linguistics, language policy, languages and cultures of the world, morphology, multilingualism, phonology, theoretical linguistics -
Ying Zhang Topics: china, chinese history, east-asia, languages and cultures of the world
