Is Leiden a ‘Neoliberal University’?

Third Year student Federico Arcuri looks back at his time in the Hague and reflects upon the depoliticization of student life at the neoliberal university.

Word from the Chair: Everyone is a gamechanger

On 21 April the Four Freedoms Awards were presented in Middelburg. Four what? I hear you say. The ‘thinking person’s Oscars’, or the ‘poor person’s Nobel’, the FFs draw their inspiration from Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘Four Freedoms speech’ on 6 January 1941.

Academic Panel on Palestine: Freedom of Expression, Freedom to Exist

On November 23rd 2021, Students for Palestine organized an academic panel on Palestine, specifically the intersection of activism and the university. Participating students report on the event and explain why academia and politics do not exist in isolation.

Reimagining the University from Below

"Decades of budget cuts and market incentives are threatening the role of universities: to stimulate critical thinking," argues Judith Naeff. It is time that staff and students take action together.

Why we need a statue of Anton de Kom in The Hague

Have you heard of Anton de Kom? Do you know why there is a monument of him in Amsterdam? If this name does not ring a bell for you, keep on reading (and also do if it does!).

Academics sound the alarm: towards a normal academic standard

On 6 April 2021 academics across the Netherlands protested against on-going austerity in higher education. Leiden University lecturers explain why.

Covid-19 and labour: Workers are set to pay the price of the pandemic

Shakespeare once wrote “the web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together”. In the book The Great Leveler, Walter Scheidel claims that violence has historically reduced economic inequality, and catastrophes are therefore somehow a historical human necessity since the Stone Age.

Managing Diversity in International Studies: An update