Leiden Elective Academic Periodical (LEAP) is a peer-reviewed journal founded in 2021 by a team of junior and senior scholars of Leiden University. Each year the journal has a new editorial board and a new theme.

Series editors Dr. Astrid Van Weyenberg and Dr. Nanne Timmer guide this process and are assisted by editor Anthony T. Albright and a group of excellent peer reviewers from our Faculty of Humanities.

The third issue of LEAP explores the senses through different interdisciplinary approaches organized around sense-making, affect and belonging.

The 2023 editorial board was formed by the (R)MA students Oscar Man, Adrian Krieger, Martijn Rem, Emma Cardol, Verónica Copello-Duque, Jelle Christiaans, Athena Stefanakou, Paulina Bastián Alvarado, Mahtab Fazlali, Maaike Siemes, Nicole Molinari and Nicolas Turner.

The second issue of LEAP explores the complex interrelatedness of “nature” and humanity and our inherently limited understanding of both. The contributors take an interdisciplinary approach and consider this relationship from a multitude of perspectives. This special issue gives space to the manifold interpretations of nature – a concept that has proven impossible to define conclusively – and illustrates how environmental issues surpass but also bridge disciplinary borders.

The first issue of LEAP sheds light on the various manifestations and cultural representations of crisis. At its core, crisis signifies a condition, a situation, or a period of pending change. Writing at the time of COVID-19, widespread migration and climate change, the contributors investigate how crisis holds the potential to challenge the demarcations of eras, cultures and societies, disrupting the established order.