Honorary doctorates for Peter van Straaten and Ian Hodder

Cartoonist and writer Peter van Straaten and archaeologist Ian Hodder from Stanford University are to receive honorary doctorates from Leiden University. The new honorary doctorates will be conferred on 8 February 2011, the 436th anniversary of the University’s foundation.

Peter Van Straaten

Peter van Straaten is receiving his honorary doctorate for the most astute way in which he observes and analyses people and social issues, and exposes processes of behaviour and thought. This both enriches higher education and benefits scholarship. His honorary supervisor is Professor of Experimental Clinical Psychology Willem van der Does.

Over a period of more than fifty years, Peter van Straaten has developed into one of the foremost chroniclers of Dutch society. His work reminds the modern, technologically pampered scholar that the observation of behaviour with the naked – but trained – eye forms the essential basis for psychology. Peter van Straaten’s cartoons have proved very useful in higher education providing students with images of diverse psychological phenomena, including common manifestations of even rare personality disorders – a skill that untrained psychologists generally find difficult to master.

Further information about Peter van Straaten's Honorary Doctorate (in Dutch)

Ian Hodder

Ian Hodder is an archaeologist of world renown. He gained fame as a pioneer of an innovative theoretical approach to archaeology: what is known as post-processual archaeology. This interpretative, non-positivist approach opened up archaeology to a broad range of new interpretation possibilities from the social and textual sciences. Hodder earned a reputation for this when he was working at the University of Cambridge in the 1980s and 1990s.

Hodder has headed the Çatalhöyük Archaeological Project since the beginning of the 1990s. The 9000-year-old Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Anatolia (Turkey) is considered a showpiece of current archaeology in the Near East. Not only is the site being conserved and placed in context, the public is also closely involved in the dig and has been made co-owner of the heritage recovered. Çatalhöyük is also an experimental plot for the post-processual archaeological method that Hodder champions: both the archaeologists and the communities involved are given the opportunity to be part of the interpretative process.

Further information about Ian Hodder's Honorary Doctorate (in Dutch)

For whom are Honorary Doctorates intended?

Honorary degrees from Leiden University are awarded to exceptional professional scholars. In addition, people who have conducted work, in a cultural or social respect, that promoted higher education and research in a unique way are also eligible.