Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
closed access
The colossal statue of Fridtjov the Bold, donated to the Norwegian people by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1913, can be described as excessive in many ways - from an art historical perspective, because of...Show moreThe colossal statue of Fridtjov the Bold, donated to the Norwegian people by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1913, can be described as excessive in many ways - from an art historical perspective, because of its melodramatic stance, and from the perspective of anthropology because of its transgression of gifting norms. The statue also raises the question of the power of the German discourse of the North, which, I claim, had similarities with the Foucaultian discourse described by Said in Orientalism. In this thesis all these forms of excess are explored and an answer is attempted at the question why the Kaiser created the statue.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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In this thesis, I seek to analyze the postmodern condition in history from a quantum-philosophical perspective. According to the famous physicist Niels Bohr, (our knowledge of) the quantum object...Show moreIn this thesis, I seek to analyze the postmodern condition in history from a quantum-philosophical perspective. According to the famous physicist Niels Bohr, (our knowledge of) the quantum object cannot be meaningfully separated from the instruments used to interrogate and represent the quantum object. The instrument intervenes into the quantum universe in a way that allows for comprehensible knowledge of the quantum object. In turn, Bohr presents a conception of scientific objectivity that acknowledges and incorporates this meaningful intervention. In my thesis, I present a detailed analysis of Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, connecting his insights to the issue of subjectivity in history and historiography. I present an interpretative framework, inspired by quantum-philosophical perspectives, which integrates the subjective processes of observing, constructing and writing history into a new conception of historical realism. Like Bohr’s quantum philosophy, this historical realism considers the instruments for observation and representation as inseparable from yet meaningfully constitutive of the historical object.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis proposes a reading of the French academic movement during the early years of Louis XIV's reign, under the lens of discourse and hegemony theory. Special attention is given to the...Show moreThis thesis proposes a reading of the French academic movement during the early years of Louis XIV's reign, under the lens of discourse and hegemony theory. Special attention is given to the writings and paintings of Charles Le Brun, Premier Peintre du Roy, presented as the most accomplished example of the painting's hegemonic function and identity during the founding years of the Academie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
open access
As the first episode of BBC's astronomically long-running science fiction show Doctor Who opens on November 11th, 1963, the audience is treated to a set of images portraying a foggy junk yard, in...Show moreAs the first episode of BBC's astronomically long-running science fiction show Doctor Who opens on November 11th, 1963, the audience is treated to a set of images portraying a foggy junk yard, in which an apparently out-of-use police box is standing. The print on the front of the police box (“Police Telephone / Free for Use of Public / Advice and Assistance Obtainable Immediately / Officers and Cars Respond to Urgent Calls / Pull to Open”) lingers on the screen before “An Unearthly Child” turns to a scene showing what seems to be a teenage 1960's school girl, outrageously outwitting her school teachers. In what follows, the audience, together with the girl's teachers Ian Chesterton (a role by William Russell) and Barbara Wright (played by Jacqueline Hill), discover that the girl, Susan Foreman (Carol Ann Ford), has as an unlikely dwelling place the police box from the opening scene. In addition, she does not even live there alone, but together with her grandfather – a figure known only as the Doctor (at this moment portrayed by William Hartnell). It transpires that the discarded police box is not at all a discarded police box, but rather a “bigger on the inside” space-and-time travelling machine know as a TARDIS. Moreover, Susan and the Doctor turn out to be not a 1960's school girl and her grandfather but “wanderers in the fourth dimension […] exiles […] Susan and I [The Doctor] are cut off from our own planet.” In other words, though they look completely human, the Doctor and Susan are time-travelling aliens; and not only that – they possess a technology and knowledge far more advanced than our own. This is apparent most obviously in the simple fact that they have – and know how to work with – a time travelling machine, but also for example when the Doctor responds to Ian's objection that “You're treating us [Ian and Barbara] like children” how “The children of my [The Doctor's] civilisation would be insulted!”; the Doctor implies that even the children on his and Susans home world would understand much more about technology and science than Ian and Barbara currently do. In a way, we might think of the Doctor and Susan as post-humans – as an attempt by the series' makers to imagine what it might mean to think beyond humanity and away from a human-centred focal point. This is a streak that the series would continue in the 53 (and counting) years to come; if only since the Doctor is, after all, the protagonist to the series. Because a sense of the posthuman seems so central to Doctor Who, this thesis will explore the ways in which the series, through being an object of science fiction as well as one of popular imagination, explores what it might mean, and in doing so, highlights the difficulties of, thinking in the lines of a philosophical current that has in recent years come to be know as posthumanism.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
open access
In the The Waves (1931) Virginia Woolf is approaching the possibilities of true knowledge in fiction. She does so both on the level of content and form. Bernard, one of the novel’s speakers, has an...Show moreIn the The Waves (1931) Virginia Woolf is approaching the possibilities of true knowledge in fiction. She does so both on the level of content and form. Bernard, one of the novel’s speakers, has an epiphany while shaving as a middle-aged man. He discovers that time has changed. Time no longer indicates the possibility of the future, but rather the missed possibilities of the past. This new experience of time results in Bernard losing his urge to describe the world. Instead Bernard attempts a different mode of narration in order to communicate and grasp his new experience of life. Bernard’s problem with representation is also Woolf’s problem. The Waves is similarly qua its form an experimental piece of fiction that is following the rhythm of the sea rather than a traditional plot structure. By doing so Woolf is posing the same questions to fiction as Bernard: How is it possible to describe the world objectively? The thesis is investigating this question by extensively using Ann Banfield’s book The Phantom Table (2000).Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
open access
When confronted with laws that ignore, reinforce or legitimise violence, the possibility to judge seems to be put into question, since there are no rules to rely upon to avert that violence. On the...Show moreWhen confronted with laws that ignore, reinforce or legitimise violence, the possibility to judge seems to be put into question, since there are no rules to rely upon to avert that violence. On the other hand, judgment is crucial since it might be a way to counter such circumstances of corrupt law and stop ongoing injustice. This paradoxical issue is prominent in the case study of this thesis, the documentary film "The Act of Killing" (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012). Dealing with the mass killings of Indonesia in 1965/66, the film opens a case that has been concealed since its occurrence and never taken to court. This is despite the events being characterised as ‘crimes against humanity’ by human rights organisations. I propose that by documenting how the perpetrators of the killings re-enact their deeds by means of stage-play, the film poses a theatrical trial that at the same time evokes, eludes and performs judgment or evaluation of the killings. Drawing back on theory by Hannah Arendt and Gilles Deleuze, I argue that the film stimulates political judgment that is informed by the tension between critical distance and affect, which may be a productive method for citizens to deal with mass atrocities and present corruption. Moreover, exceeding the realms of structured societies, the film as a work of art performs an ‘immanent evaluation’ that acknowledges victims and perpetrators equally and challenges clear boundaries in favour of a continuous becoming of bodies. As such it allows us to productively and reparatively rethink the notion of judgment outside the confinements of law as ambiguous and ongoing process.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
open access
What makes it possible to turn science, a field that is supposedly grounded in fact and objectivity, into a topic that untrained readers can engage with and enjoy? Connecting science with art,...Show moreWhat makes it possible to turn science, a field that is supposedly grounded in fact and objectivity, into a topic that untrained readers can engage with and enjoy? Connecting science with art, popular science writing relies heavily on the evocation of affect as a rhetorical strategy. In works that are written for children, and not intended as textbooks, creating an affective bond with the work is necessary in order to entice a child to voluntarily engage with the object outside the classroom. I have investigated Nick Arnold and Tony De Saulles’s Horrible Science series (1997-present) as a case study, as the long-lasting international success of these works indicates the effectiveness of their rhetorical strategies. The ways in which the authors attempt to evoke an affective response ranges from the direct evocation of positive affects such as enthusiasm, to employing negative affect such as disgust. Such affective responses are an effective way to mark reading the book as different from engaging with knowledge in the classroom, which in its turn is marked as tedious and dull. The affect theories of Silvan Tomkins in psychology and Gilles Deleuze in philosophy might at first sight look dissimilar, but both make the distinction between positive and negative affects a centrepiece of their theories: Deleuze calls this ‘joy’ and ‘sadness’. The Horrible Science series problematises this distinction, as it employs the evocation of negative affects to strengthen the bond with the reader, a method that at first sight seems to be counterintuitive. Therefore, I will look at what defines whether an affect is considered positive or negative, and to what extent it is a rhetorically effective strategy to evoke what at first sight seems to be a negative affective response in the young reader.Show less
