Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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This study examines de Digitale Stad, or the Digital City, a pioneering virtual community in the Netherlands (1994-2001), as a metaphorical urban space. Drawing from urban theory, play theory and...Show moreThis study examines de Digitale Stad, or the Digital City, a pioneering virtual community in the Netherlands (1994-2001), as a metaphorical urban space. Drawing from urban theory, play theory and media theory, this thesis analyzes how users navigated and positioned themselves in the virtual realm. By focusing on DDS and the early Web, it sheds light on the Digital City's significance as an experimental space reflecting and influencing the evolving Dutch internet landscape.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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This study examines de Digitale Stad, or the Digital City, a pioneering virtual community in the Netherlands (1994-2001), as a metaphorical urban space. Drawing from urban theory, play theory and...Show moreThis study examines de Digitale Stad, or the Digital City, a pioneering virtual community in the Netherlands (1994-2001), as a metaphorical urban space. Drawing from urban theory, play theory and media theory, this thesis analyzes how users navigated and positioned themselves in the virtual realm. By focusing on DDS and the early Web, it sheds light on the Digital City's significance as an experimental space reflecting and influencing the evolving Dutch internet landscape.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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This thesis explores the way women in selected Euripidean tragedies engage with verbal communication and proposes that this female verbal repertoire can serve as a foundation for a feminist...Show moreThis thesis explores the way women in selected Euripidean tragedies engage with verbal communication and proposes that this female verbal repertoire can serve as a foundation for a feminist interpretation of the respective plays. Female interaction with verbal communication can be separated into three distinct categories: a) silence, b) song, and c) speech. Following this categorization, this thesis firstly delves into specific verses from Medea (259-268) and Hippolytus (710-723, 800-805) to indicate that female tragic silence entails a skillful manipulation of speech. Secondly, verses from Medea (410-430) and two fragments from Hypsipyle (752h 3-9, 759a 80-89) are examined to demonstrate how female tragic song can function as a lyrical form of feminine language. Thirdly, Pasiphae’s apologia (472e 4-12, 34-41) in the Cretans is analyzed to pinpoint how female tragic speech can be rhetorically constructed, serving as a springboard for self-exculpation and female empowerment. Drawing from French feminism and American post-structuralist feminism, this study orchestrates a dialogue between the Euripidean corpus and (post) modern feminist theory and indicates how a reader-oriented approach to the ancient texts can both honor a historically grounded reception of tragedy and suggest how modern audiences can imbue classical tragic texts with fresh meaning.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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This thesis focuses on the epigraphic material found in monumental tombs from both Palmyra and the Nabataean kingdom in the ancient Middle East, discussing the use of the various terms for funerary...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the epigraphic material found in monumental tombs from both Palmyra and the Nabataean kingdom in the ancient Middle East, discussing the use of the various terms for funerary architecture in their dialects of Aramaic and Greek. The subject is approached from a sociolinguistic perspective, discussing the socio-cultural implications of the distribution and the use of the vocabulary. The combined evidence shows that the funerary sphere, as the most local sphere visible through the epigraphic evidence, is strongly impacted by social change. Different terms are used for different funerary complexes, depending on their location above or below the surface, or on whether they housed individual or grouped burials. The socio-economic developments in Palmyra and Nabataea in the first centuries of our era led to groups from a new upper middle class gaining interest in expressing their cultural identity through funerary complexes, which were previously reserved for the upper elite. These social developments and their consequences are also partly reflected in the vocabulary used for funerary architecture. This thesis hopes to show what a thorough analytical approach on a specific set of vocabulary can bring to the study of identity in the Roman Near East. Diachronic developments in the Aramaic and Greek vocabulary, divisions across region, tomb type and time will be examined, as they show how the funerary landscape developed in the ancient Middle East from the 1st century BCE up to the 3rd century CE. A database of all attested terms for funerary architecture will be provided and analysed, allowing for a detailed view into the use of these different terms across time and place.Show less
Research master thesis | Middle Eastern Studies (research) (MA)
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This study seeks to account for the atrocious violence perpetrated by the Assad regime in response to the Syrian uprising that erupted in 2011. Academic scholarship, media reports, and public...Show moreThis study seeks to account for the atrocious violence perpetrated by the Assad regime in response to the Syrian uprising that erupted in 2011. Academic scholarship, media reports, and public opinion tend to understand the state’s violence against its civilians as a resort to exceptional means under exceptional circumstances. This study, in contrast, contends that atrocious violence constitutes a well-established practice, core to this regime’s modus operandi. The study’s objective is to substantiate, illustrate, and critically assess the proposition that atrocious violence perpetrated by the Assad regime is best understood not as a series of incidental exceptional ‘events’ but as a core practice, consisting of a set of sub-practices. The thesis analyzes a selection of primary and secondary sources in answering the research question ‘How to account for the Assad regime’s atrociously violent response to the popular uprising in 2011?’. Primary sources include leaked government documents, legal testimonies, speeches, and memoirs, operationalized with the help of the praxeology research method and a single case-study design. The massacre in Houla in 2012 serves as a primary case study, a narrative anchor from which to assess the strength of the proposition that the regime’s response to the 2011 popular uprising is best understood as the manifestation of a long-standing practice of atrocious state violence sustained by a set of subpractices that effectively make it virtuous across time and space. Specifically, the study identifies the sub-practices of legalizing atrocious violence, narrativizing reality, and consolidating the perpetrator elite.Show less
Research master thesis | Middle Eastern Studies (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2024-09-26
2024-09-26T00:00:00Z
This thesis studies on the official letters of Anūshtakīnid Khwārazmshāh dynasty written Rashīd al-Dīn al-Waṭwāṭ (508/1112 - 573/1177), the chief kātib (scribe official) in the court of...Show moreThis thesis studies on the official letters of Anūshtakīnid Khwārazmshāh dynasty written Rashīd al-Dīn al-Waṭwāṭ (508/1112 - 573/1177), the chief kātib (scribe official) in the court of Khwārazmshāh dynasty and explores the concept of loyalty in the letters of Rashīd al-Dīn al-Waṭwāṭ with the main focus on the complexity of social and political networks in Khwārazm before the Mongol invasion. The research question of the thesis is “How did al-Waṭwāṭ reconcile the moralism and real politikal interest inside the relationships of loyalty in his letters?”. The thesis first reviews various academic works and arguments on loyalty into four categories based on historical periods and disciplines and the historical background of al-Waṭwāṭ and Anūshtakīnid Khwārazm, then studies the narrative of al-Waṭwāṭ on three types of relationships of loyalty, which are respectively the relationships of loyalty between the populace and the rulers, the relationships of loyalty between the officials and the rulers, and the relationships of loyalty between rulers.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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What does it mean to be a good person? How should one behave? What is our soul like? How is it structured? And how does our soul affect our behaviour? These are questions that have occupied us...Show moreWhat does it mean to be a good person? How should one behave? What is our soul like? How is it structured? And how does our soul affect our behaviour? These are questions that have occupied us since the dawn of time. This thesis explores the ways in which Middle Platonist thinkers of the second century AD in particular approach such questions of good moral behaviour. As it turns out, these thinkers tend to focus on the human soul and its constitution in order to tackle moral conundrums. Therefore, the research question this thesis aims to answer is as follows: how do the Middle Platonists of the second century AD use the structure of the human soul in order to enforce practical ethics? By examining the works of Maximus of Tyre, Alcinous, and Galen – authors active in different genres within the Middle Platonic philosophical movement – through the lenses of both ancient psychology as well as ancient moral psychology, this thesis aims to advocate for the presence of a methodology of psychological morality in Middle Platonism: the structure of the human soul is noticeably being used in order to enforce ideal behaviour.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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There are large individual differences among late second language learners. The present study investigated whether individual differences in late L2 acquisition could be explained by individual...Show moreThere are large individual differences among late second language learners. The present study investigated whether individual differences in late L2 acquisition could be explained by individual differences in musical experience, because a large number of prior studies showed that musicians have enhanced auditory processing abilities. Dutch late-learners of English performed an AXB identification task, a 4I2AFC discrimination task and a passive oddball task with the English vowel contrast DRESS-TRAP. Data was analyzed with a multilevel single-trial approach to focus on the explanation of individual differences. The results showed large individual differences in all three tasks, good behavioral discrimination of the vowel contrast, and a large mismatch negativity (MMN) effect. A relation between discrimination performance and the variables musical experience and MMN amplitude was found, indicating that better behavioral discrimination of small acoustic differences was related to more musical experience and larger MMN differences. The absence of a similar relation with identification performance was attributed to a ceiling effect and restricted range of results on this task. The fact that no significant relation was found between musical experience and MMN amplitude, was explained by the required discrimination difficulty to measure a positive effect of musical experience, which was not met by the stimuli in the oddball task.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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This thesis investigates a recurring issue found in fieldwork on Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages: how can a linguist tell if a given language has the vowels [ɪ ʊ], or [e o], or both? These...Show moreThis thesis investigates a recurring issue found in fieldwork on Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages: how can a linguist tell if a given language has the vowels [ɪ ʊ], or [e o], or both? These two pairs of vowels – which differ in their height and ATR (‘advanced tongue root’) value – are notoriously difficult to tell apart acoustically, and their pronunciation varies considerably between languages and even speakers. Moreover, previous studies have only focused on how to distinguish these vowels in languages with both pairs; in languages with just one pair, how do we know if that pair is [ɪ ʊ] or [e o]? To address this gap, the main acoustic study of this thesis looks at data from Boa-Leboale, a Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has historically been described as only having [ɪ ʊ], not [e o]. Using the results and acoustic methodology of Starwalt’s (2008) landmark study, I construct a number of hypotheses to test two research questions; research question (I) investigates whether Boa-Leboale has one or two pairs of vowels and research question (II) attempts to identify whether a given set of vowels is more likely to be [ɪ ʊ] or [e o]. The results of this study indicate that Boa-Leboale does indeed have only one pair of vowels, and those vowels are most likely [ɪ ʊ], as suggested by previous descriptions. Given this promising result, I hope that further studies will be able to improve on the study presented here and solve the issue of identifying these vowels acoustically not just for Boa-Leboale, but for any language.Show less
Research master thesis | Middle Eastern Studies (research) (MA)
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When the reformist Mohammad Khatami (b. 1943) became president of Iran in 1997, most socioeconomic strata, workers and students in particular, expected changes to Iran’s political and economic make...Show moreWhen the reformist Mohammad Khatami (b. 1943) became president of Iran in 1997, most socioeconomic strata, workers and students in particular, expected changes to Iran’s political and economic make-up. These expectations were largely grounded in Khatami’s rhetoric of social justice and the promises of more socio-political and cultural freedoms that he voiced during his electoral campaign. In practice, however, these promises did not materialise and disappointed workers and students alike. Khatami continued the economic neoliberalisation that his predecessor Rafsanjani (r. 1989-1997) had begun and the supreme leader, Khamenei (r. 1989-), heavily resisted his attempts to create more relaxed academic settings. Although the existing literature explains why Khatami and Khamenei, which respectively represented the reformist and conservative sides of the political spectrum, embraced different labour policy-paths, it does not seek to understand how both officials constructed their social reality such that it made sense for them to do so. Presuming that the meaning of political factions is objectively defined, the literature therefore foregoes enquiring after the discursive context in which they constructed their ideologies and how these related to their policy-paths. However, as policies do not originate in an intellectual and institutional vacuum but are made possible in a political context where competing discourses interact, examining them from a discursive perspective clarifies how rather than why these officials perceived them as meaningful paths to pursue. This focus on ideology construction then leads to enquiring how both constructed Iran’s identity and, by implication, that of workers and students. Taking a poststructuralist approach, this thesis therefore enquires how Khatami’s and Khamenei’s evolving discursive negotiation on Iranian identity was co-constitutionally related to the approved labour policies that concerned workers and students during Khatami’s presidency (r. 1997-2005).Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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Contrary to the stereotype that Zhang Shi 張栻 (1133-1181) always followed Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 (1130-1200) ideas, this thesis, by examining Zhang’s social origins, socio-political thoughts, and disciples,...Show moreContrary to the stereotype that Zhang Shi 張栻 (1133-1181) always followed Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 (1130-1200) ideas, this thesis, by examining Zhang’s social origins, socio-political thoughts, and disciples, argues that Zhang represents a transitional Neo-Confucianism, which is based on exiled bureaucrat and emphasizes military-fiscal skills and state activism. Zhang Shi learning provides an alternative to statism Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021-1086) learning in the Northern Song (960-1127) and typical Neo-Confucianism represented by Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuxuan 陸九淵 (1139-1191) in Southern Song (1127-1279) , which is based on local spontaneous elites and emphasizes the role of society and local volunteerism. The social origin and foundation of this transitional Neo-Confucianism was the former (potential) capital bureaucratic family who were exiled due to the fall of the Northern Song. They took the northern expedition to return to the capital as their goal and gave up the run of their hometowns and the local communities in which they lived. They were skeptical of Zhu Xi’s social program, such as the community compacts (xiangyang 鄉約), the community granaries (shecang 社倉) and private commercial publishing, which later became the typical behavior of Neo-Confucian. Based on the ideas of Mencius (Mengzi 孟子), Zhang Shi developed the theory of “spontaneous disinterestedness” (wu suowei er ran 無所為而然), which underpinned his ideas on the distinction between righteousness/public/king and profit/selfish/hegemon. Though Zhang learning relied on the state, it cut sharply with Wang learning in the aspect of “motivation”. For Zhang, the power of the state was not an end in itself, but rather the state should be consistent with the spontaneous disinterestedness from the heavenly principle. With a particular emphasis on military-fiscal skills, Zhang and his disciples sought to take over the state apparatus left behind by Wang Anshi’s reforms and to make this state act out of righteousness in the hands of Neo-Confucianism gentlemen. Zhang and his disciples proposed and participated in all the northern expeditions during the Southern Song period. However, the northern capital could never be returned, and the number of exiled bureaucrats who were the social base of Zhang learning (and of the Huxiang 湖湘 school in general) dwindled over time. Zhu Xi, who came from a family of low-ranking exiled bureaucrats, found a new world in the local community in the south, and endeavored to transform himself into a member of the local elite, stepping out from behind Zhang Shi. After Zhang’s death, the local students he left behind in Hunan 湖南 and Sichuan 四川 were eventually aborted by the emerging typical Neo-Confucianism (Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan school) that spoke for the local elites. Zhang as a kind of transitional Neo-Confucianism eventually faded from history, completing the transition from the Northern Song learning to the later typical Neo-Confucianism. By reframing this transitional and alternative Neo-Confucianism, this thesis refines the Hymes-Bol’s localism paradigm about the explanation of why and how Neo-Confucianism raised.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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This thesis is a study on how leisure industries operated under semicolonial circumstances in Republican China (specifically between 1919 and 1941). Taking place in Yantai, a medium-sized treaty...Show moreThis thesis is a study on how leisure industries operated under semicolonial circumstances in Republican China (specifically between 1919 and 1941). Taking place in Yantai, a medium-sized treaty port in China’s Shandong province, this study analyzes how leisure, in the form of sex work, was both “sought” and “provided” by different actors. This study specifically zooms in on two of these actors. Firstly, sailors of the United States Asiatic Fleet are analyzed, as this research explores how their intertwining pursuits of drinking alcohol and visiting sex workers impacted Yantai and its inhabitants. Secondly, this study delves into the lives of Yantai’s sex workers, and how their role within Yantai’s sex work industry operated during an era of semicolonial presence. This study reveals that Yantai provided sailors the opportunity to indulge themselves in vices without being judged by their surroundings in a way that they would back home. Furthermore, although their behavior was certainly not appreciated by both locals and nonlocals in Yantai, their pursuits were also tolerated by some, as they contributed to both the economic and military interests of those that interacted with them. Sex workers, on the other hand, were a demographic that underwent significant changes throughout Yantai’s Republican period, which can largely be attributed to the increasing demands for sex work by foreign sailors. Yantai’s sex work industry became notably more internationally-oriented, as shown by both international sex workers flocking to the city and the general services offered by sex workers gradually revolving more around sexual intercourse. Overall, this study reveals how demands for new forms of sex work reshaped the hierarchies of Yantai’s overall sex work industry. As a result, the industry became more asymmetrically skewed towards a foreign clientele under semicoloniality. Furthermore, Yantai’s smaller size and the relatively large number of visiting sailors made these developments more contrasting than in other cities, resulting in heavier contention, discourse and conflicts arising from these developments.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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The thesis aims at situating "The Coconuts", one of the first Sino-Indonesian Chinese language works of fiction published in book form, by Zheng Tufei, in the history of Indonesian and Chinese...Show moreThe thesis aims at situating "The Coconuts", one of the first Sino-Indonesian Chinese language works of fiction published in book form, by Zheng Tufei, in the history of Indonesian and Chinese literature, by analyzing the main themes approached, the typologies of characters, the language and style, and the ideas promoted, in comparison with different bodies of literature (Malay, Indonesian, Sino-Malay, Sinophone, Chinese). The thesis also makes an account of all the biographical and bibliographocal data about Zheng Tufei available so far.Show less
