Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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This thesis explores the field of photography and studies its relationship with and its influence on the meaning and interpretation of privacy. The latter has been widely discussed in recent years...Show moreThis thesis explores the field of photography and studies its relationship with and its influence on the meaning and interpretation of privacy. The latter has been widely discussed in recent years because of the presumed lack thereof in our contemporary digitalized, globalized and 'free' world. Privacy is considered to be pivotal to our identity and being in this world. In this thesis I will argue that privacy is innately individual and can be considered as a personal desire to protect and demarcate everything that we do not know yet. It is a desire not to be a victim of everything that is happening in the world around oneself. In our contemporary world privacy is increasingly 'rational' and no longer concerned with physical access to something or somebody. Photography has the ambiguous task to lay bare the things we do not already know, and to be the threat to our privacy.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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This thesis examines the relationship between Nietzschean Aesthetics and the writings signed under the names of Pessoa's major heteronyms. It analyzes Nietzsche and Pessoa's treatment of philosophy...Show moreThis thesis examines the relationship between Nietzschean Aesthetics and the writings signed under the names of Pessoa's major heteronyms. It analyzes Nietzsche and Pessoa's treatment of philosophy and the aesthetic and dramatic manner in which they write it. I argue that common to the texts by both writers, particularly in Pessoa's case, his tentatively titled 'Fictions of the Interlude', lies a tension between aesthetic, if not ironic, distancing and earnest formative discourse.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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In the southern Italian dialect of Airola (Campania) feminine plural and masculine plural are distinguished by means of two phonological processes: metaphony and Raddoppiamento Fonosintattico (RF...Show moreIn the southern Italian dialect of Airola (Campania) feminine plural and masculine plural are distinguished by means of two phonological processes: metaphony and Raddoppiamento Fonosintattico (RF henceforth). They appear to be in complementary distribution and to create gender distinction in the plural of nouns; in fact, metaphony takes place in masculine plural forms, while RF marks feminine plural ones. Therefore, two distinct phenomena, one being phonological, namely metaphony, and one being phono-syntactic, namely RF, happen to interact within plural noun formation. These two processes, which developed separately, acquired, synchronically speaking, a value of gender distinction. Metaphony is a well-known phenomenon of Italian dialects, which consists in the raising or diphthongization of a stressed vowel under the influence of a non-adjacent following high vowel (Rohlfs 1966, Fanciullo 1994, Ledgeway 2009, Maiden 2010). In the dialect of Airola, it only affects mid vowels, namely /ɔ, o, e, ɛ/, and its attestation is not limited to the nominal class; it occurs, in fact, in various word categories, such as adjectives, verbs and possessive pronouns. RF is an external sandhi phenomenon which consists in the gemination of a word-initial consonant under the influence of a preceding word (Rohlfs 1970, Leone 1984, Loporcaro 1997, Borrelli 2002). In Airolano RF is lexically triggered, differently from the RF attested in Standard Italian, which occurs to be stress-induced. The aim of this thesis is to describe the two phenomena, metaphony and RF, in Airolano and to give an analysis of them in order to explain their division of labor. To do so, the processes are first analyzed separately. Then, a unified analysis is elaborated aiming to shed some light on the difference between genders in the plural of nouns. The analysis of the two phenomena will be based on data from Airolano that were collected in December 2013 and April 2014 by the author.Ten informants were selected, which were classified into four different age groups. All the recordings were, subsequently, transcribed in IPA and they appear in this form in the text. The full set of data is stored in the Italian Dialect archive of Leiden University.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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This thesis aims to present a new critical edition of the first section (anuvāka) of book (kāṇḍa) 17 of the Atharvaveda Paippalāda, a corpus of religious hymns and magical incantations dated to the...Show moreThis thesis aims to present a new critical edition of the first section (anuvāka) of book (kāṇḍa) 17 of the Atharvaveda Paippalāda, a corpus of religious hymns and magical incantations dated to the late second millenium BCE, which furnish the second-oldest body of Vedic Indian literature to survive to the present day. This thesis focuses on the first section of book 17, consisting of a great praise hymn addressed to the earth. It strives to improve the previous Indian edition (Bhattacharya 2011), by collating additional manuscript sources, providing a rigorous critical apparatus that includes all the variants found in the manuscritps, as well as an edited text based on established text-critical criteria. In addition, an analysis of the poetic meter of each verse is also provided next to each stanza, as well as a translation and detailed commentary in which I discuss the interpretation of each stanza with notes on its ritual, literary and linguistic context. Given the limited extension of the extant corpus of Vedic texts, the edition of a new text is of extreme importance, as it not only adds new information to our knowledge of the Vedic language, but also furnishes new precious linguistic material for the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European and the study of the history of its Indo-Iranian branch. Moreover, the acquisition of a philologically reliable version of such a text is a fundamental step towards any future anthropological or religious study on ancient Vedic India.Show less
Research master thesis | Developmental Psychopathology in Education and Child Studies (research) (MSc)
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2016-10-24T00:00:00Z
Women with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have become focus of research only recently, thus far there is little knowledge about the female phenotype of ASD in relation to social information...Show moreWomen with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have become focus of research only recently, thus far there is little knowledge about the female phenotype of ASD in relation to social information processing. This study focused on social cognition in high functioning women with ASD with specific focus on social attention and empathy. Participants consisted of 31 women with ASD and 29 non-clinical controls. Social attention was assessed by measuring eye fixation patterns using eye tracking while participant watched four movie clips of children expressing specific emotions. Empathic abilities were assessed using the informant reported Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Results show deceased fixation duration on the face and mouth in women with ASD compared to non-clinical controls, no differences were found in fixation duration on the eyes, objects and outside the areas of interest. In addition, women with ASD had a reduced ability to take the other’s perspective, a reduced ability to imagine the actions and feelings of (fictional) characters, and experienced more personal distress in stressful situations compared to non-clinical controls. In women with ASD, a negative correlation was found between personal distress and total fixation duration to the face. It is concluded that women with ASD have a deviant attention in social situations and reduced cognitive empathic abilities, but have more distress in social situations al well. It is suggested that an attentional deployment hypothesis might explain the findings. These findings stress the need for adjusting diagnostic assessment and treatment of women with ASD to the female phenotype of ASD.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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In this study, An Kuk-sŏn (also known as Chŏngang,1876-1926), a leading writer of the Greater Korean Empire period, is regarded as one prototype of Korean reformist intellectuals in the face of the...Show moreIn this study, An Kuk-sŏn (also known as Chŏngang,1876-1926), a leading writer of the Greater Korean Empire period, is regarded as one prototype of Korean reformist intellectuals in the face of the global expansion of imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Based on An’s Chŏngch’i Wŏnnon (政治原論, Basic Principles of Politics, 1907), the first modern political science textbook in Korea, the study explores the adoption of modern Western political science, which some of these intellectuals regarded as a means of national survival. This study also revalorizes Chŏngch’i Wŏnnon and the act of translation, the most common way of learning the West yet has been undermined in the discourse of nationalist historiography, by applying the frameworks of translation studies.Show less
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
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This thesis utilizes geologic methods and techniques (optical mineralogy and electron microprobe analysis) to characterize certain stone ground-edge artifacts from the site of El Cabo. This has...Show moreThis thesis utilizes geologic methods and techniques (optical mineralogy and electron microprobe analysis) to characterize certain stone ground-edge artifacts from the site of El Cabo. This has been done to locate the provenance of these samples and to build a better understand of the materials used by the Amerindians of the Dominican Republic. This research will also delve into possible rituals that existed with lithic procurement in this region and others. The goals of the thesis are to build a better understand of archaeology and geology of the insular-Caribbean as a whole and to zoom in on the Dominican Republic and the site of El Cabo.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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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 | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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Different speech variants can exist of one word, but how much information of these variants is actually stored in the mental lexicon of the speaker? I hypothesise that dialect makes for different...Show moreDifferent speech variants can exist of one word, but how much information of these variants is actually stored in the mental lexicon of the speaker? I hypothesise that dialect makes for different reduction patterns in the consonant cluster /st/ and that consequently, phonetic detail of reduced word forms is stored in the mind of the speaker. This was tested by a production experiment in which spontaneous speech and read speech are compared and a perception experiment in which participants had to perform a lexical decision task. Results showed that different dialects indeed show different frequencies and patterns of cluster reduction. Specifically, the Ede dialect reduced and deleted /s/ more frequently than the dialect Roosendaal. Reaction times of the third experiment showed that reduced word forms are not stored next to the canonical form. However, response data revealed that phonetic detail was influential when recognising reduced forms. I propose a hybrid model of the episodic and abstract model of storage of word forms in that phonetic detail of variants is stored next to the canonical form.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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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
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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It has long been recognised that ancient Egyptian women occupied a unique position within society in comparison to women in other ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern civilisations. This was...Show moreIt has long been recognised that ancient Egyptian women occupied a unique position within society in comparison to women in other ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern civilisations. This was already characteristic of the culture in antiquity and recognised by ancient Greek and Roman historians. Classical visitors of Egypt, like Herodotus, commented on the position of women as unusual and different from the situation they knew from their own cultures. This situation persisted even after the introduction of Greek and Roman traditions, which more heavily restricted women’s position and activities. Women participated in the economy of Egypt to a greater extent than can be documented for women from any other society in antiquity. When compared to women from other ancient cultures, such as Greece or Rome, the average Egyptian woman was relatively independent. She could inherit, own and dispose of property in her own right. She enjoyed a legal status, in theory equal to a man, and could act independently in business and court settings. In contrast to some cultures, no male guardian was required to act for her. Considering all these examples of female independence within society, it seems to be expected that women also enjoyed a certain degree of freedom when it comes to their occupational activities.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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This thesis analyzed the development of discourse on extra-European art in art historical surveys published between 1842 and 1900 and how this discourse was influenced by the development and...Show moreThis thesis analyzed the development of discourse on extra-European art in art historical surveys published between 1842 and 1900 and how this discourse was influenced by the development and institutionalisation of art history and by discourses on extra-European arts from other, related, scientific disciplines. It argues that the selective influence of art history as an institutionalizing discipline and other scholarly disciplines with an interest in extra- European art enlarged, changed and complicated the understanding of extra-European art as expressed in these discourses. Moreover, it substantiates that while certain dimensions of the understanding of extra-European art may have seemed to stay constant, this does not constitute a uniform understanding of this art. The findings are based on the analysis of the Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte (1842) by Franz Kugler, the Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte (1855) by Anton Springer and the Geschichte der Kunst aller Zeiten und Völker (1900) by Karl Woermann with the use of the method of Critical Discourse Analysis, which investigates not just the texts but also their scholarly environment, and an extensive close reading of the three surveys.Show less
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
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The last decade has seen the emergence a body literature advocating an archaeological approach which is conscious of, and actively includes, the individuals and groups who are entangled in the...Show moreThe last decade has seen the emergence a body literature advocating an archaeological approach which is conscious of, and actively includes, the individuals and groups who are entangled in the processes of archaeological research and are connected to and draw meaning from the material remains of the past. This archaeological approach, widely known as Community Archaeology, has been promoted by many, who envision a socially responsible discipline and multivocal understanding of the past. Archaeological discourse in Greece, however, seems to remain fairly silent on the issue, despite growing indifference, suspicion, and even resentment and resistance by the Greek public towards the field. The context to why this had become the case lay with the construction of an idealized nation built upon the “golden age” of its classical past and a formation of homogenous perception of national identity which have subsequently led to the exclusion of entire periods of time, namely that of the Post-Medieval period and it’s alternating and overlapping Ottoman, Venetian, and Frankish rule, as well the arginalization of those whose lives and histories have straddle the borders of ethnic, national, linguistic and religious identities. Further the historical conservative nature of the development of the field of Greek archaeology coupled with archaeological practice in service to the state, and monopolized solely by archaeological values has served to distance the public from the past and its materials. The tides they are a changing however, and research in Greek prehistoric archaeology, the emergence of regional survey projects in Greece and developments in post-medieval research has made significant strides in shedding Greek Archaeologies long held approaches rooted in nineteenth century ideologies and classicism. Furthermore, the tensions building between public and archaeological officials are not going unnoticed and some authors are starting to highlight that it is time for archaeological practice in Greece to think about for whom their work is for. In search of a tangible manifestation of the academic murmurings an examination of the museum sphere was undertaken, looking at three different self-ascribed museum types: Archaeological, Byzantine, and Folk, in three different locations in Greece: Athens, Thessaloniki, and Nafplio. Based on the knowledge of the recent renovation and redisplay of a few I was curious to see what museological methods had been implemented and further the incorporation of local communities or other relevant stakeholder groups in either the newly renovated exhibits or current temporary exhibits of the time, indicating perhaps a shift in museum practice not yet analysed.Show less
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
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In this thesis I have done research on expressions of ethnic identity in Athens and Ephesos in the Archaic and Classical period. This concept has mostly been researched by means of sociological and...Show moreIn this thesis I have done research on expressions of ethnic identity in Athens and Ephesos in the Archaic and Classical period. This concept has mostly been researched by means of sociological and anthropological studies. However, I utilized coinage as an archaeological proxy to further contribute to its understanding. In the context of these two cities were ethnic proclamations used to conceal true purposes of achieving social, political and economic goals. Identities were effortlessly constructed, discarded, replaced or reactivated in a new form. In Athens ethnic identities were expressed in three phases which ultimately led to a dominant position in the eastern Mediterranean. In Ephesos an Ionian descent was expressed to root their ancestry deep in the history of the Greek mainland for political and military support. The implementation of coinage has shown how deeply embedded the expressed ethnic identities were in the social and political landscape of Athens and Ephesos in the Archaic and Classical period. Furthermore I have suggested an alternative view to symbolism on early Greek coins. In this thesis I have suggested that from the fifth century BC onwards, when coinage trade networks expanded beyond local spheres, message broadcasting became a part of coinage. This study therefore has subsequently made way for a better understanding of early coinage in the Greek world.Show less
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
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While methodological examinations and evaluations on post-depositional processes, sampling, surface collection, the definition of ‘site’ and other phenomena in intensive and extensive surveys...Show moreWhile methodological examinations and evaluations on post-depositional processes, sampling, surface collection, the definition of ‘site’ and other phenomena in intensive and extensive surveys already came to the fore in the 1980s, less theoretical and methodological attention seems to be given to the archaeological process that takes place from the collection of the finds on the surface to the modes of archaeological interpretation. Although ceramological analyses often play a large role in reconstructing the past, especially in survey archaeology, the capabilities of the ceramologist in the ascription of chronology, function and provenance are often limited, resulting in a dataset that consists of data on various resolutions. In this light, a certain tension between our aim, providing a detailed reconstruction of the past, and our actual capabilities has to be acknowledged. These data, however, are the data we have to work with. This thesis explores the limits of our capabilities and dataset by applying a wide range of distributive and quantitative methods from a chronological and functional point of view. Although the survey data appear to be often biased to some extent, each of the applied methods is also fundamentally biased and is giving its own character to the dataset under examination. In this light, it should be stressed that the ‘source criticism’, which is often argued for in research, should be accompanied by a certain ‘instrumental criticism’. What seems to be apparent on the basis of the methodological exercises that are carried out in this thesis is a clear need to examine the archaeological record on the surface in its own right and context, as some of the methods applied clearly gave a different character to our own dataset when compared to the datasets of, for instance, the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey and Sagalassos. In this light, the complexity of the formation of the archaeological record and even our own datasets should be acknowledged and a wide range of quantitative and distributive methods should be carried out in further research to comparatively examine and evaluate the complexity we encounter from the ‘raw’ data revealed by archaeology.Show less
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
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The purpose of this research is to get more insight into the social significance of Late Bronze Age -Early Iron crescent shaped sickles from the Netherlands. This is done by reexamination of...Show moreThe purpose of this research is to get more insight into the social significance of Late Bronze Age -Early Iron crescent shaped sickles from the Netherlands. This is done by reexamination of several physical characteristics of the sickles, their distribution and their archaeological context. It has turned out that albeit the sickles have many different appearances and they are hard to categorize, they are made out of the same exotic flint type and by proficient flint knappers. In addition, they are all used to cut sods. The sickles mostly occur in landscapes which in the Late Bronze Age -Early Iron age were threatened by water. They seem closely related with the construction of artificial dwelling mounds. Since the sickles are made from non-local flint by excellent craftspeople, people presumably perceived the sickles as special objects. Moreover, the sickles were used to cut sods and sods were used for various purposes that helped people survive in the same region for a longer period. So the sickles made it possible for people to 'confirm their roots'. The absence of complete sickles in settlements and the selective deposition of several collections of sickles, which often have different use lives, support the idea that people were well aware of the sickles special cultural biographies. So albeit the sickles have been perceived as mainly functional objects, this thesis proves that they have several social connotations which can be derived from their cultural biography.Show less
