Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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This written and visual research project sets out to consider how the notion of opacity marks photographs of environmental despoliation. It argues that opacity can be a critically potent framework...Show moreThis written and visual research project sets out to consider how the notion of opacity marks photographs of environmental despoliation. It argues that opacity can be a critically potent framework in photographic practices that engage with the ecological crisis by means of its construction of more affective modes of communicating a phenomenon that is itself often marked by incomprehensibility. In doing so, it conducts a comparative visual analysis of two photographic series: Anthropocene by Edward Burtynsky and Oil and Moss by Igor Tereshkov. It concludes that Burtynsky’s series constructs an awesome visuality that pursues a revelatory approach but, in actuality, ends up reasserting a set of beliefs that are already widely known, consequently not inciting new, critical modes of contemplating the ecological crisis. Tereshkov’s work, on the other hand, works to recombine the aesthetic with the critical; focusing on the interactions between the images’ visuality and their tactility, this thesis argues that Oil and Moss’ critical potency is established by means of its destabilising, disruptive aesthetics of the opaque. The ecological crisis is also a crisis of imagination: as humans, we struggle to grasp and make sense of the scale and severity of the devastation that appears to be creeping closer and closer. As such, we are in need of new, innovative modes of imagining our physical environments and how we relate to them. Photography, in its simultaneous ability to remember the past, to contemplate the future, and to imagine alternative iterations of the present, is one itinerary through which that may be achieved.Show less
Thinking of ‘crises’ in antique Christianity, one generally thinks of impactful and violent events like the East-West Schism at the beginning of the first millennium, the Donatist schism in the...Show moreThinking of ‘crises’ in antique Christianity, one generally thinks of impactful and violent events like the East-West Schism at the beginning of the first millennium, the Donatist schism in the fourth century, or the Diocletian persecutions from 303 to 313. However, ‘crisis’ did not start there, as historical crises can be traced back to the very beginning of Christianity. At the turn of the first century, a certain bishop in Asia Minor wrote letters revealing of this turbulent start of a new religion. When literally being escorted to his martyr’s death (how turbulent do you want it), Ignatius of Antioch wrote several letters to communities of Christ believers. He shows a surprisingly independent, stylistically quite idiosyncratic and rhetorically brilliant voice on central issues, concerning the ‘humanity’ of Christ and his believers, which renders him indispensable for any analysis of the early Christian crises of his time. Writing right after the first generation of believers, he is in dialogue with apostolic heritage. He explicitly refers to Paul, offering insight into the mechanics of historical development, which involves debate and, as you will, ‘crisis’. This thesis takes Ignatius’ testimony to give meaning to the historical crises of the time.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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This thesis examines Strabo’s conception of the relationship between Greek and Roman culture in his description of Magna Graecia, as outlined in chapter 5.4 and book 6 of his Geography. Sub...Show moreThis thesis examines Strabo’s conception of the relationship between Greek and Roman culture in his description of Magna Graecia, as outlined in chapter 5.4 and book 6 of his Geography. Sub-questions that receive attention include: What is Strabo’s attitude towards Roman rule? To what extent does Strabo view one of the two cultures as superior or the foundation of the other culture in the region? How does he characterize the interaction between the cultures? In what ways does he convey these views?Show less
This thesis is an analysis of the intersection of kinship politics and religion in the 20th century Philippines. It discusses their cultural influence and effects on the protests and revolution...Show moreThis thesis is an analysis of the intersection of kinship politics and religion in the 20th century Philippines. It discusses their cultural influence and effects on the protests and revolution against the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship. A social history conducted through interviews of witnesses, activists, and Filipino immigrants is used to contextualize major events of the 1980s. The years 1981-1987 were chosen due to the historical importance of events such as the visit of Pope John Paul II, the assassination of opposition leader Ninoy Aquino, and the EDSA revolution which toppled the dictator.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
open access
2024-06-30T00:00:00Z
The Roman Empire of the first and second centuries AD was a multinational society that was characterized by migration and mobility. In this multicultural society, people of many different ethnical...Show moreThe Roman Empire of the first and second centuries AD was a multinational society that was characterized by migration and mobility. In this multicultural society, people of many different ethnical and cultural backgrounds had to find a way to live together and deal with cultural differences. One of these people was the satirist Lucian of Samosata (ca. AD 125-180). Although this Hellenized author lived in and travelled through the Roman Empire, he was Syrian by birth and had enjoyed Greek education. Therefore, he could be considered a migrant author who moved in-between multiple identities. Lucian’s status as a foreigner and migrant appears to have influenced his writings. He frequently stages foreigners who try to find the best way to relate themselves to other cultures and deal with the negative sentiments of host cultures. In this thesis, I argue that Lucian in his works provides different perspectives on such challenges of travelling and migration. Approaching Lucian’s 'Assembly of the Gods', 'On Hired Companions', 'Scythian', and 'Anacharsis' as migrant literature, I use the acculturation theory of Berry (1992; 1997) to analyse how Lucian in these works reflects on cultural interaction in the Roman Empire of his own time. In the first chapter, I argue that Lucian’s 'Assembly of the Gods' can be read as a parody of Roman criticism of (Greek) foreigners, and I discuss how Lucian uses this parody to plea for cultural tolerance and prevent cultural segregation. In the second chapter, I argue that Lucian in his 'On Hired Companions' uses two different perspectives on the interaction between Greeks and Romans to advocate for cultural separation and to discourage Greek attempts to integrate into Roman households. In the last chapter, I argue that Lucian in his 'Scythian' and 'Anacharsis' provides three different examples of acculturation and presents his own autonomous integration as the most desirable acculturation strategy. In this chapter, I also explain how Lucian’s various perspectives on integration and separation can be reconciled, arguing that the four works together guide both foreigners and host cultures in the creation of a culturally tolerant society.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2025-06-30
2025-06-30T00:00:00Z
This study investigates the development of the following lateral fricatives and affricates (obstruents) in Nguni (S40) languages, spoken in Southern Africa. These lateral obstruents (/ɬ, ⁿɬ, ɮ, ⁿɮ,...Show moreThis study investigates the development of the following lateral fricatives and affricates (obstruents) in Nguni (S40) languages, spoken in Southern Africa. These lateral obstruents (/ɬ, ⁿɬ, ɮ, ⁿɮ, k͡ʟ ̝̊/) are rare in the Bantu language family, but occur in three subbranches of Southern Bantu: Sotho Tswana, Nguni, and Tsonga. Given the rarity of these sounds, in Bantu and crosslinguistically, the question arises how Southern Bantu languages have incorporated lateral obstruents in their phonologies, as they are not reconstructed for Proto Bantu. To answer this question, I analyze secondary data from 10 Nguni languages to study which lateral obstruents are used and how, leading to the conclusion that both inheritance and contact played a role in the development of lateral obstruents in Nguni languages. The data shows that alveolar lateral obstruents can be reconstructed to Proto Nguni and derive from a regular sound change from Proto Bantu palatals /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/. The velar lateral affricate finds its origin in loan words. I evaluate existing theories that proposed several contact scenarios, which at this point are not plausible explanations for the development of Nguni lateral obstruents. The findings from this study make several contributions to the field. It is the only empirical study to date to collect and reinterpret data from a large number of secondary sources, leading to a better understanding of not only the distribution of lateral obstruents in Nguni languages, but also the hypothesized ancestor of these related languages, Proto Nguni. Further, this thesis lays the groundwork for future research into lateral obstruents in Southern Bantu. If we expand our focus from Nguni to the other subclades that feature lateral obstruents, we can combine that knowledge of lateral obstruents in Southern Bantu with other innovations and patterns to gain insight into the diversification of Southern Bantu languages and understand how the subgroups relate to each otherShow less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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The text seek to define Queerfuturism as an extrapolation of Afrofuturism, investigating a series of case studies based on their engagement with contemporary Queer discourse.
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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Eye-tracking reading on bilinguals has found divergent results: some have found disadvantages for bilinguals of varying proficiency as compared to monolinguals, where language proficiency scores...Show moreEye-tracking reading on bilinguals has found divergent results: some have found disadvantages for bilinguals of varying proficiency as compared to monolinguals, where language proficiency scores and individual differences in cognitive control ability accounted for these differences. Others reported a bilingual advantage in cognitive control which also affected syntactic parsing beneficially as bilinguals scored higher on comprehension whilst processing garden-path sentences. However, bilingualism itself is often poorly defined, which can lead to unfair comparisons between, potentially, extremely different types of bilinguals. Therefore, we employ a strict definition of bilingualism, as well as clearly defining what language-pairing our bilinguals have and what the potential language interaction effects of the pairing could be. In this fashion, the current study assesses whether high-proficiency Dutch-English bilinguals show an advantage on sentence comprehension of garden-path sentences and whether lingering misinterpretations related to garden-path effects in Good-Enough parsing theories remain and follow the expected patterns. We employed eye-tracking with N = 20 Dutch-English bilinguals and N = 12 native English speakers, and compared their reading times and comprehension accuracy. Our results confirm the patterns suggested in recent adaptations made to Good-Enough parsing models, in which information structure and prediction are incorporated and help guide the parsing process. Additionally, we find evidence of a specific Dutch-English language interaction which surfaces as an advantage for the bilinguals in specific eye-tracking measures and sentence parts, but no further (dis)advantage between our bilingual and native English speaker group, neither in sentence comprehension nor cognitive control, was found.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
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This thesis researches whether the apparent similarity that seems to exist superficially between divergence in Chinese ancient character shapes and phonological split holds up upon closer...Show moreThis thesis researches whether the apparent similarity that seems to exist superficially between divergence in Chinese ancient character shapes and phonological split holds up upon closer examination. It concludes that it does not, since it is not possible to frame Chinese character divergence in terms of the straight-forward, systematic patterns found in phonological split. Instead, Chinese character evolution appears to be rather unsystematic and capricious.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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Event nominalizations in Iraqw, a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania, have a number of interesting properties. Particularly, they do not license arguments; instead, thematically related nominals...Show moreEvent nominalizations in Iraqw, a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania, have a number of interesting properties. Particularly, they do not license arguments; instead, thematically related nominals may occur as possessors, or as arguments of the main clause. This thesis, based partially on new data gathered during fieldwork in Tanzania, provides an overview of the morphosyntactic properties of event nominals in Iraqw, as well as an analysis of their internal structure and the syntactic status of their arguments, using the framework of Distributed Morphology.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
some documents under embargo
2025-03-20T00:00:00Z, 2025-03-20T00:00:00Z
This thesis explores the conceptual mechanisms that underlie utopian world-making and rest on grammatical structures, identified as ‘grammars of utopia’. Examining case studies from modern and...Show moreThis thesis explores the conceptual mechanisms that underlie utopian world-making and rest on grammatical structures, identified as ‘grammars of utopia’. Examining case studies from modern and contemporary English and Greek literature, the thesis shows utopia to be both beyond and within grammatical limits: the conception of an ideal society, which a utopia is, is a gesture away from a given reality – its limitations, more precisely – as well as towards an alternative one, and this latter is the one drawing limits to the utopian thought anew. Herbert George Wells’ A Modern Utopia (1905), James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), Aldous Huxley’s Island (1962), and Sotiris Dimitriou’s The Silence of the Dry Weed (2011) map five categories without which we cannot make sense of or construe utopian narratives: modality, polarity, conditionality, subjectivity, and mood. Therefore, close reading these works provides a first grammatical ‘study of Utopian fantasy mechanics’, as proposed by Fredric Jameson (2005, xiii). Αt the same time, all texts try (and more or less succeed) to remap these five configurations and invite possibilities of alternative grammars of utopia that are yet to come.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2025-01-31
2025-01-31T00:00:00Z
Vilela is a language isolate from El Chaco (Argentina) with just one semi-speaker left. Prof. Dr. Golluscio directed its documentation within the DOBES Programme (2003-2006) and is involved in its...Show moreVilela is a language isolate from El Chaco (Argentina) with just one semi-speaker left. Prof. Dr. Golluscio directed its documentation within the DOBES Programme (2003-2006) and is involved in its grammatical description. However, its phonology is understudied, and only a few observations (Llamas, 1910; Viegas Barros, 2001; Lozano, 1970/2006) and specific studies (Grawunder & Golluscio, 2014) have been made so far. In addition, and despite its endangerment level, only one article has focused on how language attrition affected the retrieved data (Golluscio & González, 2008), and only scarce mentions of phonological processes were made. Investigations of phonetics and phonology represent a relatively late arrival within the otherwise well-established field of language attrition studies (ca. the second half of the 2010s). Therefore, this thesis has a double aim. I will first describe the Vilela's (segmental) phonological system, analyzing the available acoustic and phonological information and my fieldwork data (bibliographic research and elicitation sessions in Resistencia). Next, I study how phonological and phonetic attrition has affected and is still affecting Vilela and what this can bring to current language attrition research.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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This thesis focuses on the philosophical meaning of literal silence in the later Platonic tradition (first to sixth century AD). With ‘literal silence’ I mean the phenomenon or act of silence...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the philosophical meaning of literal silence in the later Platonic tradition (first to sixth century AD). With ‘literal silence’ I mean the phenomenon or act of silence itself that is explicitly indicated in a text. As this thesis shows, silence is not a static but a dynamic concept whose meaning is transformed over time. The first chapter treats the silent philosopher trope in the (Neo)Pythagorean tradition and shows that silence was seen as a philosophical virtue and a (better) alternative to language. These types of silence were intentional and immanent, and also often communicative. The second chapter focuses on quietness as a characteristic of the first principle and as an ontological posture in Middle Platonic and Neoplatonic thought. In this philosophical development, silence is no longer immanent to speech but transcends the human capacity for language. In the last chapter, I show how the thoughts on the limits of language impact the dialectical method and the literary form of some Christian Platonic dialogues that stand out for their silent interlocutors. The conclusion reflects on the different instances of silence and shows how their meanings flow into each other while being transformed throughout antiquity with every author.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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This thesis investigates how the use of three futurates (will, shall and BE going to) is constrained in six varieties of World English (American, British, Canadian, Indian, Jamaican, and Philippine...Show moreThis thesis investigates how the use of three futurates (will, shall and BE going to) is constrained in six varieties of World English (American, British, Canadian, Indian, Jamaican, and Philippine). Using a Construction Grammar approach, it is assumed that the futurates are separate constructions, all part of a single network (Bergs 2010). They can then be analysed in terms of form (i.e. their morphosyntactic environment), function (i.e. their semantic and pragmatic meaning) and context (i.e. the types of texts they appear in). The six varieties of World English under investigation here present a cross-section of World Englishes as they are conceptualized by Strang (1970), Quirk et al. (1972), Kachru (1985) and Schneider (2007). The data used in this thesis comes from the ICE-corpora, a collection of corpora with the same methodology and which are thus optimally comparable. The impact of various variables related to form and function was explored using conditional trees and conditional random forests. The results show that the futurates under investigation show a high degree of overlap regarding the environments in which they can be found. The functional variables included do not play a significant role. On the other hand, some variables associated with the futurates’ form do – especially the person and animacy of the subject. Additionally, the futurates are conditioned differently in different varieties of English. However, no clear categorization in terms of the frameworks designed to capture World Englishes (e.g. Kachru’s (1985) Concentric Circles or Schneider’s (2007) Dynamic Model) can be uncovered. This first look at how the use of the futurates is conditioned in six varieties of World English shows that it is an exciting topic for further investigation, as there are interesting differences between the varieties under investigation.Show less
This thesis examines the effects of the so-called Nayaka kings on Kandyan kingship in the first decade of the Nayaka period of the Kandyan kingdom (1729-1750). The thesis concludes that the decade...Show moreThis thesis examines the effects of the so-called Nayaka kings on Kandyan kingship in the first decade of the Nayaka period of the Kandyan kingdom (1729-1750). The thesis concludes that the decade before the Nayaka kings rose to power shows remarkable continuity with the first decade after the Nayaka kings ascended the Kandyan throne, and it is therefore difficult to state that the Nayaka ascension can be seen as a clear break with the former dynasty. The ceremonies at the court do not show any sign of an increased divinization, both Sri Vijaya Rajasinha (1739-1747) and Kirti Sri Rajasinha (1747-1782) even had a bigger emphasis on becoming/being an ideal Buddhist ruler, a Cakravarti.Show less
