In 1572 is Zutphen het toneel van een burgeroorlog. In juni vindt de stad aansluiting bij de Opstand van Willem van Oranje en Willem van den Bergh, dankzij hulp van binnenuit. In november wordt de...Show moreIn 1572 is Zutphen het toneel van een burgeroorlog. In juni vindt de stad aansluiting bij de Opstand van Willem van Oranje en Willem van den Bergh, dankzij hulp van binnenuit. In november wordt de stad door het regeringsleger van Alva en don Fadrique heroverd en gestraft voor de opstandigheid. Volgens verhalen uit de latere herinneringscultuur vindt er dan een bloedbad onder de burgerbevolking plaats. Deze scriptie laat zien dat dit verhaal het product is van eigentijdse geruchten en propaganda, en gepolitiseerde herinneringspraktijken in de zeventiende eeuw. De lokale herinneringscultuur is een modern verschijnsel. Het aanvankelijke uitblijven van een lokale herinneringstraditie wordt verklaard door het ontbreken van belanghebbenden en de werking van vergetelheidclausules in amnestieregelingen als het Generaal Pardon (1574) en de Pacificatie van Gent (1576). Wat is er dan wel gebeurd? In werkelijkheid wordt het garnizoen Waalse huurlingen ter dood veroordeeld. Voor de Zutphenaren is 1572 (in hun woorden) vooral een 'ellendig jaar', waarbij de nadruk niet vanzelfsprekend op de gebeurtenissen in november ligt.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
The basis of this study is an observation of a Mandarin expression, which was heard in a Chinese television programme. The expression is qí le guài le, which I tentatively translate as ‘how strange...Show moreThe basis of this study is an observation of a Mandarin expression, which was heard in a Chinese television programme. The expression is qí le guài le, which I tentatively translate as ‘how strange’. Double le is well-described for verb–object (VO) compounds, as in nà le mèr le ‘have been perplexed’. However, qíguài is listed in dictionaries as an adjective meaning ‘strange’ and as a verb meaning ‘to find strange’. It is not documented as a VO, raising questions about its syntactic status. In this study, I investigate what qí le guài le means, what each instance of le contributes to its meaning, and whether qí and guài should be analysed as two different syntactic elements. The second paragraph contains an overview of the methodology. Here, it is explained that I understand syntax primarily as the study of relations between meanings. This contravenes a popular view of syntax as primarily concerning relations between forms. I also make a fundamental distinction between meaning and interpretation. In the following paragraphs, the analyses are presented step by step, and any linguistic jargon is explained and illustrated with examples. The reader is not expected to have prior knowledge of either Mandarin or linguistics.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Metaphors effectively explain a complex (scientific) topic in terms familiar to the non-expert audience. However, metaphors also affect attitude. This thesis investigated the effects that the path...Show moreMetaphors effectively explain a complex (scientific) topic in terms familiar to the non-expert audience. However, metaphors also affect attitude. This thesis investigated the effects that the path metaphor and the wildfire metaphor have on the personal control people experience over the further course of the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, participants received a text about the ongoing yet hidden threat of COVID-19, in which a new outbreak was either described as a wrongly taken path, as a wildfire flaring up, or without a metaphor. To measure the experienced amount of personal control, the participants were asked about their feelings of fear and control of the virus and the measures, and how they would bring these feelings into practice by reacting to multiple scenarios involving the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Statistical testing revealed no significant effect of the metaphors on the participants’ responses, potentially due to (amongst others) the time frame of the research. It is necessary to research in which circumstances a metaphor does and does not affect attitude. Then, it can be determined how and when a metaphor can best be employed in daily life to influence the hearer’s perception of a message, for example in the contexts of climate change, disease, and politics.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
closed access
In 1573, the Spanish humanist Juan Latino wrote the Latin epic Austrias carmen, commissioned by the inquisitor Pedro de Deza. This is one of many literary celebrations of the Holy League victory...Show moreIn 1573, the Spanish humanist Juan Latino wrote the Latin epic Austrias carmen, commissioned by the inquisitor Pedro de Deza. This is one of many literary celebrations of the Holy League victory over an Ottoman fleet in the 1571 naval battle of Lepanto. This thesis deals with the work's depiction of the Ottomans: both its more generalised depiction of the Ottomans as a people, and its depiction of a specific Ottoman character, the admiral Ali Pasha. While at first glance, the work appears to paint the Ottomans in a hostile light, some scholars have argued that it also contains scenes that are more empathetic, even sympathetic to the Ottoman 'enemy'. By considering the epic's depiction of the Ottomans in light of its classical intertexts and other contemporaneous Western European responses to the Ottoman Empire, this thesis seeks to nuance this claim. I argue that the work uses many of the tropes of contemporary anti-Ottoman rhetoric, while having less in common with more 'positive' contemporaneous Western European evaluations of the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, I aim to demonstrate that the epic's 'sympathetic' passages on the Ottomans tend to have a strong European, and particularly Spanish imperial, bias: any sympathy hinges on Ottoman characters' acceptance of, or submission to, a Spanish imperialist worldview. Finally, I will connect the epic's depiction of the Ottomans to its depiction of the Spanish 'Moriscos' - the part of the Spanish Islamic population that had been forcibly converted to Christianity. The epic links them to the Ottomans, and the recent suppressed revolt of 'Moriscos' in Granada to the battle of Lepanto, thereby presenting these people as an internal enemy of Spain. Here, the epic may show the influence of Latino's patron Deza, who played an important role in the violent repression of the revolt.Show less
Building on recent scholarly work on anticolonialism in European metropoles, this thesis looks into the activists and initiatives that advanced an anticolonial agenda in the interwar Dutch...Show moreBuilding on recent scholarly work on anticolonialism in European metropoles, this thesis looks into the activists and initiatives that advanced an anticolonial agenda in the interwar Dutch metropole from 1927 to 1935. This thesis places its focus on three main groups: activists from the Netherlands, the Dutch colonies and other parts of the global South and turns towards initiatives like the World Congress against Imperialist War (1932) in Amsterdam. Devoting special attention to the Dutch branch of the League against Imperialism (the LAI-NL), this thesis seeks to carve out an hitherto understudied part of Dutch, colonial and global history.Show less
Between 1945 and 1952, Dutch non-governmental organisations (NGOs) closely cooperated with intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) to administer aid to refugees. Making use of a case study approach,...Show moreBetween 1945 and 1952, Dutch non-governmental organisations (NGOs) closely cooperated with intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) to administer aid to refugees. Making use of a case study approach, this thesis scrutinises the cooperation between four NGOs and the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR) and the International Refugee Organisation (IRO). How and why did NGOs and IGOs join forces to effectuate refugee relief? It turned out that interdependence played an important role: NGOs were reliant on the financial support from IGOs, whilst IGOs needed the ‘grassroot’ expert knowledge of NGOs. NGOs also distributed IGO support to the refugees and mediated on behalf of the refugees. In return, IGOs provided NGOs with legal assistance and advice. Moral arguments and preventive considerations (keeping the refugees on the right path and the fear for unwished precedents) played a lesser role in fuelling NGO-IGO cooperation. All in all, this thesis provides a first insight in the unstudied activity of Dutch relief NGOs directly after the war. The case studies are conducted against the backdrop of an extensive and inconclusive debate on NGOs and their role in the establishment of the modern humanitarian refugee regime.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
The present thesis will deal with the proto-Indo-European anaphoric and relative pronouns, and their possible shared origin. The discussion will be based on a large repertoire of relevant lexical...Show moreThe present thesis will deal with the proto-Indo-European anaphoric and relative pronouns, and their possible shared origin. The discussion will be based on a large repertoire of relevant lexical entries from the whole Indo-European family, to reconstruct the most accurate pronominal paradigm and its phonology. This overhauled paradigm will be studied to extrapolate a relative chronology that will help to clarify the steps of its creation in pre-Proto-Indo-European and its differentiation between the relative and anaphoric pronoun. In the final chapters, the anaphoric pronoun will be analyzed under the lenses of the ergative theory and will be compared with the verbal augment, to determine whether they derive from the same hypothetical deictic particle. Finally, the pre-Proto-Indo-European reconstruction of the anaphoric pronoun will be compared with the Proto-Uralic pronominal repertoire to determine whether it was inherited from Proto-Indo-Uralic.Show less
Research master thesis | Middle Eastern Studies (research) (MA)
open access
Since the 1990s, the genre of Dutch Islamic children’s literature has seen an impressive boom in terms of quantity and quality. With increasing numbers of publishers active in the field and books...Show moreSince the 1990s, the genre of Dutch Islamic children’s literature has seen an impressive boom in terms of quantity and quality. With increasing numbers of publishers active in the field and books published, the genre is growing with an exponential speed and continuously transforming in character. Building upon the gradually developing field of study that deals with the everyday lives of Muslims in ‘the West’, this study provides an exploratory insight into a specific manifestation of the daily experiences of Muslims in diaspora: Islamic children’s literature. Through 25 qualitative in-depth interviews with those actors most closely involved in the phenomenon, being publishers, authors, and producers, this explorative study aimed to understand the main intentions and motivations for both producing and using these books. Providing a bottom-up account of the phenomenon, this research intended to answer the following research question: What explains the increasing popularity of Dutch Islamic children’s literature since its emergence in the 1990s? With a new generation of Dutch Muslims, born and raised in The Netherlands themselves, facing an increasing need for renewed pedagogical materials that fit contemporary Dutch context, the genre of Islamic children’s literature is the materialised response to a need for educational and socialising materials in a non-Muslim majority context. Characterised by a diversity of both actors involved and books produced, the genre of Islamic children’s literature serves multiple functions, ranging from the strict didactic teaching of virtue to playful modes of representation. Serving both as a complementary tool in the Islamic upbringing of a future generation at home and as a means of strengthening children in their Dutch Muslim identity, the genre is continuously adaptive to the needs of its ‘BRUNA’ Muslim audience.Show less
Research master thesis | Middle Eastern Studies (research) (MA)
open access
This project investigates how memory contributes to the reproduction and contestation of processes of economic dispossession in Tunisia, examining more specifically the relation between memory and...Show moreThis project investigates how memory contributes to the reproduction and contestation of processes of economic dispossession in Tunisia, examining more specifically the relation between memory and political economy in two directions. First, it investigates the dispossession of memory, that is: how the top-down manufacturing and mobilisation of collective memory has consolidated feelings of marginalisation and exclusion among subordinated individuals and social groups, aiming to perpetuate existing social and economic hierarchies. Second, this study also seeks to explore the memory of dispossession, particularly with reference to how the memory of dispossession is experienced from below and eventually contested. Building on Gramscian notions of hegemony, the project argues that struggles over memory are a crucial aspect in processes of dispossession, their reproduction from above, as well as challenges to them from below in Tunisia.Show less
