This thesis examines how Belgians who fled the Congo in the wake of the Congolese independence (1960) experienced their return migration and reintegration into Belgian society. Long ignored in...Show moreThis thesis examines how Belgians who fled the Congo in the wake of the Congolese independence (1960) experienced their return migration and reintegration into Belgian society. Long ignored in public and academic debates, the narratives of postcolonial returnees provide insight into the demographic consequences of the end of empires on the one hand, and the effects of whiteness on migrant trajectories on the other hand. Through a unique combination of oral history, visual analysis, and media analysis, this thesis explores how returnees shaped their memories of colonial life and decolonization. It also examines how this narrative differs from the contemporary media and government narrative on the Anciens du Congo.Show less
This thesis examines and contextualises the thought of the Dutch officer, politician, and administrator Johannes van den Bosch (1780-1844). Van den Bosch was an important political figure under the...Show moreThis thesis examines and contextualises the thought of the Dutch officer, politician, and administrator Johannes van den Bosch (1780-1844). Van den Bosch was an important political figure under the reign of King Willem I and held high positions both in the Dutch metropole and overseas in the Dutch West Indies and the Dutch East Indies. He is mainly known for the Society of Benevolence, a poverty alleviation scheme in the Netherlands and the introduction of the cultivation system, a system of rural taxation in the Dutch East Indies. This thesis studies his thought by examining and contextualising Van den Bosch’s ideas on history, poverty, and race in two treatises written by him in 1818. Following the Cambridge School of Intellectual History, it contextualises these thoughts through primary texts of contemporaneous authors and secondary literature. It argues that we should pay attention not just to the actions but also to the ideas of Van den Bosch. He appears as an enlightened conservative, meaning he advocated change but wanted it through slow evolution rather than rapid revolution. He combined this with progressive ideas on the alleviation of poverty and a racialised understanding of human difference. This thesis makes the case that rather than enigmatic, as it has often been described, Van den Bosch’s thought is consistently modern.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts, Literature and Media (research) (MA)
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There is a problem with identity. Although people tend towards identifying themselves as something absolute, identity does not coincide with itself. This leaves people's sense of identity open to...Show moreThere is a problem with identity. Although people tend towards identifying themselves as something absolute, identity does not coincide with itself. This leaves people's sense of identity open to manipulation and exploitation. In this thesis, I explore how Catherine Lacey's novel Pew and Toby Fox's video game Undertale deal with this problem. Both works trouble the notion of a stable, internal identity that can be expressed through clean-cut identity categorisations, showing how such a view of identity is unrealistic, restrictive, and potentially harmful. I draw inspiration from Michel Foucault's treatment of art in his Order of Things, in which Foucault gives art the privileged position of being able to foretell a shift in epistemes. Analysing Pew and Undertale alongside the concept of genre as theorised by Jacques Derrida and the concept of the monster as grounded in Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's writing, I show that these works prefigure an episteme that expects difference rather than sameness, reconfiguring the problem of identity into a source of possibilities.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 | 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
In 1895, the Dutch Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SDAP) convened for its first party conference. Two years later, the first SDAP members were elected to Parliament. Between these years and the...Show moreIn 1895, the Dutch Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SDAP) convened for its first party conference. Two years later, the first SDAP members were elected to Parliament. Between these years and the Second World War, the SDAP transitioned from a party with revolutionary aspirations to a fully normalized parliamentary entity. This thesis studies the SDAP’s assembly culture (vergadercultuur) in both the House of Representatives and their own party conferences. The first part of the thesis utilizes a combination of traditional and innovative digital methodologies to demonstrate that the normalisation of the position of the SDAP in the House of Representatives peaked in the mid-1920s. The second part of the thesis explores the development of the internal assembly culture of the SDAP, focusing on the role of the chairperson, procedures, time management, and usage of ‘persoonlijke feiten’, a phenomenon originating from Parliament. This section shows that while the internal assembly culture of the SDAP matured in many respects, this process was non-linear in many other respects, rendering the metaphor of maturation insufficient.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2026-01-31
2026-01-31T00:00:00Z
Like other Bantu languages, Kîîtharaka (Guthrie E54, Central Kenya Bantu) allows indexing the object on the verb by inserting an object prefix in front of the verb stem. Object marking is...Show moreLike other Bantu languages, Kîîtharaka (Guthrie E54, Central Kenya Bantu) allows indexing the object on the verb by inserting an object prefix in front of the verb stem. Object marking is prohibited in case of an overt object. However, if the object is dislocated, this marker sometimes occurs obligatorily, while in other cases, it is prohibited. Hence, Kîîtharaka poses a classical case for differential object marking (DOM). The main outcome of this thesis is the finding that a complex interplay of a variety of factors is responsible for differential object marking in Kîîth araka. These factors include cross-linguistically well-known triggers for DOM such as animacy and accessibility, but also lesser-known factors such as predicate class and verum. In addition to proposing a hierarchy according to which the established factors apply, individuation is given as a possible theoretical explanation to account for the diversity of factors found.Show less
In this thesis, the role of the night in Early Christianity is examined from the first century to 250 CE. What nocturnal worship meant and how early Christians gave meaning to the role of the night...Show moreIn this thesis, the role of the night in Early Christianity is examined from the first century to 250 CE. What nocturnal worship meant and how early Christians gave meaning to the role of the night in their practice, as well as how this was seen and interpreted by their Romans neighbours, is combined in this study to make the case for the inherent nocturnality of the early church, and promote increased research into the topic.Show less
Between 1914 and 1940, the SDAP dominated municipal politics in Amsterdam. Buoyed with the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1917 and the expansion of municipal tax powers in 1920, social...Show moreBetween 1914 and 1940, the SDAP dominated municipal politics in Amsterdam. Buoyed with the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1917 and the expansion of municipal tax powers in 1920, social democratic aldermen such as Wibaut and De Miranda sought to establish a welfare municipality in the capital. Through the municipalisation of basic necessities, housework, and social hygiene, and the provision of care for the sickly, elderly, needy, and unemployed, the alderman hoped to provide for the material welfare and mental well-being of the working-class. Municipal Socialism in Amsterdam was seen as a unique project in the Netherlands. However, the municipal socialist project in Amsterdam was inherently dependent on acquiescence of bourgeois parties in Amsterdam and the confessional national government in The Hague, not to speak of global developments and the world economy. Relativizing the uniqueness of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague concurrently pioneered different aspects of municipal socialism in the face of similar shortcomings. Amsterdam’s greatest distinction was its incredibly effective advertisement of municipal socialism in publications throughout the interwar period, reinforced by the opposition it inspired in the national bourgeois press. Practically, while Amsterdam’s spending and earnings in municipal socialist fields was generally above average, the capital did not spend or earn significantly more than other social democratic municipalities across all municipal socialist fields. Nor did the capital significantly outperform the two other major municipalities in municipal socialist fields. Thus, while the municipal socialist project in Amsterdam may have financially been above average in the Interwar period, it was not unique, nor significantly different. However, we cannot deny the political and ideational impact of the municipal socialist project in Amsterdam on interwar political thought and post-war public memory.Show less
This thesis deals with binary gender roles in Revolutionary Nationalism in Post-Revolutionary Mexico. By analyzing the first 20 number of the Comic book Adelita y las Guerrillas, the thesis argues...Show moreThis thesis deals with binary gender roles in Revolutionary Nationalism in Post-Revolutionary Mexico. By analyzing the first 20 number of the Comic book Adelita y las Guerrillas, the thesis argues that masculine and feminine gender roles are created in tandem, primarily through the characters Adelita and Juan sin miedo. The thesis argues that whilst portraying progressive gender roles on a superficial level, at its core, the comic book reproduces conservative gender ideology as a part of Revolutionary Nationalism.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
this thesis compares two important works, Aviezer Tucker's Our Knowledge of the Past and Mark Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas, to a novel theory in epistemology, William Talbott's...Show morethis thesis compares two important works, Aviezer Tucker's Our Knowledge of the Past and Mark Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas, to a novel theory in epistemology, William Talbott's Learning from our Mistakes. It argues that William Talbott's approach to knowledge can solve longstanding issues within the philosophy of history, particularly pertaining to the normative epistemological question: what should we be believing about the past?Show less
