Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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This thesis explores to what extent water bodies in ancient poetical texts materially influence the poetics of the text in which they appear. Ancient poetical texts, such as self-reflexive poems...Show moreThis thesis explores to what extent water bodies in ancient poetical texts materially influence the poetics of the text in which they appear. Ancient poetical texts, such as self-reflexive poems and literary-critical treatises, often use water bodies as metaphors to formulate aesthetic value judgements or poetical ideas. When scholarship on such texts chooses to concentrate on the text’s water bodies, the focus has been predominantly put on their function as metaphor. As such, there has been a lack in the interpretative discourse on ancient poetics in which water is not only treated metaphorically, but literally and materially as well. Employing recent advancements made in the emerging, ecocritical field of Blue Humanities, in specific the theory and methods provided by hydropoetics, this thesis offers a viable way to read water in ancient poetical texts literally. Taking as main case studies Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo, Longinus’ On the Sublime and Catullus 64, the thesis investigates how water’s material formations such as seas, rivers, springs, flows, trickles and whirlpools autonomously contribute to the poetical constructs of these texts. It thereby serves to further classical scholarship on ancient poetics, as well as employ and reflect on present-day reading methods that help or fail to do justice to the material agency of water bodies. (Formally, this thesis is a double thesis in order to fulfill both the programs of Literary Studies and Classics and Ancient Civilizations.)Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2026-08-30
2026-08-30T00:00:00Z
Alcuin of York was the most influential author during the first generation of the Carolingian renaissance. He wrote multiple prose works, a substantial number of letters survive, and he left a...Show moreAlcuin of York was the most influential author during the first generation of the Carolingian renaissance. He wrote multiple prose works, a substantial number of letters survive, and he left a large corpus of poetry. In this thesis the representation of books, texts, and writing in Alcuin’s verse will be analyzed in order to draw the following conclusions: 1) Alcuin’s numerous book epigrams frame Bible manuscripts as relics; 2) Alcuin uses his poetry to invigorate the study of Latin and the production of texts by linking it to religious performances; and 3) the reflexivity and literary self-consciousness of Alcuin’s poetry have a didactic function.Show less
Research master thesis | African Studies (research) (MA)
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This research aims to centre the perspectives and experiences of the host community of Nanyuki, Kenya, in the discussion of the impact of the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) on the social...Show moreThis research aims to centre the perspectives and experiences of the host community of Nanyuki, Kenya, in the discussion of the impact of the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) on the social relations of this ‘base’ town. Employing the Aberystwyth School theoretical foundation, this thesis aims to prioritise often overlooked voices and explore the intersections of identity, community relations, and critical security in the civil-military field. Through conducting an extended observation method of various communities and quotidian life in Nanyuki, this method aims to highlight the social tensions that have emerged in the community hosting the British Army in Kenya. Coupled with colonial racial-capitalist tensions, this thesis reveals that beyond the focus on increasing geopolitical security and military capacity, the presence of the military base in Nanyuki furthers insecurity in the host community’s relations. This research argues that the British Army’s presence in Nanyuki emphasises existing class, racial and urban-rural divisions in the social relations of Nanyuki. This thesis will argue that local communities feel that their actions and abilities are constrained due to the sizeable presence and economic importance of BATUK, the illusiveness of personal connections with the soldiers, and the simultaneous feelings of not being able to change the conduct BATUK nor being listened to by the base, makes the local communities feel insecure. This insecurity of the base creates divisions in the urban community as people conform to existing racial and class divisions due to the financial weight of the base over the town of Nanyuki. In the rural area, a different division emerges. Here, the rural community feels abandoned and separate from the town due to the perspective that they experience the detrimental impacts of BATUK yet none of the benefits that they perceive the urban community to receive. Without understanding the insecurity that these bases cause in the local community, these military bases may create security for the national, regional, and international at the expense of the local.Show less
Research master thesis | African Studies (research) (MA)
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Amongst the Asian giants, little attention has been paid to the relationship between Japan and Africa, let alone Japan and Zimbabwe. This thesis traces the development of trade and diplomatic...Show moreAmongst the Asian giants, little attention has been paid to the relationship between Japan and Africa, let alone Japan and Zimbabwe. This thesis traces the development of trade and diplomatic relations between Japan and Rhodesia (Pre-independence Zimbabwe). The central argument in the thesis is that relations between Japan and Rhodesia were borne out of a ‘quid-pro-quo’ arrangement between the two with Rhodesia supplying critical raw minerals to Japan’s industrial players whilst Japan invested in cash and kind into Rhodesia’s critical industries, greatly contributing to Rhodesia’s state survival once Rhodesia became a sanctioned pariah state. This argument is built up by looking at Japan’s foreign affairs policy objectives at the inception of diplomatic contact with Rhodesia which was in 1924, a year after the colony gained responsible self-governance from the British South Africa Company. Through archival research undertaken in Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom, the research unearths the commercial agreements that came to dominate Japan’s relationship with Rhodesia; especially the 1961deal for a £41⁄2 million steel plant at Que Que (Rhodesia) between the Rhodesian Iron and Steel Company and Kawasaki. The thesis shows how post-World War II World Bank loans to Japanese steel manufacturers such as Kawasaki Steel and Kobe Steel were used by these firms to invest in Rhodesia’s iron and steel industry, helping the country develop Africa’s only integrated steelworks north of the Limpopo and South of the Sahara. In return, Rhodesia exported hundreds of thousands of tonnes of pig iron and iron ore to Japan, which helped sustain Japan’s modern iron and steel industry. As the ‘Wind of Change’ blew throughout Southern Africa, Rhodesian and Japanese trade ties surprisingly intensified, in stark contrast to other states that began to boycott the racist white regime. The thesis will utilise Japan’s 20th century Black Africa and White Africa policy to explain the motives and Japanese actors responsible for aiding the survival of Ian Smith’s regime. Based on this policy, Japan clustered African states into two cohorts: Black Africa consisting independent states and White Africa which were the Southern African states dominated by white minority regimes. Through this policy, Japan worked to secure access to raw materials whilst securing political support at the United Nations form countries in the Asian- Africa bloc. This analysis of Japan-Rhodesia relations comes at a time where there has been a resurgence of interest into Africa by Japan; a policy shift motivated by the rush by Western and Asian economic giants to secure mineral resources for their Green Transition.Show less
Research master thesis | African Studies (research) (MA)
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This fieldwork explores plant-human relations through an embodied ethnographic methodology which couples physical and photographic practises in varied field/forest settings. The research loosely...Show moreThis fieldwork explores plant-human relations through an embodied ethnographic methodology which couples physical and photographic practises in varied field/forest settings. The research loosely follows the work of l’Association G.A.R.A.B (Groupe d’Action pour la Reforestation des Arbres et de la Biodiversité), a diverse group of roughly one hundred professional and non-professional vegetal experts; the Wolof garab meaning both tree and healing. Following this group has taken me on a multi-site, or multi-patch, ethnography, moving between different vegetal spaces in the Dakar-Thies-Mbour region, with a particularly concentrated focus on the urban frontier town of Sébikhotane. As a researcher, co-gardener, co-farmer, and amateur photographer, my interactions, and relations with people have facilitated a closer relationship with research participants, both human and non-human. Through social proximity, I explore how it is that research participants’ relationships with their landscape have changed, through the plants they tend to, the plants they eat, farm, work and breathe with. The experimental ethnographic approach has allowed for an intimate research experience, where local embodied knowledge is prioritised and seen as fundamental to understanding changing Senegalese natures.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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This thesis investigates the distribution and syntactic structures of deverbal nominalizations in English, Hungarian, and Serbian. Deverbal nominalizations are distinct from regular nouns in that...Show moreThis thesis investigates the distribution and syntactic structures of deverbal nominalizations in English, Hungarian, and Serbian. Deverbal nominalizations are distinct from regular nouns in that they are derived from verbs and thus contain both nominal and verbal properties. The significant work by Grimshaw (1990) established specific diagnostics advocating a strict dichotomy between event and result nominals: event nominals emphasize the action denoted by the verb, and result nominals focus on the outcome of the event denoted by the verb. However, ample cross-linguistic evidence shows that the distinction between these two types of deverbal nominals is less clear-cut than thought before, and a lot of this variation is found in forming the plural of these nominals. There is also no uniform syntactic structure for these kinds of nominals. This means that all the existing syntactic proposals in the literature deviate from one another in multiple ways. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to bridge the gaps in the literature on the usage of deverbal nouns and their syntactic structures. This thesis presents acceptability judgment data on deverbal nouns that occurred in the singular and plural alongside an additional diagnostic by Grimshaw (1990): type of reading, adverbial modification, argument structure, and aspectual modification. The results indicate that Hungarian and Serbian allow plural event nominals in all contexts, while English only allows them without any modifiers. These findings are contra Grimshaw (1990) and underscore the crucial role of contextual factors in (dis)allowing plurality with event nominals. In addition to its empirical contributions, this thesis evaluates the applicability and generalizability of Grimshaw’s (1990) theorem by analyzing languages from different language families, thereby enriching the understanding of deverbal nominalizations across diverse linguistic contexts.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2025-08-15
2025-08-15T00:00:00Z
This Research Master's thesis examines the themes of sexual behavior, role-playing, vulgarity, and patronage within the epigrams of two prominent poets: Martial, a 1st-century Roman poet, and...Show moreThis Research Master's thesis examines the themes of sexual behavior, role-playing, vulgarity, and patronage within the epigrams of two prominent poets: Martial, a 1st-century Roman poet, and Antonio Beccadelli, a 15th-century Renaissance humanist. By analyzing Martial's Epigrams and Beccadelli's Hermaphroditus, this study explores how these poets utilized the epigram form—a brief, witty, and often subversive poetic genre—to navigate the boundaries of moral acceptability and challenge societal norms. This thesis's central research question is: "How do Martial and Beccadelli utilize themes of vulgarity within their epigrams, and in what ways does patronage function as a protective mechanism against potential critical backlash?" The first chapter focuses on how Martial and Beccadelli use profane terminology to create humor and subvert traditional sexual roles. Through a close examination of selected epigrams, such as Martial's Epigrams 2.28, 1.94, 3.87, and 7.68, and Beccadelli's Hermaphroditus 1.3, 1.5, 1.7, and 1.10, the analysis demonstrates how these poets employ terms like "paedico" (the active person in homoerotic intercourse) and "futuo" (the active person in heterosexual intercourse) to overturn conventional expectations and evoke comedic effects. Martial frequently uses vulgar terms in surprising ways, revealing unexpected sexual roles and behaviors that defy societal norms. Similarly, Beccadelli emulates Martial’s technique but adapts it to his context, creating humorous reversals that challenge the authoritative stances of his characters. The chapter argues that both poets use profanity not only for humor but also as a means of critiquing and undermining established sexual norms. The second chapter explores the interaction between the body, text, and profanity, examining how these elements allow Martial and Beccadelli to defend their works against potential censorship through the metaphor of castration. The analysis focuses on how the poets equate the act of censorship with emasculation, seeing it as an attack on their creative freedom. By examining specific texts, such as Martial’s Epigrams 1.35 and Beccadelli’s Hermaphroditus 1.23 and 1.33, the chapter reveals how both poets strategically use profane and sexual imagery to assert the importance of their creative expression. Martial, drawing inspiration from Catullus, personifies his poems as phallic entities, emphasizing that their essence lies in their bold and provocative nature. Beccadelli, likewise, uses the metaphor of castration to resist altering his texts, presenting this resistance as a defense of his literary integrity. The chapter argues that both poets employ a similar strategy to maintain their artistic freedom, despite the different cultural and historical contexts in which they wrote. The third chapter examines the role of patronage in protecting the works of Martial and Beccadelli from criticism and censorship. The analysis focuses on how the poets sought patronage from influential figures to safeguard their provocative content. By examining specific epigrams, such as Martial’s Epigrams 1.4 and 12.3 (4) and Beccadelli’s Hermaphroditus 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3, the chapter demonstrates how patrons served as buffers, enabling the poets to publish their works without fear of repercussion. Martial uses imperial patronage and personal connections to secure protection and enhance his stature, while Beccadelli aligns himself with Cosimo de’ Medici to protect his literary endeavors. In conclusion, by comparing a classical exemplum (Martial) with a Neo-Latin emulator (Beccadelli), the study highlights how both poets used the genre of epigrams to humorously challenge sexually normative behaviors and strategically employ patronage to defend their works. The findings demonstrate that the strategic use of vulgarity and patronage allowed both Martial and Beccadelli to resist the constraints of their eras, producing enduring works that continue to provoke and engage readers.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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This thesis discusses the ritual of libating at the site of Deir el-Medina. The first chapter provides a general overview of the ritual until the New Kingdom. Thereafter, the second chapter zooms...Show moreThis thesis discusses the ritual of libating at the site of Deir el-Medina. The first chapter provides a general overview of the ritual until the New Kingdom. Thereafter, the second chapter zooms in on Deir el-Medina and discusses textual, archaeological, and iconographical evidence of the ritual act. Different settings, such as domestic, funerary, and temple settings are studied in detail in order to get a better understanding of the ritual. The third chapter discusses the (fragments of) libation basins from the site, which are all described and photographed in the appendix. The appendix provides a catalogue of 247 libation basins and fragments thereof, which have been studied by the author in 2023 and 2024 at the site.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
under embargo until 2026-07-31
2026-07-31T00:00:00Z
Adjectival modification in the nominal domain is one of the broadly discussed issues in the field. In the current thesis I build on the novel observation that apart from those cases where the...Show moreAdjectival modification in the nominal domain is one of the broadly discussed issues in the field. In the current thesis I build on the novel observation that apart from those cases where the adjectival modifier is adjacent to the noun, languages such as Dutch also allow to have an overt mediating element in between the noun and the modifier resulting in ‘een groene kleur auto’ (‘a green colour car’) (cf., Kayne 2005). I call this element a dimension classifier and argue that it heads DimensionP. I treat adjectival modifiers as phrases (cf., Cinque 2010) generated in the specifier of it. Based on the syntactic distribution of different classes of modifiers in similar constructions in Dutch and Russian and their interpretational properties I argue for three possible ways to merge the modifier in the structure. In two of these scenarios DimensionP is itself embedded in a complex structure leaving room for a functional preposition ‘of’ and creating possessive relation with the noun. Based on the feature specification of the dimension classifier I derive two possible interpretations out of this structure. The third scenario does not assume a possessive relation between the noun and the modifier and is achieved due to DimensionP only. I show that this model is able to capture the distributional properties of modification with and without an overt dimension classifier in attributive and predicative positions as well as in case of modifying an indefinite pronoun. I hold that every modifier should be introduced by a dimension classifier that can be realised as a free-standing, bound or zero morpheme. I show all three of these possibilities for both Dutch and Russian based on the discussion of modifiers of material, origin, colour, shape, size and subjective comment.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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Harmful speech has evolved into more strategic mechanisms enabling speakers to implicitly spread controversial ideas without facing backlash. One such mechanism is through so-called dogwhistles....Show moreHarmful speech has evolved into more strategic mechanisms enabling speakers to implicitly spread controversial ideas without facing backlash. One such mechanism is through so-called dogwhistles. While there has been growing awareness of the potentially harmful consequences of dogwhistles, it is still unclear what dogwhistles exactly are and how they work. In order to combat the pernicious power of dogwhistles, we need to have a proper understanding of what we are dealing with first. Whereas previous work has mainly focused on the expressions used by speakers as dogwhistles, I propose a new speech-act theoretic account of dogwhistles, shifting the focus to the actions performed by speakers when using such expressions. This thesis sets out to formulate a theoretically sound conceptualization of dogwhistles, as well as account for the processes through which dogwhistles convey meaning. As will become clear, however, dogwhistles are a tricky phenomenon that cannot be adequately accounted for from a speaker-centric perspective on meaning. In this thesis, I will therefore introduce a new class of appellative speech acts, whose meanings are co-contributed by the hearer. Using this theoretical framework, I define dogwhistles as an appellative speech act with the illocutionary force of simultaneously appealing to multiple ideologically diverse audiences in their own right.Show less
Artur Dinter’s The Sin Against the Blood (1918) was among the most popular antisemitic documents of the Weimar Republic. The novel portrays Jews as race defilers and the embod-iment of materialism,...Show moreArtur Dinter’s The Sin Against the Blood (1918) was among the most popular antisemitic documents of the Weimar Republic. The novel portrays Jews as race defilers and the embod-iment of materialism, which the protagonist, Hermann Kämpfer, must overcome to achieve transcendence. Through the narration of a dualistic struggle, Dinter constructs both a collec-tive and individual modern German identity, with masculinity at its core. This struggle con-stitutes a dynamic dialectical movement and can be considered a response to the tensions faced by the male subject in modernity, evident in Dinter’s writings, his biography and con-temporary right-wing agitation. While Dinter remained committed to a spiritual revolution, a new generation of Nazis resolved the tensions of modern masculinity by transforming Din-ter’s heroic idealism into a heroic realism and integrating the alienated individual into the collective of the Männerbund. Understanding the gendered dimension of this subjectification process is crucial, as masculinity structures not only historical Nazism but also present-day political discourse.Show less
