Bachelor thesis | Film- en literatuurwetenschap (BA)
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Pausin Johanna is een figuur die al eeuwenlang een plaats inneemt in het westerse culturele domein, met name onder de Engelse naam Pope Joan. Ondanks het gegeven dat de legende van de pausin wijst...Show morePausin Johanna is een figuur die al eeuwenlang een plaats inneemt in het westerse culturele domein, met name onder de Engelse naam Pope Joan. Ondanks het gegeven dat de legende van de pausin wijst op interessante spanningen binnen het feminisme ten aanzien van religie, zijn er niet veel lezingen die een specifiek feministische benadering aanhouden. Relatief recentelijke ontwikkelingen die plaats hebben gevonden binnen het feminisme bieden echter nieuwe potenties voor deze figuur. De zogenoemde postsecular turn in het feminisme belicht hoe het Europees feminisme gekenmerkt wordt door een zeker atheïsme en het pleit voor een discourse die rekening houdt met religieuze, feministische stemmen. Deze scriptie bestudeert meerdere representaties van de legende en achterhaalt hoe de figuur van pausin Johanna en de mogelijke betekenisgeving van verschillende representaties door de tijd heen transformeert in relatie tot de post-seculiere feministische theorie. Dit gebeurt aan de hand van analyses van drie verschillende representaties met het oog op hoe pausin Johanna vorm krijgt. De drie representaties die worden besproken zijn: The Female Prelate, Being the History of the Life & Death of Pope Joan a Tragedy: as It Is Acted at the Theatre Royal geschreven door Elkanah Settle (1680), Emmanuel Royidis’ Pope Joan (1866) (vertaald en geadapteerd door Lawrence Durrell vanuit het Grieks in 1954) en ten slotte Donna Woolfolk Cross’ Pope Joan: A Novel (1996). Hierbij wordt enerzijds aangetoond dat het theoretisch kader van het post-seculier feminisme voor nieuwe interpretatieve mogelijkheden zorgt die de spanning tussen feminisme en religie binnen de figuur van pausin Johanna niet alleen benaderbaar maar tevens inzichtelijk maken. Anderzijds vormt pausin Johanna een belichaming van de complexiteit van de intersectie van gender en religie en een model om verschillende post-seculiere theorieën mee op de proef te stellen in literaire context. Het blijkt dan ook dat de figuur van de vrouwelijke paus, die al zo vroeg als de 13e eeuw voor het eerst in documenten is verschenen, een unieke relevantie heeft voor het hedendaagse post-seculiere bewustzijn binnen het feminisme.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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In this thesis I want to create an intersectional, queer intervention in animal studies taking previous animal, critical race studies and queer theory intersections – ecofeminism, material feminism...Show moreIn this thesis I want to create an intersectional, queer intervention in animal studies taking previous animal, critical race studies and queer theory intersections – ecofeminism, material feminism and queer ecology – into account within the context of literary studies and cultural analysis. Therefore, I want to ask: In what way do intersectional alliances – both theoretical and artistic – formed from an animal and queer studies perspective, affirmatively (re)imagine (material) queer intimacies human-nonhuman relations to contribute to an nonanthropocentric framework? To answer this question, I want to employ the term/concept queer as both a critical and productive tool that enables transgression of disciplines and even the academy itself, into the material reality of non-human animals to examine human-animal relations and intimacies.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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In this thesis, I seek to analyze the postmodern condition in history from a quantum-philosophical perspective. According to the famous physicist Niels Bohr, (our knowledge of) the quantum object...Show moreIn this thesis, I seek to analyze the postmodern condition in history from a quantum-philosophical perspective. According to the famous physicist Niels Bohr, (our knowledge of) the quantum object cannot be meaningfully separated from the instruments used to interrogate and represent the quantum object. The instrument intervenes into the quantum universe in a way that allows for comprehensible knowledge of the quantum object. In turn, Bohr presents a conception of scientific objectivity that acknowledges and incorporates this meaningful intervention. In my thesis, I present a detailed analysis of Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, connecting his insights to the issue of subjectivity in history and historiography. I present an interpretative framework, inspired by quantum-philosophical perspectives, which integrates the subjective processes of observing, constructing and writing history into a new conception of historical realism. Like Bohr’s quantum philosophy, this historical realism considers the instruments for observation and representation as inseparable from yet meaningfully constitutive of the historical object.Show less
Focusing on the idea that life narratives are constructions inspired by the motives of their narrators and controlled by the frames of the genre, the present study engages with selected narratives...Show moreFocusing on the idea that life narratives are constructions inspired by the motives of their narrators and controlled by the frames of the genre, the present study engages with selected narratives of the private life of Islamic convert and religious writer Maryam Jameelah (1934-2012), who immigrated to Pakistan from the United States of America. The study considers three types of narratives: Jameelah’s private correspondences, biographer Deborah Baker’s interpretations of Jameelah’s letters, and the devotional obituaries of her faith-fellows. Using Roy F. Baumeister and Leonard S. Newman’s theory that autobiographical narrative constructions are controlled by interpretative and interpersonal motivations, I try to uncover Jameelah’s implicit goals in both writing and later publishing her letters. With the help of Ira Bruce Nadel’s idea that biographical representations depend on the biographer’s motives, I elucidate how Baker’s personal interest in Jameelah as a forerunner of modern Islamic extremism influences her presentation stratagem. Engaging with Bridget Fowler’s model of positive and negative obituaries, and using Samuel K. Bonsu’s idea that obituary writers pursue personal gains in highlighting positive attributes of the deceased and hiding those they deem undesirable, I analyze selected obituaries on Jameelah. This study illuminates that Jameelah’s life is described differently in accordance with narrative forms and cultural values. It shows that distinct genres employ certain uniquely identifiable modes and conventions in their narrative structures.Show less
This thesis investigates how Henry James’s The Princess Casamassima, George Gissings’s Demos and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy address contemporary social anxieties about class...Show moreThis thesis investigates how Henry James’s The Princess Casamassima, George Gissings’s Demos and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy address contemporary social anxieties about class and gender identity by exploring the themes of inheritance and social mobility in relation to the idea of the gentleman. In all three novels the male main character tries to improve his own social position while at the same time he tries to deal with social inequality. Driven by their ideals Hyacinth Robinson, Richard Mutimer and Cedric Errol all try to make positive contributions to the society they live in. Their attempts are not equally successful.Show less
In the late sixties and early seventies the myths of motherhood, the stereotypical ‘eternal feminine’ and a caricutural or dismissive understanding of women’s physiology were elements of an...Show moreIn the late sixties and early seventies the myths of motherhood, the stereotypical ‘eternal feminine’ and a caricutural or dismissive understanding of women’s physiology were elements of an underlying ideology which hampered the achievement of full equality for women. This thesis investigates the subversive nature of these myths in a literary analysis of three dystopian novels by women authors published in this period. It also draws on the key ideas of major women theorists central to feminism’s ‘second wave’. Examining the dystopias of Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains (1969), Pamela Kettle’s The Day of the Women (1969) and Emma Tennant’s The Time of the Crack (1973), I argue that that the possibilities open to the female characters to (re)claim their womanhood are not only undermined by their inability to recognize the deceptive facets of the myths of femininity fabricated in patriarchal societies, but also by their own unwillingness to renounce the dubious privileges that these myths bestow on the stereotypical female.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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Despite the fact that there have been recent attempts to broaden ekphrasis into its antique and medieval sense, these attempts have not taken the concept of living presence into account. My thesis...Show moreDespite the fact that there have been recent attempts to broaden ekphrasis into its antique and medieval sense, these attempts have not taken the concept of living presence into account. My thesis takes this more generous sense of ekphrasis as a point of departure. I draw on the attitudes of Christianity towards the representation of the divinity in verbal and visual terms (including the Eucharist) to argue that there are fundamental differences between the two media. The concept of living presence response is introduced as a tool to analyse the agency of the visual representations upon the worshippers. Drawing on works from Geoffrey Chaucer and on the anonymous Piers the Plowman's Crede, I suggest that the broad sense of ekphrasis should be further enlarged to include any textual attempts to reproduce, or any textual awareness of, living presence response. This inclusion, in turn, must encompass the role of the receiver in allowing the effects to occur in the first place. I challenge two claims: that ekphrasis is a narcissistic mode of literary discourse; that Chaucer is paying homage to the inseparability of different media. Recommendations for further research include the investigation of whether there is a correlation between ekphrasis viewed as lifelikeness and iconoclastic periods, on the one hand, and between living presence response and medieval theories of sight, such as Roger Bacon's, on the other.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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In this research project, I aim to develop a framework for analysing contemporary theatre plays that deal with issues of memory on a meta-level. My claim is that a theatre of meta-memory often...Show moreIn this research project, I aim to develop a framework for analysing contemporary theatre plays that deal with issues of memory on a meta-level. My claim is that a theatre of meta-memory often takes place within a meta-theatre, meaning that a reflection on the role of memory goes hand in hand with a reflection on the medium of theatre itself. I will prove this by performing an in-depth performative analysis of three contemporary Dutch theatre plays: Als ik de liefde niet heb (Ro Theater), How to play Francesca Woodman (Toneelgroep Maastricht) and Kamp (Hotel Modern), which are all concerned with notions such as presence, the body, the use of media and the role of the spectator. In the end, I hope to show the importance and possibility of the theatre as a space of remembering, but mostly as a space in which new memory and meaning can be produced and contemplated.Show less
Women held many kinds of important facilitating roles in early modern society which have been obscured by male-focused historiographies; specifically within the court, ladies-in-waiting were...Show moreWomen held many kinds of important facilitating roles in early modern society which have been obscured by male-focused historiographies; specifically within the court, ladies-in-waiting were ideally placed to dispense patronage because of their privileged access to the monarch. This thesis sets out to show the operations of private-sphere female patronage by studying the patronage activities of one of Queen Henrietta Maria’s Ladies of the Bedchamber, the Countess of Carlisle, who was one of the most influential ladies-in-waiting during the seventeenth century.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
