This thesis analyses the photographic series Flesh Love (2011-) by Japanese artist Haruhiko Kawaguchi (川口晴彦) as a case study that allows the audience to involuntary confront or imagine death...Show moreThis thesis analyses the photographic series Flesh Love (2011-) by Japanese artist Haruhiko Kawaguchi (川口晴彦) as a case study that allows the audience to involuntary confront or imagine death without actually including the death of the subjects photographed in the artwork. The photographed imagery is characterised by the suffocation of people in the airless bag. By analysing the case, the thesis aims to illustrate strategies to make the audience imagine death without the existence of death. The main argument of this thesis is that although the photographic series Flesh Love does not include the actual death of subjects, it successfully creates the capacity to allow the viewers to imagine death. In order to argue this point, this thesis looks at the elements that contribute to making the audience confront death through three approaches: (1) photographic images, (2) production process and the medium of photography and (3) affective capacity of the audience.Show less
This thesis focusses on the impact of restless souls on the Roman societal equilibrium. It looks into the relation that these percieved restless souls had to the social, ritual and juridical order...Show moreThis thesis focusses on the impact of restless souls on the Roman societal equilibrium. It looks into the relation that these percieved restless souls had to the social, ritual and juridical order and transgressions. This is done within the framework of death, funerals and ghost stories.Show less
Parentally bereaved adolescents constitute a high-risk group susceptible to many short and long term negative outcomes, such as prolonged grief and depression. Numerous different interventions have...Show moreParentally bereaved adolescents constitute a high-risk group susceptible to many short and long term negative outcomes, such as prolonged grief and depression. Numerous different interventions have been proposed and implemented aiming to support this population. However, there has been no comprehensive review or empirical support for all of them. This thesis aims to systematically review intervention studies for parentally bereaved adolescents and report on their effectiveness. Time interval between loss and treatment, symptom severity at baseline, interventions’ structure, therapeutic confrontation, participants’ age, and percentage of parental death were examined as plausible moderators. The dataset was extracted in December 2019 from nine electronic databases. Study characteristics regarding the interventions, samples, measures, and outcomes were extracted from 30 articles. Based on the sufficiently reported statistical data of 25 studies an overall effect size was estimated for the interventions and moderator analyses were conducted. A pooled effect size of -0.397 was found, indicating a small to moderate positive effect of these interventions on the participants’ life. Therapeutic confrontation, unstructured interventions, and targeting severely distressed participants were the intervention characteristics that positively moderated the intervention effectiveness. Different effect sizes were reported for separate outcome constructs, ranging from g = -0.029 to g = -1.203. Trauma-related outcomes reported the largest point estimate, while cortisol levels the smallest. To summarize, interventions targeting parentally bereaved adolescents can positively affect their participants during the difficult period following the loss of their parents. However, further and more targeted research is required to achieve larger effects.Show less
Providing for deceased ancestors in the afterlife through offerings is a millennia-old custom in China. In recent years have the elaborate paper effigies of worldly goods that are burned for this...Show moreProviding for deceased ancestors in the afterlife through offerings is a millennia-old custom in China. In recent years have the elaborate paper effigies of worldly goods that are burned for this purpose however received heavy criticism in Chinese and international media as the inclusion of modern luxury and brand items into the repertory of paper offering goods is seen as a deviation from long-standing traditions. The comparative study conducted in this thesis puts side by side ancient burial goods, the predecessors of the current paper offerings, and contemporary paper effigies in an attempt to answer the question whether luxury and brand items in the ancestral offering context constitute as claimed a break with tradition. The study has shown that throughout history, luxury items have been a constant feature of ancestral offerings. The expensive goods are not only a sign of the wealth and status of the bereaved family members in the hereafter, but also help the deceased to gain prestige and a high position in the social hierarchy of the afterlife. While in earlier times, the value of an offering was primarily determined by the value of the material it was made from, symbolism became the main indicator of value as offerings began to be commonly made from cheap materials like clay and nowadays paper. The replicas of contemporary luxury and brand items with their associated value are a modern take on the ancient practice of assigning value to otherwise valueless offerings through symbolic power.Show less
Research master thesis | Asian Studies (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis aims at gaining a deeper understanding of the relation between yoga and death in the early Śaiva tradition of the Pāśupatas, based on two Pāśupata texts: the Pāśupatasūtra and the...Show moreThis thesis aims at gaining a deeper understanding of the relation between yoga and death in the early Śaiva tradition of the Pāśupatas, based on two Pāśupata texts: the Pāśupatasūtra and the Skandapurāṇa. The thesis presents an analysis and interpretation of textual passages that treat the last moment of the life of a Pāśupata ascetic in order to find out whether or not his death can be interpreted as a form of ‘self-induced yogic death’. The inquiries start with introducing the philosophical and religious environment wherein the Pāśupatasūtra and the Skandapurāṇa were written. After that, the relation between yoga and death in upaniṣadic and epic sources is treated, thereby referring to early manifestations of utkrānti (rising upwards, ‘yogic suicide’). The pivot of this thesis is a translation, analysis and discussion of fragments of the Pāśupatasūtra and the Skandapurāṇa. With regards to both texts I discuss the possibility of interpreting the death of a Pāśupata as a self-induced yogic death. This is followed by a conclusion. Following the analysis of the primary sources, it will become clear that yoga and death stood in a much closer relation than one might expect; this thesis claims that the death of a Pāśupata can be interpreted as an early form of self-induced yogic death.Show less
Bachelor thesis | Film- en literatuurwetenschap (BA)
closed access
This thesis investigates three films by pre-revolutionary Russian director Yevgeni Bauer, in which men obsessed with portraits of dead women enter into relationships with female stage performers,...Show moreThis thesis investigates three films by pre-revolutionary Russian director Yevgeni Bauer, in which men obsessed with portraits of dead women enter into relationships with female stage performers, who die as a result of this relationship. I argue that the stasis and death invoked by the portraiture these men obsess over clashes with the kinetic nature of these women, which is indicated in part by their self-expression on the stage, in such a way as to introduce the necessity of female death into the relationships. Further, I argue that the construction of the films indicates a critical view of the male position in these relationships.Show less
Although the target audience of Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials, consisting of Northern Lights (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997) and The Amber Spyglass (2000) might seem to be children...Show moreAlthough the target audience of Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials, consisting of Northern Lights (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997) and The Amber Spyglass (2000) might seem to be children and young adult readers, the books have also attracted numerous adult readers. In this fantasy story Pullman addresses important questions regarding issues such as religion, the existence of God and the function of belief, love, and death. But beyond all these controversial and difficult discussions, this thesis argues that the story itself is best understood as permeated by a sense of loss. In each part of the trilogy, a character ends up losing a loved one, be it a parent, child, sibling, daemon or lover. In the final book, the Authority, Pullman’s vague god figure, is also killed off, resulting in a collapse of religion and the Church as an institution. His two young protagonists, Will and Lyra, travel through the world of the dead and eventually free all the souls trapped there, and these souls dissolve into elementary particles and become part of the physical world. This leads to the question of what really happens after we die, if there is no Heaven, and we simply return to the state that we were created from. This idea completely undermines what we are taught by religions such as Christianity and Islam, that there is a life after death and one will go to heaven or hell depending on their actions and choices of this life. Thus, besides a physical loss caused by death, there is also a loss of faith. Finally, this thesis will argue that through his portrayal of religion, death and love in the trilogy, Pullman presents loss as a defining element of life, and this prevalent sense of loss enables him to redefine the meaning and function of religion, death and love in the 21st century, while also putting forward a new myth that might compensate for such losses.Show less
