Bachelor's Thesis Award

Call CRASIS Bachelor’s Thesis Award 2024

Since 2019 CRASIS presents an award of € 500 for the best submitted Bachelor’s Thesis written at the University of Groningen or the Protestant Theological University in Groningen and dealing with a research topic covered by CRASIS: ancient history, classical languages, archaeology, and ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The CRASIS board invites submissions for the CRASIS Bachelor’s Thesis Award 2024. A prize of € 500 is available for the best Bachelor’s thesis written at the University of Groningen or the Protestant Theological University in Groningen and dealing with a research topic covered by CRASIS: ancient history, classical languages, archaeology, and ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The deadline for submissions is 1 August 2024. Students who wish to be considered can either nominate themselves or be nominated by their supervisor. In addition, the two highest-graded theses from each of the disciplines represented in CRASIS will be nominated automatically. To be considered for the 2024 award, theses should have been marked between 1 September 2023 and 31 July 2024. Submitted theses should have obtained a final grade of at least 8 (out of 10) or be accompanied by a recommendation from the supervisor.

Submissions should comprise:

• a digital, anonymised copy of the thesis

• a brief cover letter (max. one A4) which contains:

  • name of the author

  • the title and short summary of the thesis

  • a description of the context (discipline, programme, supervisor, etc.) in which the thesis was written

  • the final grade for the thesis

The thesis and cover letter should be sent as separate PDF attachments to the CRASIS secretary at crasis.aws@rug.nl. Assessments will take place on the basis of the anonymised thesis only, and will be carried out by an independent jury. Enquiries can be addressed to the chair of the jury, Dr Rebecca Van Hove, at r.van.hove@rug.nl.

The winner of the 2024 Thesis Award will be announced at the first Ancient World Seminar in the 2024–2025 academic year (17 September 2024).

Thesis Prize 2023 winners:

• Maarten Durivou, GGW: "Blessed be the poor"
• Marieke Apol, Oude Geschiedenis: "The Soft Power of Coins in Tarsus"
• Folkert de Bruin, GLTC: "Polyxena before Euripides"
• Ingar Witte, Archeologie: "De Weg naar het Verleden"

Thesis Prize 2019:

The Bachelor’s Thesis Award of 2019 was presented to Benjamin Lensink for his thesis titled “Cosmological Contestations: A Cosmological Comparison between the Visio Pauli and the Apocalypse of Paul”. The jury especially appreciated the combination of solid description and high explanatory potential, resulting in a very convincing interpretation of the material within its religious and cultural context. Moreover, the suggestions made for further research showed both the relevance of this topic and Lensink’s enthusiasm and ability to work on it.

Thesis Prize 2020:

Hylke de Boer was awarded the price for his thesis “Roma hospitis patria: Een karakterisering van de hospes in Propertius boek IV”. The jury was impressed by De Boer’s mastery of the primary sources and his ability to bring them into dialogue with the secondary literature. Not least because of their relevance for modern societies, the themes of diversity and unity are currently of central interest in classics and ancient history, and De Boer offers a creative contribution to these debates.

Thesis Prize 2021:

The winner of the CRASIS Bachelor Thesis Prize 2021 is “Eternal Friendship, Carved in Stone,” written by Silvan Auf der Maur. Auf der Maur investigates the use of decrees in Athenian diplomacy. By so doing, Auf der Maur seeks to supplement the information about Athenian democracy which we may gather from literary sources with “empirical evidence in the form of the decrees.” Auf der Maur’s thesis covers a trendy topic: the study of networks is currently much en vogue, after groundbreaking work by individuals such as Irad Malkin, whom Auf der Maur duly acknowledges. The jury was particularly impressed by how Auf der Maur situates his question within the history of scholarship and clarifies what his work contributes to the study of ancient Greek diplomacy.

Thesis Prize 2022:

The winner of the CRASIS Bachelor Thesis Prize 2022 is " The Petrine Plottwist: Strategies of Umwertung as a Unifying Concept for Understanding 1 Peter", written by Peter Hansum. Hansum studied the rhetorical strategies that the author of 1 Peter employed to argue for a new honor code and suggested that one of the ways the author seeks to accomplish his goal is by using the rhetorical tool of Umertung.