Thijssen-Schoute MA Thesis Award 2024
The Dr. C. Louise Thijssen-Schoute Foundation aims to encourage research in the history of ideas of the early modern Netherlands, with special attention to the emergence and dissemination of new philosophical ideas, as well as the intersections of literature and science in the seventeenth- and early eighteenth century.
The Foundation awards a bi-annual prize for the best MA thesis within the aims of her statutes. This award recognizes original and distinguished research for a final thesis at a (research)master’s level, either submitted to a university in the Netherlands or abroad. The award consists of a prize of 2000 Euros, and a certificate of appreciation.
For the prize of 2024, the jury received 6 theses written by students who earned their master’s degree between 31 August 2022 and 31 August 2024. Many of the theses were of high quality. The jury was unanimous in its judgement, however, that one thesis stood out.
The Thijssen-Schoute Thesis Award 2024 has been granted posthumously to Tanne Bloks for her thesis De verborgen natuurkennis van vrouwen in de vroegmoderne tijd. Het contrast tussen de beeldvorming over Johanna Petronella de Timmerman, Elisabeth Maria Post en Rachel Ruysch, en de natuurkennis die uit hun eigen werk blijkt.
Tanne Bloks with this thesis obtained her degree for the research master Nederlandse literatuur en cultuur at Utrecht University.
There are also two honorable mentions, for:
- Marieke Gelderblom (Utrecht University, History and Philosophy of Science), Captured by Numbers. Nicolaas Struyck’s quantitative geography in the Inleiding tot de algemeene geographie (1740)
- Larissa van Vianen (University of Amsterdam, Book History), Pierre Lyonet (1706-1789). Publishing Natural History in the Eighteenth Century.
The report of the jury (in Dutch) can be read here.