The aim of this essay is to present a model for analyzing the in- terplay between voice and point of view in literary journalism/reportage. The model can be used to nuance previous researchers’ discussions about “subjective” and “objective” journalism. It also problematizes the reporter’s special role as an eyewitness by highlighting how narrative techniques can create empathy with the Other and move the reader’s gaze away from the reporter, away from the one who is witnessing. Using tools from classical narratology, I focus on the form of the texts. The tools help me investigate the narrator’s as well as the characters’ subjectivity and interpret the narra- tive’s construction as an expression of a journalistic mission. I systematize variables such as the narrator’s visibility, the relation between an experienc- ing reporter and a narrating reporter, the interplay between the experienc- ing reporter and other characters in the text, and in what way a level with a director (an implied author) can facilitate a comparison between vari- ous kinds of literary journalism. I also examine whether it might be time to abandon the theory that a first-person reportage is more subjective in general than a third-person reportage. I explore whether it is instead the narrator’s visibility that determines the position of the text on a scale be- tween “subjective” and “objective” forms. (Note: I have provided a glossary of terms at the end of the essay.)

Drawing upon the tenets of discourse narratology, this essay identifies and discusses the various narrative and rhetorical features typical of literary journalism/reportage that have evolved from the classical tradition of first-hand observation/eyewitness reporting. I give examples of narrative patterns that have influenced literary journalism throughout the 20th century and up until today, and argue that they differ from structures found in comparable ways of narrating in fiction as well as in autobiographies. I highlight four consequences of a rhetorical “position of witnessing”: a narrative perspective directed from the outside and inward, and an illusion of simultaneity of a reporter being present on the spot and seemingly witnessing and narrating at the same time. Furthermore, the essay explores how realism, in terms of mimetic (scenic) form and scrutinized details, works differently in literary journalism than in realistic fiction. In this article, I attempt to demonstrate how narratology can open new doors to our understanding how literary journalism works in its single structures and how these structures in turn affect the reader’s experience.

The 1910s was a dynamic period in Swedish journalism when reporters became professionals and the largest newspapers engaged their own foreign correspondents. A prominent correspondent of the time was Gustaf Hellström, also a famous writer. His reports from France during the First World War, collected in the book 1 1/2 mil härifrån står världens största slag, are known for their dedicated attitude. An assumption in this essay is that such an attitude corresponds to a narrative commitment, which could be divided into narrative empathy and narrative compassion. 

Using tools from discourse narratology and cognitive narratology, I investigate narrative techniques and strategies at work when a narrative commitment is constructed in the reportages from France. A conclusion is that parallel perspectives and a multitude of voices within the narrative construction connect the individual to the general and convey empathy with all victims of the war, civilians as well as soldiers on both sides. 

In a final section, I place Hellström’s series of reportages from France within a broader context where I highlight similarites with Stig Dagerman’s series of reportages Tysk höst from 1946 and Svetlana Alexievich’s documentary books from the 1980s and onwards.

This study ­is the first dissertation where the genre of reportage (in the U.S. classified as literary journalism) is systematically mapped with the help of narratology. Using tools primarily from structural discourse narratology, the thesis examines, describes and maps written reportages as narratives. Rhetorical and cognitive narratology complement the approach. 

The investigation rests on two assumptions. Firstly, a reporter’s professional purpose is to report about people and states of affairs outside the reporter herself. This results in a contextual commitment, which leaves traces in the narrative in the form of a textual commitment. The latter is in turn divided into narrative empathy and narrative compassion/sympathy. The thesis highlights the creation of narrative structures and stylistic features in reportages and the overall conclusion is that conceptions about a reporter’s professional purpose in fact do influence the narrativity of the text. 

Secondly, in contrast to news journalism, reportage is a personal genre that can be considered a directed reality: the content is taken from reality but the form is personal and a consequence of the writing reporter’s choices. The thesis presents a narratological model where the text develops in the interplay between three instances: a director, a narrator (in a first-person reportage a narrating reporter) and experiencing characters (in a first-person reportage including an experiencing reporter). The director should be regarded as a structuring property of the text itself. 

Part 1 provides a historical background to the reportage genre and the social side of the reporter role. In part 2, narrative characteristics of the genre are explored and defined together with the common roots of reportage and novels within realism and naturalism. Part 3 demonstrates how a contextual commitment can be transformed into a textual commitment. Throughout the dissertation, the director model is used to investigate differences and similarities between subcategories within the genre, sometimes between single texts, sometimes between reportage in general and fictional narrative. In part 4, a typology of reportage is presented. The genre is divided into five types of narration, based on the representational relation between how the physical reporter has collected information and in what ways an experiencing reporter is or is not apparent in the text. 

The thesis ends with a historicization of consonance and dissonance within the reportage genre. Consonance emphasizes the characters’ “here-and-now” and can be found within a broad, classical tradition of eyewitness reporting. Dissonance emphasizes the narrator’s retrospective perspective and can be found within the modernistic type of American New Journalism and in more experimentally written reportages from the most recent decades. The thesis demonstrates how both these ways of narrating may enable the reader’s narrative empathy with someone else than the experiencing reporter.

The analyses and conclusions are mainly based on Swedish reportages from 1819 to 2014. This material is complemented with international reportages from 1903 to 2007,  from Norway, Poland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Bohemia, Croatia, Belarus and the U.S. Accordingly, the dissertation demonstrates that traditions of reportage are primarily international and that the observations about narrative patterns within the genre are also relevant outside of Sweden. 

A reportage is the reporter's story about reality. Even though it details real events, it always presentsa personal interpretation of these events. In contrast to the news article, which primarilyinforms readers, a reportage involves a pronounced degree of personal narration. Normally it is based on the reporter's role as an eyewitness. This essay discusses how the position of the eyewitness establishes narratological structures inthe text, which seem to differ from the structures present in other kinds of non-fiction narrativestold in the first person. For instance, in reading an autobiography, a reader's empathy willbe drawn toward the main character. By contrast, a reportage will direct the reader's empathyaway from the reporter and towards the other. The narratological construction of a reportage may be studied as an interplay between threeinstances: the experiencing reporter, the narrating reporter and the director (the implied reporter).Thus, a three-part model may be utilised in order to help explain, for example, how ahomodiegetic narrator can be combined with external focalisation, and how a character otherthan the experiencing reporter can be internally focalised. It can also illuminate how the textmay employ a form of dissonance between the experiencing and the narrating reporter to serve ajournalistic purpose (displacing the perspective from person – the reporter – to subject-matter).

Hur ser berättelsen om svensk gängkriminalitet ut i tre aktuella reportageböcker och med vilken berättarteknik är den konstruerad? Med en blandning av narratologisk och medieretorisk analysmetod undersöker den här artikeln hur innehåll och form samspelar i Mammorna av Alexandra Pascalidou, Familjen av Johanna Bäck- ström Lerneby och Tills alla dör av Diamant Salihu. En slutsats är att skiftande berättarperspektiv kan motverka ensidighet, samtidigt som narrativ medkänsla utan parallell narrativ inlevelse kan hindra läsarens möjlighet att föreställa sig de skildrade människornas situation. Dramatiserade händelseförlopp kan öka närvarokänslan, medan en reporter som ifrågasätter sin egen auktoritet uppmuntrar läsaren till att undvika förenklande slutsatser. Till sist bidrar person- beskrivningar och urval av fakta i de tre böckerna till skilda budskap. Studien visar att reportagegenren tack vare sin narrativa form har potential att skildra samhällsproblem på komplexa sätt. Detta gäller särskilt när gestaltningen kombineras med gedigen faktaresearch. 

In recent years, media researchers have displayed an increased interest in emotion as an element of the content in both news journalism and narrative journalism. These studies lack a theoretical definition of emotion and do not usually specify what characterizes narrative journalism more than it being "not objective" and, consequently, not similar to conventional journalism. In practice, they identify emotion through frames of personalization or explicit expressions of feelings and evaluations. However, narrative journalism integrates implicitly conveyed emotion. To enable a broader understanding of the function of emotion in narrative journalism, this article gives examples of and analyzes how emotion and the related concept subjectivity is used and discussed in two different fields of research: social sciences-influenced journalism studies and literature-influenced studies. The dualistic view on journalism as either subjective or objective is questioned when narrative journalism (also known as reportage or literary journalism) is placed in a professional context, where the genre is based on its own tradition and represents its own form of knowledge, due to its main characteristic: a narrative form. Finally, the article demonstrates how tools drawn from narratology can illuminate diverse storytelling techniques that transmit emotion implicitly rather than explicitly.

This article discusses the genre of literary journalism/reportage against a background of earlier assumptions on fictionality. At a local level in nonfiction, fic- tionality can be expressed through invented stories and scenarios that create a con- trast to the global, nonfictive context. However, fictionality can also be expressed through stylistic devices that traditionally have been associated with narrative fic- tion. A local contrast may appear, but only if the genre in itself is not narrative. If the focus is on the nonfictional and narrative genre of literary journalism/reportage, there will be no contrast. Here, the rhetoric will work just like in narrative fiction and should be considered to be part of the features of narrativity. Furthermore, the concept imagination should be perceived in close relation to Monika Fludernik’s understanding of narrative as experience. The conclusion is a call to partly rethink existing connections between fictionality, narrativity, and imagination in order to better understand the narrative nature of reportage. 

Salome is the myth of the Oriental princess who dances for her stepfather, Herod the tetrark at his banquet. He becomes so enchanted by Salome's dance that he allows her to wish for what she wants. On the advice of Queen Herodias, Salome's mother, she asks the head of prophet John on a platter. Herod is horrified, but grants Salome's desire.

This is the first in a series of Salome petitions as Mark and Matthew in the New Testament. Salome has since then never ceased to fascinate artists and writers through the ages. From the medieval petitions with the focus on Salome's dance of the Renaissance with the shift from dance to John the Baptist's head on a plate, the romanticism of Heine and the amazing climax in the late 1800s feverish petitions, symbolism, decadence and modernism's painterly hallucinations of Salome as the castrating woman par excellence, of Salome as the terrifying Femme Fatale and "La belle dame sans merci".

Ann Jäderlund's Salome is the latest of Salome petitions of all time. An unbroken tradition of  a blood-red thread spinning throughout history, from Biblical days until our days, and postmodernism. Jäderlund's Salome is a fascinating creation, just as exciting and alarming as the  Salome character herself. The sliding movement between irony and sentimentality in the narration of the text is a complication, and one senses that the author's intentions are far more complex than what the current research today suggests. How can we understand the incomprehensible, the recurrent male-killing in the play? Literally and realistic in feminist psychoanalytic tradition, or figuratively and symbolically, in accordance with the mature and masculine tradition? Should we focus on the content of the text as the gender-oriented studies sought to assert, or should we instead focus attention on the text and dramaform as such? What happens if you problematised Jäderlund's drama based on Peter Szondi's and Mats Ödeen's genre determinations, is it possible at all to identify Salome as a modern drama then, or are moving in a new land, in such a postmodernist? And what characterizes in this case this as compared to the prior art tradition?

These questions may form the basis for my thesis after prolonged inability to find a theoretical input to a text reminding much about the author's other works, a lyrical souterraine to get lost in, to immerse and musical dream of, and be attracted to as be attracted to a dark star or the surrealist black sun. The black sun of the soul with its dazzling, and at once obscure perversion.

This essay’s primarily focus is on the common discourse about the persisting effects of the past in the present in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale(1985)and Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred (1979).These novels are the testimonies of the protagonists Offred and Dana who shares their experience of traumatic violence and oppression. Dana, with her ability to time travel, will see her present time in clearer light as she experiences the life of a slave on an antebellum plantation. Offred, the Handmaiden owned by the totalitarian regime Gilead, portrays her contemporary life in parallel to remembering her former and thus describing Gilead’s increasing authority. Based on different theorists and concepts in the field of cultural memory studies, this essay examines the tension between memory and history, the distantness towards the past and the problematics with representations of traumatic events. As I argue that the voices of Dana and Offred calls attention to the importance of perspective and of sharing stories, they are also an act of hope, therapy and resistance; an act that also make possible a critique of the processes of the production of historical knowledge.

The aim of this paper is to examine the didactic potential of the books: Kitty and The Witch Tree Symbol, Kitty and the Mystery of the Stolen Books, Yes, See Lotta and Dear Lotta. All these booksbelong to the B.Wahlström series of girls' books, a literary genre that has been looked down upon overtime and considered harmful to read because of the fact that they where too stereotypical. The reason forthis is that the characters are far too gender stereotypical and can have a negative impact on young girls.The essay intends to investigate how these books, despite being girls' books can be used as tools in theschool's value base work, especially regarding gender equality, equality, norms and stereotypes. It alsoexplores how the selected books can be used in the classroom to address gender and sex issues.To answer the aim of this paper, a qualitative method, close reading, has been used. During the closereading, there has been a specific focus on how the feminine characters, in particular how the femaleprotagonists' Kitty and Lotta, are portrayed. The theoretical approaches used to analyse the books aredidactic potential, defined by Malin Alkestrand, and the gender system, defined and explained byYvonne Hirdman. The result of the analysis was that there is a didactic potential in how Kitty and Lottaare being described since their characterization on several occasions can provide an opening fordiscussing fundamental values in school. The study also showed that the books selected for this analysishad scenes that may work as a tool in a classroom context to address and discuss the topic of sex andgender.

The purpose of this essay is to show that what defines a hero is far more complicated than the prolific author and mythological expert Joseph Campbell would have one believe – in his view, heroic qualities stem from a certain type of chosen individual and reoccurring narrative motifs without taking social structures and masculinity into account. By analyzing the characters Beowulf and Odysseus through a filter, consisting of Campbells model of the “hero’s journey” along with perspectives provided by studies in the masculinity field done by Raewyn Connell and Jørgen Lorentzen together with Claes Ekenstam, this essay concludes, in short, the following: applying Campbells model of the hero does reveal several similarities between the two characters, though it ultimately fails to prove any deeper connection. The aspects brought into focus by utilizing different concepts of masculinity however, proved to be more enlightening, with the most notable conclusion that the various tests forced upon both Beowulf and Odysseus mirror Raewyn Connells concept of “the hegemonic masculinity”, which in essence means that the most elevated masculine qualities existing in the context of the book are also the same ones being targeted by the antagonistic forces present in the story.

This essay is investigating heterosexuality in Gun-Britt Sundströms Maken. With help from the queer theories of formost Judith Butler, but also to some extent the ideas of Michel Foucault, I have tried to answer the question of which norms are becoming clear and which are being broken in the novel. I have also looked at a few of Gayle Rubin’s opposites in her sexual value hierarchy. Some of the norms that are brought to light in the essay revolves around faithfulness, lust towards the ”right” person and for the ”right” reasons. I have shown that even though many of the norm’s that are being articulated in the novel are being crossed still they doesn’t lose their valaue and influence.

Der Mythos vom Norden reicht bekanntlich weit zurück in die deutsche Kulturtradition. Als die Nationalsozialisten 1933 in Deutschland an die Macht kamen, existierte der Norden schon längst als romantische Vorstellung und als Projektionsraum deutscher Sehnsüchte nach Schönheit, Reinheit und Stärke. Wie wirkten sich nun die politischen Umbrüche auf diesen nordischen Mythos und auf die kulturellen deutsch-schwedischen Beziehungen aus?

Die Bilder des Nordens gehören zu den frequenten Themen in einem Traditionsfeld, das die damaligen Germanisten sehr beschäftigte. In den Berichten der Lektoren der Deutschen Akademie und des DAAD aus Schweden begegnet uns in den 1930er Jahren ein romantisches Germanenbild, das intensiv nationalsozialistisch diskursiv bearbeitet wurde. Die Begriffe deutsch, germanisch und nordisch wurden allmählich als positiv konnotierte, semantisch unbestimmte Synonyme, als eine Art fließende Signifikanten im NS-Diskurs benutzt. Textverfasser nahmen Elemente aus älteren Texten auf, indem sie neue Texte fur neue Zusammenhänge konstruierten, so dass in der Zeit des Dritten Reiches eine diskursive intertextuelle Kette aus Bildern des Nordens deutlich wird.

Diese Anthologie basiert auf Forschungsberichten von Literatur-, Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaftlern aus Deutschland, Polen und Schweden.

My intention with this paper is to look at the possibility of same sex desire in the first three novels of Maria Gripe’s Skuggserie (the shadow series, written in the 1980’s), by doing a queer reading of the texts. The analysis is based on Judith Butlers well known concept “the heterosexual matrix”, which explains how we, when we are forced into a specific sex and gender, obligate ourselves to a specific (hetero)sexuality. Butler also explains how sex and gender are connected and appear in relation to each other. I have analyzed the relations between the characters Berta, Arild, Rosilda and Leónie and the protagonist Carolin (who sometimes dresses and acts like a man, Carl). The conclusion of my analysis is that Skuggserien contain some scenes that can be viewed as queer, for example there is a brief sight of homosexual desire between Rosilda and Carolin/Carl, and Arild and Carolin/Carl. Carolin’s way of changing sex/gender role is also to be understood as a queer act. However, in the third book, Carolin decides to leave her alter ego Carl behind, and my final conclusion is that the novels open up for a queer reading, but in the end return, and thereby adapt themselves, to the hetero sexual matrix.

This essays content is about a narratological analysis of “The Mist”, written by Stephen King, with a focus on who, how, and what in relationship with the story. It also contains a deeper analysis on chosen characters and the meaning behind them. The analysis also takes a look on why King has chosen to use them and their specific details.

By mainly using Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan and Jimmy Vulovic I manage to find the voice of the story, how it’s told and what it contains. There is a deeper meaning behind the details that King has selected for his story, for example the colors is not randomly chosen but have a point and a deeper sense behind them. The characters all have a meaning, big and small. The three main characters becomes pillars of the story where they give it and eachother balance with the ir significant roles as hero, villain and helper. It also turns out that the extraterrestrial beings are not the biggest threat of the story, the humans are.

This essay contains a literary analysis of Virginia Woolf’s Flush: A Biography (1933) where I have used animal studies to analyse the novel and the animal protagonist. First and foremost I have looked at the moral tendencies of the animal mind and the animal subject and by which means Woolf have worked to make him a dog, and not a human speaking for a dog. In my analysis I have used contemporary research in animal studies and literary studies to back up my claims.

In this article I examine Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of the relation between literature, being and perception. I focus especially on two of Merleau-Ponty’s courses at Collège de France: the first course, Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression, and the unpublished course Sur le problème de la parole. In the former Merleau-Ponty presents a new understanding of perception, according to which being is expressed in perception through the style of movement of the perceived phenomenon. In the latter he advances a notion of literary writing as an expression of the being that is itself expressed to us in perception. Through a reading of Proust’s work, he discusses how the literary writer makes his experience expressive by means of a stylization of what is experienced. Hence, literature expresses perception through an enhancement of the expressiveness that it already contains. This capacity of literature will be the main focus of my investigation. 

Several hundred Swedes emigrated to Soviet Karelia in the beginning of the 1930s. Many of them remained there when the Great Terror began, and they became targets of repression. As of now, there is no coherent public narrative in Sweden that acknowledge the Swedish survivors; most survivors never talked publicly about their experiences, let alone wrote about them, and the few who did, did so reluctantly. This article discusses four memoirs written by Swedish survivors of the Soviet repression and the silence that still surrounds these memoirs. The narratives themselves, as well as the reception of the narratives, bear witness to the difficulty of narrating experiences that have not yet been publicly acknowledged. Based on the Swedish witness accounts, this article aims to examine 1) the difficulty of testifying in the absence of a public narrative, and 2) the ability of witness literature to challenge and change established historical narratives.

This is a paper concerning storytelling in video games. It’s based on the assumption that power gives people the possibility to tell stories. We will have a look at what that means when in contact in video games, as the interaction between player and story world may result in creation of a story. Aim will be taken at three categories: agency, power and communication. Communication is of great importance in video games, as one of very few mediums that allows agency and communication within the actual story world. One can look at it as agency being the possibility to demonstrate power, whilst power is through which means the player can express their agency. This will be analysed through different parts of what constitutes a video game, such as rules, characters, space and game world.

This dissertation investigates the way that feminist resistance is expressed in two Swedish and two German so-called New Woman novels from the turn of the twentieth century: Elin Wägner’s Pennskaftet (1910, Penwoman), Gabriele Reuter’s Aus guter Familie (1895, From a Good Family), Hilma Angered-Strandberg’s Lydia Vik (1904), and Grete Meisel-Hess’s Die Intellektuellen (1911).

The theoretical apparatus is comprised by the work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Jacques Lacan, and Jessica Benjamin. By introducing a psychoanalytic and feminist perspective, this dissertation seeks to develop the possibilities for agency and resistance within the framework of Foucault’s theories. It investigates four textual and contextually grounded strategies of resistance that are prominent in these novels: individuality, openness, desire, and eugenics.

This study demonstrates how Gabriele Reuter, Grete Meisel-Hess, and  Hilma Angered-Strandberg, inspired by the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche and Ellen Key, depict feminine individuality in relation to a scientific and philosophical discourse that specifically denied women individuality. The authors anchor individuality in a corporality that was similarly denied to women by a bourgeois and dogmatic Christian discourse.

Openness and wit function as resistance strategies in Elin Wägner’s Pennskaftet. Humorous rejoinders and narrative comments can disarm a conservative. An open attitude towards the emancipation project could also help to resolve the conflicts between different feminist positions and between different women.

Desire functions as an important resistance strategy in each of the novels examined. It is variously represented as a vital instinct, a desire for knowledge, and a sexual desire, as in Gabriele Reuter’s Aus guter Familie – or as a desire for suffrage, as in Pennskaftet, or for maternity legislation, as in Grete Meisel-Hess’s Die Intellektuellen. By formulating a notion of feminine desire, turn-of-the-century feminists were able both to seize control of sexuality from the church and to wrest morality from the grasp of the bourgeoisie. These resistance strategies could also have a biopolitical character: in Grete Meisel-Hess’s Die Intellektuellen, woman is placed at the service of humanity on eugenicist grounds, and her good qualities are seen as capable of promoting humanity’s progress.

This dissertation shows that in these novels desire at the individual level serves to reinforce feminine subjectivity. Love is seen as associated with an intensified sense of life and as a precondition of creativity. At the social level, desire also functions as the basis for a feeling of solidarity among women that instils in them courage and an urge to persevere in the suffrage struggle, this latter a highly protracted process. In this way desire acquires political potential.

A framing chapter on context provides the intellectual and philosophical backgrounds of the various strategies of resistance. It is followed by four analytical chapters, each of which addresses one novel.

This is an introduction to our special issue on literature and economic inequality. Beginning with a discussion of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ‘Origin of Inequality’, and moving on to a brief analysis of the current juncture of the conditions of inequality and the conditions of literature and literary study, we introduce our seven contributions and try to frame the challenges literary study faces today.

This essay examines the love affair between the two main characters of Rut Hillarp’s novel Sindhia. It draws attention to the schism between the Surrealist version of love as an extatic-religious fusion of the sexes – that in a way marks the relationship – and the yet remarkable coolness between the two lovers.

With the theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, I will show how the man and the woman project their unrealistic individual fantasies on each other, thus rendering impossible the Surrealist Meeting, with its road to an absolute reality. The Surrealist "l’amour fou", I will argue, is trapped in the ritualized "l’amor interruptus"; a lacanian term for a certain kind of love that wishes to conceal the fact that desire will never find its object. It does so by pretending that the object would be found if only love had been consummated (thus the reason love is never consummated, since, as Lacan puts it, the object, or the Thing, is never to be found).

I will, in brief, argue that the love affair depicted in the novel in different ways tries to deal with the “lack-of-being” that marks the subject according to Lacan; the absolute distance to the desirable Thing.

The main aim of this study is to analyse the grotesque characterization of adults in four novels by Roald Dahl, from Michail Bachtin’s definition of the carnival-grotesque in Rabelais and his world. From this view I have examined how the conflict between children and adults is described in these books, and to what extent the grotesque motifs have a function in this conflict.

For this purpose I have applied theories of the literature-grotesque by Michail Bachtin, and of the meaning and function and – in this context – the necessity of fright and horror in children’s fiction, in particular by Bruno Bettelheim and J.A. Appleyard. The result of the analysis suggests that the books contains obvious and distinct grotesque elements and that Dahl’s popularity among children, and opposition among critics, should be due to this elements. Taken together, these circumstances give cause for the epithet “subversive grotesques for children” for Roald Dahl’s children’s books, and that Dahl can be said to deconstruct the conventional perception of childhood.

This essay aims to investigate constructions of masculinity in Frank Chin’s Donald Duk and Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown, comparing them to each other, and scrutinizing them through Raewyn Connell’s framework of hegemonic masculinity. Moreover, it aims to analyze the utilization of popular culture in identity formation within the two novels. Furthermore, it also aims to discuss how these novels can be utilized to discuss masculinity in the EFL classroom. To achieve these aims, the essay utilizes close reading of excerpts from the two novels. The analysis concludes that the protagonist of Donald Duk constructs masculinity with traits from hegemonic masculinity to combat the emasculation he experiences, while the protagonist from Interior Chinatown starts with the same ambition, he then rejects hegemonic masculinity in favor of a more empathetic masculinity. Additionally, both novels utilize representations of masculinity from popular culture as role models for the protagonists’ own identities. Lastly, it concludes that Donald Duk and Interior Chinatown can be of use in the EFL classroom to discuss toxic masculinity and alternative masculinities by highlighting the protagonists of the novels and tying the discussion to its authors, and the students’ own identities and experiences.

This thesis is a narratological analysis of the poem “The Miracle” by Edith Södergran. The thesis uses narratological tools from Mieke Bal in order to investigate different themes mainly connected to Christological sacrificial mythology. The thesis furtermore offers a discussion that highlights the poem from a feminist theological point of view, mainly with the help of ideas developed by Catherine Keller and Anne-Sofie Eriksson. ”The Miracle” is a dialogue between a girl and a nun about a troublesome dream that the girl has. It is a dream, which the girl finds strange and it concerns the need for revenge to reach relief. The dialogue also shows the risk of a kind of oppressive forgiveness by covering unfairness, and how the girl finds her way with help from the nun. With the altar in the poem as a kind of stage, “The Miracle” offers a challenge for the church and the whole world about attitudes, and about how to be constructive and liberating. This includes questions about the need to be careful and realistic when it comes to danger as well. How can you aim for fairness and at the same time handle unfairness, at several levels? Both the girl and the nun keep progressing in their different situations, from a horizon including escatological expressions. It is not easy, but they are not tied to oppressive traditions in their way of thinking either. What makes “The Miracle” such an interesting poem is the way it directs the reader to pose several constructive questions, without offering preformed answers.

This thesis investigates themes and motifs in Alfhild Agrell’s drama ”Räddad” (1882) from the view of Ellen Key’s philosophical feminism. In the 19th century, the situation for the inhabitants of Sweden was difficult. There was a need for enormous work against injustices and misery because of too high disease and mortality. Agrell, among others, engaged in the debate around social issues and gender. She assumes her task as a playwright by using opposites in a way that makes her dramas quite popular, particularly ”Räddad.” Agrell and Key were friends who could talk openly even when they disagreed. Except for profound issues and personal circumstances, they proofread each other’s manuscripts and give each other constructive responses. In earlier research, Agrell has conceived as disconnected from Key and her feminist philosophy. Then her character Viola seems to drift aimlessly against breakdown and death, while Agrell writes unplanned. My reading for the opposite reveals that ”Räddad” relates to Key’s philosophy when Agrell works on the themes of oppression and freeing in the direction ahead. With the motifs of the condescending husband and the repressed wife, it will soon turn to motifs of the unsure son with Oscar and Viola with the motifs of the living buried who view openings. Related to Keys feminism it becomes visible about the needs for both men and women to change. That’s because in the drama Viola is in gestures with motifs of a clear-minded woman for exemption making her a changeable and exciting character. Agrell lets Viola stand with her feet on the ground in the direction starting from her living memory for her mother and with the motherhood of body and spirit of herself when she stands in reality with her dead child in her arms. In that way, Agrell doesn’t shy about appropriation in front of the seriousness for too many people in society, and that was the purpose of showing courage in a forward movement. It is not in a way above other people in a sort of arrogance. Instead, Viola stands like a pier in Key’s way to show power for culture when the drama makes it possible for those who see her to make a change together from a tough time.

Denna uppsats undersöker huruvida den dramaturgiska strukturen är en förutsättning för att en situationskomedi ska fungera väl – det vill säga, vara underhållande och locka till skratt. I en komparativ analys av den mycket väl fungerande amerikanska situationskomedin Friends och den mindre bra svenska situationskomedin Svensson, Svensson framkom dock inga större strukturella brister hos något av analysobjekten. Följaktligen är inte den dramaturgiska strukturen avgörande för slutresultatets förmåga att roa.

The aim of this study is to find out if dramatic structure is essential to the sitcom's ability to entertain and make audiences laugh. This study is a comparative analysis of the more humorous American situation comedy Friends and the less humorous Swedish situation comedy Svensson, Svensson. However, as no major structural flaws are found in either situation comedy the conclusion must be that dramatic structure does not impact on a sitcom's ability to amuse.

Nyckelord: situationskomedi, dramaturgisk struktur, socialrealistisk komedi, familj, Svensson, Svensson, Friends

The aim of this study is to find out if dramatic structure is essential to the sitcom's ability to entertain and make audiences laugh. This study is a comparative analysis of the more humorous American situation comedy Friends and the less humorous Swedish situation comedy Svensson, Svensson. However, as no major structural flaws are found in either situation comedy the conclusion must be that dramatic structure does not impact on a sitcom's ability to amuse.

This project examines how the oppression of African Americans, especially those in domestic service to white families, is reflected in literature. The two works The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird will be the main sources. I investigate issues of race and skin colour, as well as the depiction of the ‘black’ and‘ white’ races in America in literature. Yet I will also make use of writers on African American issues to evaluate the writings on the main works concerned. What I will try to establish is whether the two authors (Kathryn Stockett and Harper Lee) effectively give a voice to the less empowered African-American segment of US society (this question of empowerment will be addressed below). And most importantly, I attempt to understand how two white women from relatively privileged backgrounds can reach across the supposed racial divide and, through aesthetic expression. I contend that peaceful protest and the mobilization of the arts in all its forms raised awareness of the terrible wrongs suffered by African Americans in the timeframe concerned in this work – anawareness raised not just in the USA but also around the world - and led to a new situation in which discrimination is not only illegal, but also widely acknowledged as deeply wrong.

The aim of this study is to describe how nature is portrayed in swedish poet and critic Aase Berg’s two earliest poetry collections, Hos rådjur (1997) and Mörk materia (1999), and how it relates to notions of humanity, culture and civilisation. The concept of ”nature” is problematized in a short survey of how it has been used by and critizised in ecocritical literary theory, which is used as the main theoretical framework for this survey, with an emphasis on selected theoretical concepts by Donna Haraway. As a methodological starting point, ”nature” is tentatively defined as ”that which does not let itself be subsumed under the human, culture or civilisation”, and this definition is contrasted with how the concepts are handled in the texts.The investigation shows that the relationship of nature to the human is a fundamental theme that provides a structure for both poetry collections. In Hos rådjur, wild nature takes the shape of a ”raw” animal that seems to threaten the human characters. In Mörk materia the threat to humanity comes from matter itself, matter that is dark and unruly. The nature/culture relationship is complex and continuously evolving, with several different and mutually exclusive possibilities being explored in the poems. Berg’s poetry has often been characterised as transcending boundaries, and metamorphoses and dissolution of boundaries between humans, animals and other organisms are abundant in the two poetry collections. Despite this, the study demonstrates how dualistic notions of nature and culture, body and spirit, are upheld throughout the texts.

This study explores how the design of women’s social space of action is presented in Hagar Olsson’s play S.O.S: Save our souls (1928). The focus of the study is on the female main character of the play, Maria. The analysis model consists of close reading with the play's melodramatic elements as a starting point. The theoretical framework for the study is the epic theater tradition where Bertolt Brecht has an important influence. The study shows that there is an existing deficiency condition regarding women´s social space of action. This design interprets as a space where women´s happiness and freedom experiences as difficult to access. There is also a critique towards this design through Maria and her actions. The critique is targeted towards long-standing social constructions. However, it should be pointed out that the play takes plays in a bourgeoise environment. Therefore, the design of the space as well as the critique targets towards this environment. The study also shows that Maria´s actions combined with the play opens up for a possible new space where contemporary bourgeoise women allows to act beyond their expectations. This design creates a possibility for women to follow their own way to happiness.

Providing a gateway to a new history of modern aesthetics, this book challenges conventional views of how art's significance developed in society.The 18th century is often said to have involved a radical transformation in the concept of art: from the understanding that it has a practical purpose to the modern belief that it is intrinsically valuable. By exploring the ground between these notions of art's function, Karl Axelsson reveals how scholars of culture made taste, morals and a politically stable society integral to their claims about the experience of nature and art. Focusing on writings by two of the most prolific men of letters in the 18th century, Joseph Addison (1672–1719) and the third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), Axelsson contests the conviction that modern aesthetic autonomy reoriented the criticism and philosophy originally prompted by these two key figures in the history of aesthetics. By re-examining the political relevance of Addison and Shaftesbury's theories of taste, Axelsson shows that first and foremost they sought to fortify a natural link between aesthetic experience and modern political society.

One of the most original voices in British post-revolutionary philosophy belongs to the third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713). Rather than supporting the Hobbesian and Lockean idea of modern political society as an artificially formed creation, Shaftesbury perceives society as a beneficial outcome of nature and natural rationality. Shaftes­bury’s understanding of natural society is furthermore entwined with aesthetic mat­ters. The aim of the following article is twofold. First, due to the fact that Shaftesbury’s ideas rarely are analysed in any detail by Swedish scholars, it offers an introduction to Shaftesbury’s take on the complex relation between society and poetry to readers of eighteenth-century intellectual history in general, and readers of the history of literature in particular. Second, given that Shaftesbury is frequently regarded as the first modern advocate of aesthetic autonomy, I wish to problematize such an account by showing how Shaftesbury opposes the idea that poetry holds an instrumental value for society, while he simultaneously maintains the inseparability of poetical truth, artistic whole, and political naturalism. As this article shows, the Promethean myth of creativity is central for Shaftesbury’s understanding of the relation between society and poetry.