This study is about information and materiality, more specifically how the different material manifestations of information affects the archivists in the Swedish Court archives. The primary focus is on how materiality affects archivists work with physical and digital information and how materiality affects the archivists themselves. This study uses interviews with archivists within the Swedish court archives as its primary source for analysis. By using primarily Actor-Network Theory and Discourse-theory alongside other scientific texts this study has shown in what ways materiality affects the daily work of archivists and their self-image. This study is relevant in many ways but primarily because there is little to none research of this kind that focuses on the court archives and as a result of that this study is relevant in the way it illustrates the importance and possibilities court archives for a dedicated scholar within archival science and other areas of information science. The results are as follows: materiality have many different ways of affecting the archivists and it does so on many different levels. With the focus on digital and physical information this study has come to the conclusion that materiality is an important aspect that cannot be overlooked. It affects how archivists work, how they think and how they practically handle physical and digital information.

Cette recherche s’intéresse à l’efficacité des registres communicationnels actuels dans une perspective de mobilisation des consommateurs dans la sobriété carbone. Afin d’examiner l’efficacité de ces registres, quatre études ont été menées, i.e. une « méthode-Q » et trois expérimentations. Les deux premières études visent à explorer le rôle des représentations visuelles (i.e. images) et linguistiques (i.e. contenus sémantiques) utilisées pour désigner le changement climatique dans la transmission des préoccupations, des perceptions et des intentions envers la décarbonisation. La troisième étude cherche à expliquer l’effet de l’exploitation de la saillance de mortalité dans ces registres (i.e., anxiogènes vs. informatives) sur les choix de consommation pro-environnementaux (vs. pro-matérialistes). La dernière étude cherche à confirmer qu’une saillance de mortalité, quel que soit son origine (e.g. le changement climatique ou les attaques terroristes) est générateur en majorité des choix de consommation pro-matérialistes (vs. pro-environnementaux). En s’appuyant sur les résultats des ces études, nous mettons en lumière, tout d’abord, la nécessité de modifier ces registres afin de réduire leurs effets négatifs et/ou contreproductifs. Ensuite, la nécessité d’adopter une stratégie de segmentation de la communication selon la vision culturelle du monde dominante des individus pour les engager dans une lutte effective contre le changement climatique. / This research focuses on the effectiveness of climate change communications in order to engage the consumer behaviour in carbon sobriety. To examine this effectiveness, four studies were carried out, i.e., a “Q-method” research and three experiments. The first two studies aim to explore the role of visual representation of climate change and semantic expressions, used to describe this phenomenon in conveying perceptions and attitudes towards decarbonisation. The third study aims to explain the impact of the type of communication (anxiety induced vs. informative) on consumption choices (pro-materialistic vs. pro-environmental). The last study seeks to confirm that mortality salience, whatever its origin is (e.g., climate change or terrorist attacks), generates mostly pro-materialistic consumption choices (vs. pro-environmental). Based on the results of these studies, we highlight, firstly, the necessity to modify these registers in order to reduce their negative and/or counterproductive effects. Secondly, the necessity to adopt a segmentation strategy of communication according to the cultural worldviews of individuals to engage them in an effective fight against the climate changes.

Ce mémoire, qui s’intéresse aux enjeux de l’imbrication du philosophique et du romanesque chez les penseurs des Lumières françaises, cherchera à mettre de l’avant la contribution originale de Denis Diderot à la réflexion philosophique sur le roman, de même qu’à l’exploration des ressources littéraires permettant de philosopher par le roman. Nous nous proposons, dans un premier temps, d’examiner ce qui relève d'une théorisation explicite de l'écriture des fictions narratives dans l’oeuvre du philosophe langrois. Nous nous attacherons à montrer comment l’approfondissement des thèses de son matérialisme, ainsi que les déceptions consécutives à ses projets de réforme du théâtre, sont venus bouleverser les conceptions esthétiques et morales qui formaient le premier horizon normatif à partir duquel Diderot envisageait les modalités idéales de l'écriture et de la réception romanesques. Puis, dans un deuxième temps, nous chercherons à faire voir comment Diderot, à titre d’auteur de fictions narratives, entreprend une exploration aussi originale que féconde des ressorts proprement philosophiques de l’écriture romanesque. Les dernières sections de notre étude seront consacrées à une lecture approfondie de Jacques le fataliste et son maître. Nous tâcherons d’abord d’en dégager les principales ressources mises au service de la formation d’un lecteur de romans plus lucide et plus critique. Puis, nous chercherons à mettre en lumière de quelle façon cette propédeutique, si elle réussit, doit ultimement conduire le lecteur à entamer un véritable dialogue avec l’oeuvre, tant sur les questions métaphysiques et ontologiques qu’entraîne le « fatalisme » de Jacques, que sur les enjeux moraux qui en découlent. / This thesis, which deals with the interweaving of philosophy and literature in the work of French Enlightenment thinkers, seeks to shed light on Denis Diderot’s unique contributions to philosophical reflection on the novel, as well as to the exploration of the literary resources that make it possible to delve into philosophical issues through the novel. Beginning with an examination of Diderot’s explicit theories about writing narrative fiction, it argues that the outgrowth of his materialism and the disenchantment following his attempts at theatre reform upended the aesthetic and moral basis for the initial normative framework underpinning his analysis of how fiction is ideally written and received. It goes on to examine how Diderot, as a novelist, undertook an innovative and fruitful exploration of the unsuspected philosophical resources that narrative fiction offers. The final sections are devoted to a close reading of Jacques the Fatalist and His Master, beginning with an attempt to identify the main resources it deploys to train more lucid and critical readers of fiction. The thesis then seeks to show how this knowledge base, if successfully transmitted, ultimately leads the reader to engage in a genuine dialogue with the work, both in terms of the metaphysical and ontological issues raised by Jacques’ “fatalism” and the moral issues that ensue.

This thesis investigates three contemporary Canadian texts— Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, and Rita Wong’s forage—that treat information as an object that can be wasted and recuperated. Using information theory and a new sub-field of critical waste theory called “Discard Studies,” I explore how the authors studied in this thesis place these two lines of thought alongside one another to examine how the concept of recycling information challenges the material, cultural, and ideological structures that distance humans from their waste. Specifically, I read the event of recycling as an interruptive act that triggers a reassessment of the (im)material connections that tether humans to their waste, vast (inter)national networks of exchange, and environmental crises related to our garbage.

The thesis deals with critical views of the post-war American society as found in three literary works: Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Jack Kerouac's On the Road. The thesis's aim is to introduce briefly the post-war society and then, on basis of text analysis, to provide criticism expressed by each book mentioned above. Divided into four main parts, it describes the post-war situation in the United States (political, social and cultural) and thereafter it focuses on the books itself. It provides a short biographical summary of each author's life but it mainly targets the criticism the book contains. The post-war period was significant because of the change it brought. The society of the 1950s was characterized by many "booms" that contributed to its development. The main features of this period were consumerism and materialism; these were also the principal things subjected to criticism. The question the thesis wants to answer is whether this criticism was justified or not. This objective is realized in the conclusion. Based on all facts provided by the thesis, the answer is that the criticism was justified; however, it is not so easy and it is necessary to read the whole thesis to understand all reasons that led to this conclusion and to think over...

The thesis "Determinants of environmental concern" is a quantitative analysis that deals with determinants of environmental concern, the scale of new ecological paradigm, environmental behavior and ecological activism. It uses data from an international survey "International Social Survey Project Environment III" from year 2010. Strong predictors came out from the analysis, mainly cultural differences of the respondents and education. The inhabitants of Western Europe and English speaking countries have the strongest environmental concern, in contrast, in post communist countries of Eastern Europe is this concern the smallest. Post materialists and inhabitants of the richer countries have stronger environmental concern and they believe more in science and progress solving ecological problems. The perception of consequences of ecological problems on everyday life is also a strong determinant from which suffers mostly localities out of Europe. The recycling waste is most often carried away in Western Europe and English speaking countries. A strong correlation is between finished education and environmental concern as well as ecological activism, there is a weaker connection to saving natural resources.

Donkeys have been useful helpers to people especially at transporting burdens and in agriculture for thousands of years. Nowadays they make livelihoods of rural as well as urban inhabitants over all continents easier. The use of donkeys in agriculture and transport is vanishing in developing countries due to the mechanization. We know only little about how and why people keep breeding of donkeys in developing countries. Theoretical part of the thesis tries to summarize previous basic knowledge about breeding and using donkeys. It focuses on domestication of donkeys, their use in history in different parts of the world, current position of donkeys and partly on relations between men and animals from the view of Human-Animal Studies. A research in a part of Polabí lowland is added. The main practical aim of the thesis is to take a look at the phenomenon of breeding donkeys in the Czech Republic in the present and bring any findings about why do people breed donkeys in modern times in this developing country. Research finds how are donkeys bred, what reasons lead breeders to get donkeys and what their real use is. The thesis contributes to popularization of this theme among experts and laymen and suggests methodology for research of breeding donkeys in other areas as well.

C’est par une généalogie de l’immortalité poétique en Grèce archaïque, depuis une immortalité ne concernant que le renom jusqu’à une forme de survie personnelle, que s’ouvre cette recherche. Arrivé à Pindare, une étude approfondie de sa première Néméenne, au moyen de la théorie de l’énonciation de Benveniste et de la narratologie de Genette, permet de détailler comment se construit, dans l’épinicie, un régime temporel de l’éternité, dans lequel le poète inscrit le vainqueur qu’il célèbre. Je me penche alors sur la formation, dans l’épinicie, d’un réseau de concepts dont font partie la mémoire, la vérité, la lumière et l’or, réseau servant à créer une connotation d’immortalité. Ce réseau est ensuite analysé au travers des relations sociales qui le déterminent, au moyen du matérialisme historique et de l’herméneutique négative. Il en ressort que ce réseau marque la construction d’une idéologie aristocratique, dont la structure est détaillée grâce au concept d’hégémonie de Gramsci, ce qui laisse voir que l’immortalité poétique, chez Pindare, a pour fonction de poser un ordre social comme éternel. L’immortalité religieuse de Pindare est placée dans ce contexte et interprétée comme une autorité extra-littéraire devant asseoir la forme non traditionnelle d’immortalité poétique de Pindare, recours rendu nécessaire par un ébranlement de l’autorité littéraire. Ainsi, le développement exacerbé, en Grèce archaïque, de l’immortalité poétique, est réinterprété comme le produit d’une crise généralisée de l’autorité, une lutte des classes devant mener à la défaite de l’aristocratie terrienne et à l’émergence de la polis de la Grèce classique. / This research opens with a genealogy of poetic immortality in Archaic Greece, from an immortality of renown down to a form of personal survival. A detailed study of Pindar’s first Nemean, through Benveniste’s enunciative linguistics and Genette’s narratology, shows how the epinician constructs a temporal regime of eternity, in which the poet inscribes the victor. I proceed to analyze how, through the epinician, a network of concepts comprising memory, truth, light, and gold, is used to create a connotation of immortality. The social relations that determine this network are then analyzed through historical materialism and negative hermeneutics. From there, it appears that this network shows the construction of an aristocratic ideology, whose structure is then detailed through Gramsci’s concept of hegemony. This reveals how Pindar’s poetic immortality serves to ground a social order as eternal. Pindar’s religious immortality is then cast within this context and interpreted as an appeal to an extra-literary authority whose role is to legitimize the non-traditional form of poetic immortality developed by Pindar, an appeal made necessary by an undermining of literary authority. Thus, the increasing development of poetic immortality throughout Archaic Greece is reinterpreted as the product of a general crisis of authority, of a class struggle that would lead to the defeat of the landed aristocracy and the emergence of the polis of Classical Greece.

Using new materialist approaches to intersectional theories of gender/sex –particularly Karen Barad’s ethico-onto-epistemological framework, agential realism– this thesis examines how knowledge about class is produced, through feminist performance art practices. Through this lens I will examine how two pieces of performance art by U.K. based artists, Sophie Lisa Beresford and Catherine Hoffmann, can express novel ways in which class is not simply a system acting upon bodies, but inextricably entwined with, and produced through, bodily matter. Furthermore, this essay discusses the ways in which performance art is uniquely positioned to examine this intra-action between discourse and matter; providing a way to bridge the gaps in the current theoretical discourses and creative practices. Keywords: Feminist performance art, agential realism, intersectionality, class, new materialism, class-drag, performativity, class-passing, intra-activity.

This diploma thesis aims to map the work that Ronald Inglehart published after the year 2000 and to include it in the concept of historical sociology. In my work I deal with a total of seven books, which I subject to critical reflection and at the same time I compare with other authors who commented on the given topics. The work will touch on theories of modernization, democratization, secularization and to a lesser extent civilization analysis. I will also add remarks and observations from the point of view of quantitative methodology, as Inglehart's theories are based on a large amount of quantitative data based on questionnaire surveys. The first part of my work deals with modernization theory, the next part deals with secularization and the third part focuses on the analysis of civilization. In modernization and secularization, I will first introduce versions of the theories that Inglehart and co-authors published during the first decade of the 21st century. After that, I will always reflect on recent work (2017- 2021). In the civilization part, which is the shortest, I will summarize his findings across his work. At the end of his work, Inglehart also makes predictions about future society. I also intend to analyze these findings in my diploma thesis. At the end of the work I evaluate the...