Med denna studie har jag undersökt hur ett antal individer uppfattar symboler. Jag har närmre undersökt hur symboler kan användas för att kommunicera i det vardagliga sociala livet och vad detta tillför individerna. Syftet med detta var att dels utifrån nya exempel utöka befintlig information om och förståelse för hur individer använder symboler i sitt vardagliga liv. Syftet var även att få vetskap om hur Rörstrand och individerna kommunicerar symbolernas representation utifrån gemensamt kulturellt kapital och berättande. Detta har möjliggjorts genom semistrukturerade intervjuer som metod. Sex personer intervjuades samt Rörstrands Product and Marketing Manager Eva Tiedman. Intervjuerna och materialet har utformats och analyserats med hjälp av en teoretisk ram bestående av symbolisk interaktionism, storytelling, representation, nostalgi och retro. Studien resulterade i att Rörstrands kommunikation nått intervjupersonerna och att den breddat representationen av symbolerna men utan att mottagarna tydligt noterat detta då kommunikationen härrör från gemensamt kulturellt kapital. Detta resulterar i att producent och mottagare tillsammans kommunicerar produkternas representation och funktion. Studien bekräftar även att Rörstrands vision om vad produkterna tillför individer överensstämmer med intervjupersonernas upplevelser. Intervjupersonerna använder symbolerna för att kommunicera med sin omgivning i det vardagliga livet beroende på gemensamma representationer. Symbolerna ger upphov till positiva nostalgiska känslor, används för att bygga upp en scen på vilken man kan spela upp sin självbild och identitet samt skapar och upprätthåller sociala relationer.

Le propos de « l'amitié dans l'œuvre de Guy de Maupassant » consiste à découvrir, étudier et analyser les occurrences de cette thématique dans le corpus maupassantien afin d'autoriser une nouvelle lecture de cette œuvre parfois ancrée dans certaines visions restrictives et tranchées comme le pessimisme qui la caractérise trop souvent alors qu'elle offre de multiples visages et notamment de plus favorables et humains. À cette fin, il est important d'une part de mettre en avant le comportement dans l'amitié de l'écrivain ainsi que celui de son entourage à son égard et d'autre part d'aborder également cette notion relationnelle et émotionnelle dans les domaines philosophique et littéraire afin d'en déterminer efficacement les différents aspects, tout en observant les liens et les rapprochements avec ces conceptions et ces visions de l'amitié qui peuvent constamment apparaître dans les textes (romans, contes, nouvelles, chroniques, essais, poèmes, pièces dramatiques mais également la correspondance) de l'auteur. L'étude à proprement parler du corpus non seulement confirme la présence de ce thème inabordé jusque là, mais dévoile en outre un traitement singulier de l'amitié par Maupassant parmi les thématiques qui sont les siennes dans son œuvre. Ce traitement souligne une place exceptionnelle, rare et privilégiée accordée à l'amitié qui semble préservée et mise à part dans la conception maupassantienne des échanges humains. La présence de l'amitié et la manière de l'exploiter à travers les divers genres du corpus permet ainsi de porter un nouveau regard sur l'œuvre de l'homme de lettres, un regard nettement plus humain et sympathique. / The aim of « friendship in the work of Guy de Maupassant » consists in discovering, studying and analyzing the occurrences of this thematic in the writer's corpus in order to allow a renewed reading of this work which is sometimes too set in some restrictive and clear-cut visions such as the pessimism which characterizes it too often while it offers multiple faces, in particular more favorable and human ones. To that purpose, it is important on one hand to point up the behavior in friendship of the writer as well as that of its circle of acquaintances towards him and on the other hand to address also this relational and emotional notion on the philosophic and literary domains to determine effectively the various aspects, while observing the links and the connections with these concepts and visions of the friendship which can constantly appear in the different texts (novels, tales, short stories, chronicles, essays, poems, dramatic plays but also the correspondence) of the writer. The study strictly speaking of the corpus not only confirms the presence of this unapproached theme so far, but reveals furthermore a singular handling of friendship from Maupassant among the themes which are his ones in his work. This handling underlines an exceptional, rare and privileged place granted to friendship which seems protected and set apart in the Maupassant's idea of the human exchanges. The presence of friendship and the way of exploiting it through the various genres of the corpus allows then to take a new gaze at the work of Maupassant, a gaze clearly more human and filled of sympathies.

In order to empower adolescents, this thesis examines how the adult conception of the human in humanism disempowers adolescents. This thesis examines this process in Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff's Illuminae, a work of young adult science fiction with non-traditional text structures. In consequence of their disempowerment, the adolescent Kady and artificially intelligent AIDAN impersonate human authorities in order to gain control over their lives. When these attempts fail, Kady and AIDAN transition from a humanist conception of the human, as an isolated self that balances rationality and emotionality, to a posthuman conception of the human, a distributed self that accepts the hybridization of adolescent and machine. The development of a posthuman self enables adolescents and AI control over their own lives, an alternative form of maturation that suggests a means for empowering adolescents through the use of technology. This alternative maturation counters traditional maturation in young adult science fiction and anti-technology trends in young adult science fiction.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur åldersbaserad makt skildras i Amie Kaufman och Jay Kristoffs Illuminae files-trilogi (2015–2018). Genom att studera protagonisterna Kady och Hanna söker uppsatsen svar på vad som händer när unga får makt och hur vuxna reagerar på detta. Tidigare forskning fokuserar främst på hur vuxna förtrycker barn (aetonormativitet) eller hur barn kan få makt (the mighty child). Malin Alkestrands alternativa analyseringssätt the controlled adolescent-motif och the mighty adolescent-motif kombinerar de två tidigare begreppen för att tydligare urskilja hur makten är flytande och skiftar mellan barn och vuxna.   Jag har använt Alkestrands termer för att studera hur makten förflyttar sig mellan de unga och de vuxna i trilogin. Undersökningen visar att Kady och Hanna har kompetens inom teknik, militär strategi och kampsport vilket möjliggör för dem att ta makt. I situationer när the mighty adolescent-motif framträder kämpar de vuxna emot och nervärderar ofta ungdomarna verbalt i ett försök att visa auktoritet och ta tillbaka makten. När the controlled adolescent-motif framträder trycks de unga ofta till sidan men kan få makt genom en vänlig vuxen som står upp för dem. Noterbart är att Kadys pappa använder sin makt för att ge de unga makt och framstår genom det som god. I slutet återställer han dock makthierarkin mellan sig och ungdomarna, vilket varken Kady eller Hanna säger emot. Detta visar på att ungdomarna tillåts ha makt i situationer där deras kompetens kan användas för de vuxnas bästa, men att vuxna alltid kommer återta makten i slutet.

The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), a tropical phenomenon that exists on the time scale of 30-90 days, commonly initiates over the Indian Ocean and slowly propagates into the western Pacific as a series of convective events, which have time scales on the order of hours or days. These events and the overall MJO convective envelope may interact with convectively coupled waves such as Kelvin waves that propagate more rapidly eastward with time scales of 3-5 days. Radar and sounding data collected during the DYNAMO/AMIE/CINDY2011 field campaign from October 2011 to February 2012 in the central Indian Ocean are used to study the interaction between Kelvin waves and the MJO in terms of atmospheric and cloud properties. The focus is on characterizing the precipitation characteristics, convective cloud spectrum, and atmospheric profiles of Kelvin waves during the active and suppressed phases of the MJO to gain insight on MJO initiation. Characteristics of waves identified using different satellite thresholds and filtering methods are compared. Composites of the radar and sounding observations are calculated for a total of ten Kelvin waves and three MJO events that occurred during the field campaign. Analyzed radar products include convective-stratiform classification of rain rate, rain area, and echo-top heights, as well as cloud boundaries. Sounding data includes profiles of wind speed and direction and relative humidity. Kelvin waves that occur during the suppressed MJO are convectively weaker than Kelvin waves during the active MJO, but display previously documented structure of low-level convergence and a moist atmosphere prior to the wave passage. During the active MJO, Kelvin waves have stronger convective and stratiform rain, and the entire event is longer, suggesting a slower moving wave. The Kelvin wave vertical structure is somewhat overwhelmed by the convective envelope associated with the MJO. When the MJO is developing, the Kelvin wave displays a moisture-rich environment after the passage, providing deep tropospheric moisture that is postulated to be important for the onset of the MJO. The convective cloud population prior to MJO initiation shows increased moisture and a population of low- to mid-level clouds. The moisture precedes shallow convection, which develops into the deep convection of the MJO, supporting the discharge-recharge theory of MJO initiation. Additionally, enhanced moisture after the passage of the pre-MJO Kelvin wave could also support the frictional Kelvin-Rossby wave-CISK theory of MJO initiation. With a better understanding of the interaction between the initiation of the MJO and Kelvin waves, the relationships between the environment and the onset of the convection of the MJO can be improved.

In this essay I attempt to show that both the weak interpretation and the strong interpretation of what John Searle calls the principle of self–referentiality for social phenomena should be abandoned. This, I argue, is because they give rise to what I, following Burman (2023), call ”location problems” for opaque social phenomena and for social wholes, as well as a faulty understanding of social power. Instead, I propose that we understand social phenomena as constitued by social practices, in turn constituted by individuals who have the know–how necessary to participate in the social practices (in the sense that they are reliably able to do so), while not necessarily knowing that they are participating in them. In doing this, I draw on Robert B. Brandom’s notion of a social practice from Making it Explicit (1994).

L’économie a toujours fait partie des productions artistiques. En effet, que ce soit par les commandes des mécènes, par les coûts des matériaux utilisés ou encore par la mise en vente des œuvres, l’art et l’argent sont deux entités inséparables. Toutefois, les artistes qui représentent et qui s’entretiennent de l’argent et de l’économie dans leurs œuvres se font plus rares. Des représentations du commerce adviennent avant le modernisme. Toutefois, ce n’est que récemment que les artistes se sont mis à s’intéresser aux manifestations de l’économie en les intégrant dans leur pratique. Existe-t-il actuellement une place dans le monde de l’art pour ce type particulier de production conceptuelle qui réfléchit à des questions économiques ? Notre recherche tourne autour de cette réflexion et explore la vente des productions artistiques à caractère économique sur le marché. C’est sous les termes d’économies imaginaires que nous retrouverons ces productions tout au long de ce mémoire. Nous nous pencherons plus spécifiquement sur la définition de cette pratique particulière, ainsi que sur sa vente dans les galeries et maisons de vente aux enchères. / Economy has always been a part of artistic productions. Indeed, whether it be through patronage or by the cost and worth of the materials employed, or even by the selling of the artworks, art and money have always been two inseparable entities. However, artists who represent and deal with money and economy in their work are still quite scarce. We are able to find some representations of trading in ancient artworks, but it is only recently that the artists began to address the various expressions of economy by integrating them into their practice. Is there currently a place in the art world for this particular type of conceptual production that reflects on economic issues? Our research is guided by this topic and explores the sales of this type of artistic productions on the markets. This type of production will be referred to as “imaginary economics” throughout this master’s thesis. We will explore its definition as well as its sales in galleries and auction houses.