Douglas-fir develops a megagametophyte regardless of the pollination state of the ovule, whereas many other conifers develop a megagametophye in response to polli- nation. Megagametophytes in unfertilized ovules degrade two weeks following fertil- ization of the surrounding population. This is mediated by programmed cell death (PCD). Pollinated and unpollinated megagametophytes were dissected from Douglas- fir cones and extracted for RNA, which was then used as input for sequencing. A transcriptome was assembled from this data and expression levels were calculated. The data were fitted to quadratic regressions to produce coexpression groups. There is no clear upregulation of PCD effectors in the unpollinated megagametophyte. Po- tential regulators of megagametophyte fate are present in the data. Some are as- sociated with ABA signalling and proanthocyanadin biosynthesis while others share similarity to known regulators of PCD. Seed development processes are represented in the expression data, which support current knowledge of conifer seed development and provide targets for research. / Graduate / 0369 / 0309 / 0817 / igboyes@gmail.com

This dissertation argues that the crucial quality of American literary naturalism is the polemicism of its major authors and texts. Scholars have long been attuned to the “rebellious” nature of naturalism. Indeed, following the charge of H. L. Mencken (for whom naturalism constituted an aesthetic assault on the pious vacuities of Howellsian social realism), critics have been apt to frame naturalism as the national literature of disobedience. What is less than clear, however, is what, exactly, naturalism is supposed to be rebelling against. In a century of criticism, naturalism has constituted an assault on “machine industrialism” (Parrington), romantic imagination (Trilling), literary realism (Pizer), sentimentality (Lehan), regionalism and local color fiction (Campbell), feminization (Seltzer), capitalism (Benn Michaels), European aestheticism (Dudley), and patriarchal hegemony (Fleissner). My thesis builds on the assumption that the “real object” of naturalism’s rebellion is less definitive than the antinomian spirit itself. The naturalists, in short, were polemicists: naturalism is defined less by a coherent and stable philosophical orientation than by an attitude, a posture of aggressive controversy, which happens to cluster loosely around particular philosophical themes. Moreover, the conspicuous polemicism of the original naturalist project has been registered and extended in the critical construction of the genre over the past century. Naturalism has always depended upon polemical reconstruction by its critics, who were themselves feeding upon the palpable polemicism of Norris, Dreiser, et. al. In chapter one, I argue that the naturalists (and their critics) have adopted a self-effacing polemical rhetoric to establish the genre as the “central marginal” figure in the American canon. By emphasizing their own otherness to the American mainstream, the naturalists were, in effect, claiming it. Then, in close examinations of works by Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and Richard Wright, I argue that the naturalists used their fiction to explore some of the most controversial political and cultural issues in modern American life. Scholars have long noticed how naturalism draws on the scientific theories of Darwin, Spencer, Sumner, Huxley, and others to challenge the prevailing Judeo-Christian cosmology. But the naturalists also charted the basic co-ordinates of a wide range of issues. So, my second chapter considers Frank Norris’s The Octopus in relation to emerging discourses of environmentalism and nascent anxieties over ecological despoliation. Chapter three considers the relationship between abortion and censorship in Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, and argues that the “tragedy” of Dreiser’s text hinges upon our understanding how its protagonist, Clyde Griffiths, is himself a work of art. In chapter four, I argue that Native Son’s chilling protagonist, Bigger Thomas, represents a distinctly modern figure for terror, and that the novel elaborates a disturbing complimentarity between terrorism and lynching as the crime and punishment that exist outside the confines of the law. While my project considers each of these polemical debates within the cultural and intellectual climates in which they emerged, it is also an attempt to engage with these ideas in their own spirit—that is, to situate naturalistic novels, polemically, within the highly fraught contexts they helped to invent.

This dissertation argues that the crucial quality of American literary naturalism is the polemicism of its major authors and texts. Scholars have long been attuned to the “rebellious” nature of naturalism. Indeed, following the charge of H. L. Mencken (for whom naturalism constituted an aesthetic assault on the pious vacuities of Howellsian social realism), critics have been apt to frame naturalism as the national literature of disobedience. What is less than clear, however, is what, exactly, naturalism is supposed to be rebelling against. In a century of criticism, naturalism has constituted an assault on “machine industrialism” (Parrington), romantic imagination (Trilling), literary realism (Pizer), sentimentality (Lehan), regionalism and local color fiction (Campbell), feminization (Seltzer), capitalism (Benn Michaels), European aestheticism (Dudley), and patriarchal hegemony (Fleissner). My thesis builds on the assumption that the “real object” of naturalism’s rebellion is less definitive than the antinomian spirit itself. The naturalists, in short, were polemicists: naturalism is defined less by a coherent and stable philosophical orientation than by an attitude, a posture of aggressive controversy, which happens to cluster loosely around particular philosophical themes. Moreover, the conspicuous polemicism of the original naturalist project has been registered and extended in the critical construction of the genre over the past century. Naturalism has always depended upon polemical reconstruction by its critics, who were themselves feeding upon the palpable polemicism of Norris, Dreiser, et. al. In chapter one, I argue that the naturalists (and their critics) have adopted a self-effacing polemical rhetoric to establish the genre as the “central marginal” figure in the American canon. By emphasizing their own otherness to the American mainstream, the naturalists were, in effect, claiming it. Then, in close examinations of works by Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and Richard Wright, I argue that the naturalists used their fiction to explore some of the most controversial political and cultural issues in modern American life. Scholars have long noticed how naturalism draws on the scientific theories of Darwin, Spencer, Sumner, Huxley, and others to challenge the prevailing Judeo-Christian cosmology. But the naturalists also charted the basic co-ordinates of a wide range of issues. So, my second chapter considers Frank Norris’s The Octopus in relation to emerging discourses of environmentalism and nascent anxieties over ecological despoliation. Chapter three considers the relationship between abortion and censorship in Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, and argues that the “tragedy” of Dreiser’s text hinges upon our understanding how its protagonist, Clyde Griffiths, is himself a work of art. In chapter four, I argue that Native Son’s chilling protagonist, Bigger Thomas, represents a distinctly modern figure for terror, and that the novel elaborates a disturbing complimentarity between terrorism and lynching as the crime and punishment that exist outside the confines of the law. While my project considers each of these polemical debates within the cultural and intellectual climates in which they emerged, it is also an attempt to engage with these ideas in their own spirit—that is, to situate naturalistic novels, polemically, within the highly fraught contexts they helped to invent.

Cette thèse tentera de démontrer, dans un premier temps, si les idéologies religieuses conservent une grande importance aux États-Unis, et ce, malgré la sécularisation apparente de la société. Une analyse du processus politique qui est à l’œuvre dans la mobilisation et l’action du Christian Coalition – organisation de la nouvelle droite chrétienne – permet de cerner la place qu’a le religieux dans la sphère publique, et plus particulièrement, dans la sphère politique. Plus spécifiquement, nous observerons les stratégies et les actions que le C.C. entreprend dans le but d’exercer des pressions et d’influencer les débats et le pouvoir politique, tout en déterminant la nature des enjeux qui motivent une mobilisation pour ce groupe protestant conservateur. Une évaluation basée sur le courant des mouvements sociaux illustrera la mesure dans laquelle la nouvelle droite chrétienne détient une partie du pouvoir social et jouit du rôle d’acteur politique par son institutionnalisation dans la sphère politique.

Julia Rolandsdotter, Idéer om samhälle och individ: Abortdebatten under 1960- och 1970-tal med inriktning på realpolitik och ideologi, Uppsala Universitet: Institutionen för idé- och lärdomshistoria, C-uppsats, HT 2013. This essay aims to investigate and scrutinize the debate surrounding abortion during the years of 1964 and 1974 respectively. By analyzing elements of different opinions in the debate from daily press, a wide range of aspects concerning the issues of free abortion have been distinguishable. This analysis shows that the abortion debate was, to a high degree, a question of Realpolitik and ideology whereas the differences over time have been visible rather than the differences between parties of varying opinion. By applying the theories of Ian Hacking concerning the effects of categorization, ideas surrounding people and society among others, have been highlighted in the debate. In 1964 we see ideas about the woman as motherly or a victim and the society as defective or exposed among other factors. In 1974 on the other hand discussion about the free woman and the irresponsible society is very common.

In this thesis, I describe how women who are forced to migrate from Burma into Thailand manage their fertility, unwanted pregnancy and pregnancy loss. The study was initiated by Dr Cynthia Maung, a Burmese medical doctor, herself a stateless person who coordinates a refugee-led primary health service five kilometres inside Thailand. Unsafe abortion is a common problem and much time and resources are taken with the care of women suffering haemorrhage, infection and pain after self-induced abortion in both Thai and Burmese-led health facilities. The thesis examines the characteristics of Burmese women admitted to health facilities with post-abortion complications and their chosen methods of self-induced abortion. Local meanings of abortion and post-abortion care are explored. Lay midwives play a central role in fertility management and some are abortionists. Men’s role in the management of fertility is also presented. The women are generally married with children. Considered illegal migrants, they are employed and work in Thailand without work permits. Many women have a history of escaping human rights abuses and entrenched poverty in Burma. At least a third of women admitted into care with post-abortion complications had induced their abortion with oral herbal preparations, pummelling manipulations or stick abortions. Most of the abortion services were provided by Burmese lay midwives. Reasons for terminating the pregnancy include: poverty, gender-based violence and the local illness of ‘weakness’. In addition, low sexual health knowledge, and difficult access to reproductive health services play a part in mistimed pregnancy. / There is no commonly agreed definition of abortion between formal, informal health workers or women. Most people considered it against cultural lore and in some cases judicial law but still felt it was necessary. Women’s perceptions of the viability of their pregnancy and its outcome prevailed. Men played a limited role in fertility management. I argue that a lack of rights to work and earn a fair wage; to move without fear, a lack of sexual health information, and the ability to safely control fertility increases women’s risk of unsafe abortion. Furthermore, violence perpetrated at the individual and state level contributes to unsafe abortion. Burmese women’s mortality and morbidity associated with unsafe abortion is largely unrecorded by Thai processes and unknown to the Burmese military government. Unwanted and mistimed pregnancy can be avoided through reproductive technologies, education programmes, and access to modern contraceptives. To safely terminate unwanted pregnancies and to treat the complications of pregnancy loss is not only possible but a woman’s right as delineated in the international treaty CEDAW, to which Burma and Thailand are signatories. Yet Burmese women continue to suffer: become sterile, socially vilified, unemployed or repatriated against their will due to their reproductive status. Their sickness and deaths are secondary to the economic imperatives of Burma and Thailand and their human rights continue to be violated.....

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2005. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. Linköping : Univ.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2005. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.