In this thesis, I explored the relationship between Shakespearean tragedy and romance, specifically how each genre treated themes regarding resurrection and the imagination. In romance, I discovered that the imagination became a portal to reality--a way through which characters understood and accepted impermanence, decay, and death. I used romance to illuminate tragedy's failures, showing that in both King Lear and Othello the imagination acts as a mask against the real. I called these imaginative spaces “dream worlds”--fantastical plains in which characters chased their impossible longings for eternity and perfected romantic love. This refusal to engage with the real, I concluded, makes resurrection impossible in tragedy. I was also deeply influenced by the criticism of Harold Goddard, who tends to read Shakespearean tragedy as romance and finds resurrection in both King Lear and Othello. I engaged with his criticism by creating the dream worlds to prove that the imagination can only act as a shield against reality in tragedy.

As active safety systems installed in vehicles become more common and more sophisticated, a concise method of testing them in conditions as close to real risk situations as possible becomes necessary. This study looks at the possibilities of developing use cases, using video recordings of real risk situations, obtained through naturalistic driving studies. The concept of conflicts is explored as a substitute to actual accidents. A method of finding conflicts in a large data material from looking at the acceleration signal and its derivative, referred to as jerk is also sought. These possibilities are tried on material from a previously conducted naturalistic driving study. The results are an improvement in the ability to find conflict situations automatically, and a suggestion to how use cases can be produced from video recordings of conflicts obtained through naturalistic driving studies. The DREAM framework is used and modified in order to aid with data collection and interpretation.

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This thesis aims to explore how the idea of American Dream is presented in White Noise, how the Dream is represented as ¡§American magic,¡¨ and how eventually it turns into ¡§American dread,¡¨ the ultimate American nightmare. In Chapter One, I provide a brief historical survey on the concept of the American Dream, the idea that mainly shaped the American nation in history. I turn to Jim Cullen¡¦s The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation and Andrew Delbanco¡¦s The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope to explore how the idea of the American Dream changes through the course of American history as well as construct a historical background of the American Dream. Chapter Two explores how the American Dream in White Noise is exposed and transformed into what DeLillo terms in the novel as the ¡§American magic¡¨ via the novel¡¦s extreme emphasis on the issue of mass media, the operation of simulated magic. First, I briefly analyze the American Dream succeeded in White Noise based on my survey of the American Dream in the previous chapter. Reading DeLillo¡¦s ¡§American magic¡¨ as the simulated dream in White Noise in light of Baudrillard¡¦s theory of simulacra and simulation, I argue that White Noise is in fact a novel based on the critique of the American Dream due to the falsehood of the protagonists¡¦ American Dream televised through media and consumer culture. In Chapter Three, by recalling the novel¡¦s emphasis on the protagonists¡¦ fear of death, I aim to examine the true reason for such fatal fear. While many may read White Noise simply as a postmodern representation of man¡¦s uncontrollable natural fear of death, I examine the connection of this major theme of fear towards death to DeLillo¡¦s American magic and point out the possibility of American magic acting both as a cause and reinforcement of this fear as well as relating it to the larger issue of DeLillo¡¦s ¡§American dread¡¨ ¡Xa portrayal of the American Dream and magic brought to its extremity and stirred towards a possible apocalyptic end.

<p>The present study set out to test some of the predictions made by the Threat Simulation Theory, which suggests an evolutionary source of dreaming (Revonsuo, 2000a). The qualitative content and frequency of threatening events in dreams were compared between traumatized Swedish subjects with experience of the tsunami-disaster in Southeast Asia in 2004 with Swedish subjects with no traumatic experiences. Only a few of the hypotheses were supported by the results. The results and unsupported hypotheses are discussed with focus on the Threat Simulation Theory, and alternative explanations are considered.</p>

<p>The licentiate thesis focuses on young people’s dramatisation and reflections on the reception of theatre in schools as part of aesthetic learning processes. Its main objective is to describe and analyse how theatre can be used in teaching as a means to create meaning and knowledge in practice. The theatre’s relation to the Swedish subject is discussed from different aspects.</p><p>The empiric survey was conducted at three 6–9 schools in the south of Sweden, referred to in the study as Österskolan, Norrskolan and Söderskolan. The survey is designed as a multiple case study. Two cases consist of individual classes with supplementary work based on the students’ reception of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the other two on stage productions that include acting. The material consists of video recordings of teaching processes, rehearsals and performances; notes from observations, interviews with teachers and pupils, a questionnaire regarding theatre habits, as well as documents such as theatre programmes and home pages. The cases are contrasted in order to extend the analysis, distinguish between mutual and contrasting patterns, and to some extent also to explain concepts used for description and analysis.</p><p>The thesis aims to answer the following questions:</p><p>• What is required in order for theatre to create meaning and knowledge in practice within a school’s framework?</p><p>• How do form, content and use, and also production, reception and reflection cooperate in various media in the aesthetic learning processes and what didactical potential is the result of this cooperation?</p><p>The result of the survey shows that a teacher’s patterns for verbal and physical interaction and his or her media specific competence strongly influence the terms for the aesthetic learning processes. The nature of the theatre culture’s meeting with the school culture at the individual school determines the possibilities for the participation in creation of meaning and knowledge in practice that are offered to pupils. Financial conditions, support from the school management, collaboration between subjects, functioning rooms, and the school’s gender practice are other important factors.</p><p>The conditions for the theatre’s creation of meaning and knowledge differ significantly between the three schools included in this study. At Österskolan the theatre culture is a fairly unfamiliar element in the school culture. The teacher who supervises the supplementary work for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, however, possesses good media specific competence in the theatrical field and is able to generate possibilities for reflections on experience pedagogy based on the theatrical performance and actual participation in the theatrical practice for the pupils. For a number of years, the theatre culture at Norrskolan has been included in an integrated part of the school culture. A Midsummer Night’s Dream becomes the basis for verbal, dialogue-oriented discussions in the classroom. The pupils’ performance at the school strengthens the school culture and the pupils learn how to cooperate and take responsibility. The cultural profile at Söderskolan collaborates with professional cultural workers and regional cultural institutes in a theatrical project that invites both schools and the general public. In this case, all media is integrated in the creation of meaning and there is great didactical potential.</p><p>In the intended doctoral thesis the analysis of the terms and the design of the aesthetic learning processes will be further discussed.</p>

Studie- och yrkesvägledning i lägre åldrar har blivit ett allt mer aktuellt ämne på senare tid. Ämnet utgör grunden för denna studie, som syftar till att visa små barns egna perspektiv när det gäller deras upplevelse av karriär. Studien består av tio intervjuer med barn i 4-6 års ålder och resultatet visar att barnen har stor medvetenhet när det gäller karriär. Barnen kan berätta om vad ett arbete är, hur man får ett jobb, vilka som arbetar m.m., vilket analyseras utifrån begreppen self-concept, circumscription och images of occupations samt utifrån tidigare forskning. Några slutsatser som dras är att barnen till övervägande del kopplar arbete till föräldrarna, att de inte ser några begränsningar vad gäller könsroller samt att alla barnen anger realistiska yrkesaspirationer. / Career guidance and counselling at younger age has become an increasingly current topic lately. This forms the basis for this study, which aims to show small children‟s perspectives regarding the concept of career. The study consists of ten interviews with children 4-6 years of age, and the results show that the children have a great awareness of the concept of career. The children can describe what a job is, how to get a job, who is working, etc., which are analyzed from the concepts of self-concept, circumscription and images of occupations and based on previous research. Some conclusions drawn are that the children predominantly connects work to the parents, they do not see any limitations in terms of gender roles and all the children seem to have realistic work aspirations.

This thesis explores the very different ways that both the novel and autobiography mediate individual and group identities by comparing Anzia Yezierska's novel Salome of the Tenements to her autobiography Red Ribbon on a White Horse. Yezierska's texts establish the inherent difference between the novel and autobiography in that her novels contribute to the dominant ideology by colluding with the capitalist narrative of individualism while her autobiography resists that very narrative. In calling forth the multiple voices of her community, her autobiography reveals, in a series of metatextual comments, the fictional nature of the self and autobiography. Comparing these two narrative modes, and using the concept of the self as defined by Lacan, I will illustrate the trappings of the novel's construction, its emphasis on verb and the form of rising action, conflict, climax and resolution (what I call "the tyranny of the plot") to the sublimation of character. In foregoing character for plot, Yezierska's novels caricature Jewish identity in a way which ultimately engenders and reinforces Jewish stereotypes and also Jewish self-hatred. However, I will also argue that Yezierska's autobiography resists capitalism's master narrative of the American Dream in ways that her fiction simply does not and cannot. Not only is Red Ribbon on a White Horse under-studied, but the lack of any real comparative study between any immigrant fiction and immigrant autobiography is surprising. While many have theorized immigrant autobiography, there are few studies which have tried to understand the very real differences in these two modes.

In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008, the ‘new normal’ left many Americans deflated after losing their financial savings and general confidence in the political system. There is a growing movement saying the traditional path to the American Dream is no longer satisfying. From coast to coast families are moving from sleepy towns to so-called ‘intentional communities’ in search of alternatives. They are building new lives in spiritual enclaves, nudist havens, eco-wonderlands and other unorthodox societies while seeking like-minded souls and a better way of making a living. Although they don’t often reflect the traditional lifestyle of most citizens, they do represent the widespread frustration with the status quo. The United States has long been a safe haven for these nonconformists and continues to attract those seeking escape from the mainstream each year. Intentional communities throughout Texas and the U.S. are flourishing despite harsh economic times elsewhere. This report documents daily life in three intentional communities during 2011 and 2012, all focused on achieving their individual goals of environmental protection, building community bonds, and achieving spiritual enlightenment. / text

M. Tech. Fine Arts / This dissertation will attempt to contextualise the notion of art created by individuals suffering from schizophrenia. These individuals include four non-westernised individuals. Artworks used in this dissertation were obtained, with permission, from a psychiatric facility on the East Rand. It is the aim of this dissertation to analyse the symbols that manifest in these artworks, symbols that manifest from the personal unconscious of collective unconscious. The symbols that manifest in these artworks will be analysed through the application of Jungian psychoanalytic theory as put forth by the 20th century analytical psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung. The Jungian theoretical propositions to be included in the argument include: Jung's view of the psyche (which is divided into ego, personal unconscious and the collective unconscious, which houses the main archetypes) as well as Jungian views on symbolism, and Jung's understanding of schizophrenia. This thesis attempts to show that the methodology that is used during the Jungian dream analysis can also be applied to the analysis of artworks created by schizophrenic individuals. Dream analysis, in this context, will be adapted to an analysis of visual symbols.