This thesis engages and scrutinizes critiques of rights developed in Critical Legal Studies scholarship and critical international law theory, specifically as formulated in the works of prominent and influential legal theorists Duncan Kennedy and Martti Koskenniemi, and draws on them to grapple with the changes that Swedish refugee and asylum policy went through during the fall/winter of 2015 and 2016. During this period, a series of drastic and far-reaching restrictions were enacted. Despite this, the Swedish government could still, albeit under immense criticism, claim a status for their policies as respecting human rights and adhering to the principles of international law. Against this background, the purpose of this study is to examine anew, using works of Kennedy and Koskenniemi, the relationship between the concept of human rights on the one hand and politics on the other, and how this relationship can be observed to have been (re)negotiated during the policy shift in Sweden. The thesis also raises the question of whether any general or uniform assessment of rights discourse is available in the works of the chosen theorists, and if so, of what this consists. The results show that the indeterminacy and contingency of rights frameworks, which is pointed to by both theorists, provides a suitable perspective from which to view the flexibility of the discourse, but this perspective is also seen as partially inadequate and in need of being supplemented with an account of what, or who, effects actual policy outcomes and thus determines the social meaning and contents of human rights. The theoretical tools developed by Koskenniemi help explain how the structural biases of the deciding institutions, the Swedish government and the EU, contribute to the re-definition of the content of refugee rights. Further, it is argued that both theorists have some difficulty in expounding in any clear and unambiguous way just what consequences their critiques might have for how rights discourses can and should be approached. An engagement with asylum and refugee rights from a critical legal theory perspective was thus shown as offering both problems and possibilities.

This thesis examines how Ernst Ludwig Kirchner reconceived the female nude within the two contexts of Expressionism and the German nudist movement. In particular, it looks to Kirchner’s early paintings, executed between 1909 and 1914, of female nudes in landscape settings to determine how Kirchner operated within and departed from the conventions of the female nude. This thesis challenges the feminist critique of Expressionist painting and Kirchner’s female nudes. It also examines how Kirchner’s female nudes in landscapes are complicated by the early twentieth-century development of German nudism. While these paintings are often categorized as bathers following nineteenth-century French precedent, they in fact are unique products of die Brücke philosophy.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka de föremål som säljs i museibutikerna i anknytning till två temporära konstutställningar och vilken roll dessa spelar för upplevelsen av utställningarna. De studerade utställningarna är Gilbert & George The Great Exhibition på Moderna Museet i Stockholm och Dansk guldålder på Nationalmuseum i Stockholm. Undersökningen utgår från ett forskningsläge där museibutikens pedagogiska eller på andra sätt inkluderande potential framhålls. Materialet består av utställningarna och deras texter, butikerna och deras displayer och föremålen som presenteras i dem. Utifrån ett besökarperspektiv jämförs föremålen i förhållande till Sharon Macdonalds kategorier mimetiska och förflyttade reproduktioner, insignier och associationer. Butiksdisplayernas samlade uttryck analyseras med hjälp av Roland Barthes semiotiska begrepp syntagm och syntax. Resultaten diskuteras sedan i förhållande till Carol Duncans definitioner av det estetiska respektive det bildande konstmuseet. Undersökningen visar att de studerade museibutikernas displayer anknyter till utställningarna genom att erbjuda en fördjupning genom associationer och temabaserade föremål men även en repetition av verken. Displayerna uttrycker också teman som på olika sätt avviker från eller vinklar utställningarnas verk och texter. Studien visar även hur museibutikerna riktar sig till den publik museet har och presenterar föremålen utifrån den målgruppen genom att relatera till samtida fenomen och trender. Museibutikernas displayer diskuteras som förlängningar av museernas presentation av konsten i utställningarna i förhållande till definitionerna av ett estetiskt och ett bildande konstmuseum.

The fin de siècle was a time of change in nationalism, culture, art, science and religion. Nations and groups grew into defining themselves through movements such as Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. Some groups sought to define themselves through reviving aspects of their old cultures as inspiration. For instance, Finland found inspiration in the Kalavala and William Morris inspired Arts and Crafts through England’s Middle Ages. Scotland had many pasts to choose from for inspiration. Patrick Geddes found inspiration in its Celtic past. Geddes is best known for his work as a town planner and sociologist, but has been under-valued for his work as the leader of the 1890s cultural movement in Edinburgh, the Celtic Renascence. In an effort to revive the flagging Old Town, Geddes created a community in Ramsay Garden on the Castle Esplanade. Ramsay Garden became home to Summer Meetings, University Hall functions, and the Old Edinburgh School of Art, and out of all this emerged The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal. The Evergreen served as a mouthpiece for the Celtic Renascence, a way for them to communicate the life of Ramsay Garden to those outside it. It was a journal which included art, literature and science, brought to the reader on a seasonal basis. Geddes’s view of Celticism was inclusive, he sought to include all peoples of Celtic nations (a view not all agreed with). But his Celtic Renascence was more than just a small art movement, it was part of his larger work to improve city life, to get people to broaden their perspectives and to generalise rather than specialise. Geddes used the Celtic Renascence, like any of his other projects, as a tool for positive and lasting change.

This thesis challenges Classical Christian presentations of God based on exclusive and literalized metaphors. This piece explores the response of three dissenting groups, who place their emphasis on an experiential theology, directly challenging the use of conventional language to describe God. The Quaker practice of silent worship, Isadora Duncan’s dance form and Theopoetics each demand that religious structures enable an experience of the Divine that is spontaneous, mysterious and deeply personal.

In the later decades of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth, large numbers of Canadian women were stepping out of the shadows of private life and into the public world of work and political action. Among them, both a cause and an effect of these sweeping social changes, was the first generation of Canadian women to work as professional authors. Although these women were not unified by ideology, genre, or date of birth, they are studied here as a generation defined by their time and place in history, by their material circumstances, and by their collective accomplishment. Chapters which focus on E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake), the Eaton sisters (Sui Sin Far and Onoto Watanna), Joanna E. Wood, and Sara Jeannette Duncan explore some of the many commonalities and interrelationships among the members of this generation as a whole. This project combines archival research with analytical bibliography in order to clarify and extend our knowledge of Johnson’s and Duncan’s professional lives and publishing histories, and to recover some of Wood’s “lost” stories. This research offers a preliminary sketch of the long tradition of the platform performance (both Native and non-Native) with which Johnson and others engaged. It explores the uniquely innovative ethnographic writings of Johnson, Duncan, and the Eaton sisters, among others, and it explores thematic concerns which relate directly to the experiences of working women. Whether or not I convince other scholars to treat these authors as a generation, with more in common than has previously been supposed, the strong parallels revealed in these pages will help to clarify and contextualize some of their most interesting work. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2011-10-14 20:59:21.45

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 1998? / Bibliography (leaves 281-294).

This document, A TD’s Awakening: A Technical Direction Thesis on Spring Awakening, is a detailed description of the technical direction process for Southern Illinois University Department of Theater’s Fall 2017 production of Spring Awakening: A New Musical. Chapter One dives into script analysis and includes a scene breakdown and technical requirements for the production as well as a discussion of the goals I wished to accomplish with this project. Chapter Two details the development of the design for the production and examines the monetary and time budgets for the scenic units. Chapter 3 is a detailed account of the production process, including any challenges that arose and how they were resolved. Chapter 4 reflects on the goals mentioned in the first chapter and what aspects of the production I would have done differently. Also included in this document are appendices that include the build schedule, the budget sheets, scenic designer’s drafting, construction and assembly drawings, and production photos.

Throughout history, dance is a powerful tool for expression of self or community. Art, especially dance, became a way to react to societal shifts and stalemates through means of storytelling. Through my choreography, I used history of modern dance such as the mother of modern dance, Isadora Duncan, an incredibly influential choreographer, Martha Graham, and her famous protege, Merce Cunningham. I used a combination of their methodology to choreograph my intrapersonal journey with dance and life.

This study sought to determine what factors could impact career development pathways for postsecondary film studies through survey research. The selected determining factors that offered eventual success as a filmmaking professional were students' personality characteristics and unique, innate abilities. The survey questions polled film study educators whose primary contact with film students was at college-level classrooms and could offer significant opinions about the factors measured. Only those educators with demographic characteristics that dealt with actual filmmaking procedures of production and post-production gave a measurable statistical result related to a single dependent variable. The differentiator between filmmaking disciplines was distinguished by those with direct interaction with the practical procedures of filmmaking, i.e., Screenwriting, Production, and Post-Production in contrast to those without, i.e., Theory, Critique, History, and Audiences. Of these seven film studies specialties represented, 37.5% agreed, 33.9% disagreed, and 26.7% neither agreed nor disagreed. The implications for future research suggest polling educators with direct practical film education activity at a secondary school level whose student/teacher relationships are significantly more intimate. Additionally, their presence is at a time when students are beginning to consider what college career studies they will follow. These participants could offer survey data to understand the suggested phenomenon more accurately. A more accurate study would further clarify the current dilemma that film students face when selecting their most appropriate career path for film studies.