To read a book or watch a play is to transport oneself to another place and time. However, it is not only the consumers of literature that travel; texts themselves can also make journeys. As is the case for Elin Améen’s play En moder, which has undergone a particular geographic and transformative journey, being based on the play Alan’s wife, an English reworking of Ameen’s Swedish novel ”Befriad”. Thus, the original text left its Swedish context and returned, via England, in a new form. The three works all share the same narrative: a young woman losing her husband in a workplace accident and then giving birth to their disabled child that she later kills. This study provides historical context to these three texts and compares them with a focus on the question of motherhood. By looking at motherhood in Swedish 19th-century drama, the study unveils the social conditions placed upon the protagonist and thus her actions, which in turn captures how motherhood at the time was constructed and reflected as a subject in the arts. As to do this, the study first compares the three texts to illuminate the distinct choices the Swedish and English authors made in their versions. Following this, the debate that took place in England following the premiere of Alan’s Wife is analyzed. Finally, the endings of the three texts are compared, as this is where they differ at its most. The analysis highlights differences between the texts, which are related to their socio-geographic contexts. Religion and punishment, in particular the death penalty, are given greater prominence in the English version, whilst in the Swedish novel and play, Améen, who authors both, sticks to her own beliefs and moral guidelines.

Detta är en analys av hur mobbning gestaltas i två bilderböcker. Skolverket (2019) skriver att skolan ska se till att ingen människa blir utsatt för diskriminering, förtryck eller kränkande behandling och ett hjälpmedel läraren kan använda sig av i klassrummet för att förebygga mobbning är bilderboken (s.10). Mitt syfte är att analysera mobbningen som gestaltas ur olika synvinklar i de två bilderböckerna. Genom min frågeställning har jag först svarat på vilken sorts mobbning som är mest förekommande och sedan hur samspelet mellan bild och text gestaltas i dessa mobbningssituationer. Utöver detta analyseras den tredje frågeställningen som handlar om hur de vuxna agerar i mobbningssituationerna. Även hur karaktärernas trivsel i skolan och i hemmet påverkas av mobbningen. Hur jag har besvarat mitt syfte är genom att huvudsakligen analyserat bilden och texten och samspelet mellan dem när jag analyserat mina frågeställningar. Det har jag gjort genom att ha använt mig av BRIS (u.å.) kategoriseringar av psykisk, verbal och fysisk mobbning samt Maria Nikolajevas (2000) kategorier om samspelet mellan bild och text och hennes personbeskrivningar av karaktärer. Resultatet visar att det främst förekommer psykisk mobbning i Ingen vill vara med Elin och fysisk mobbning i Rädda Vilda/Rädda Molly. Den ena bilderboken har främst ett kompletterande samspel mellan bild och text och den andra ett symmetriskt. Föräldrarna i bilderböckerna får aldrig reda på att någon mobbning förekom och kan därför inte agera. Det är en öppen tolkningsfråga om lärarna ser mer än vad de agerar efter där de antingen inte kan agera eller väljer att inte göra det. Resultatet visar även att huvudkaraktärernas trivsel inte bara påverkar deras mående i skolan utan även i hemmet som påverkade karaktärerna psykiskt och fysiskt. Till vidare forskning hade det varit intressant att undersöka varför de vuxna karaktärerna gestaltas som de gör och varför författare från min studie samt från tidigare forskning väljer att gestaltas de vuxna som icke agerande i de mobbningssituationer som sker.

The aim of this thesis study is to examine questions regarding truth in fiction, the term literarytruth. The study is based on the two works of fiction, Märit by Ing-Marie Eriksson (1965) and Eufori by Elin Cullhed (2021). Märit and Eufori both enable interesting approaches to thequestion of truth in fictional literature from different perspectives. Märit, being the only bookin Sweden to be sentenced for defamation, and Eufori being a fictive story about the historicalperson Sylvia Plath. The research questions will be explored through the theory of the readers'contract and the term faction and be discussed in a wider perspective regarding both readingand writing. We can claim to write truth, we can claim to write untruth. We can seek inspiration for ourcharacters both from within and without. But literary truth is not only found in the text itself. Itis also about paratexts, media presence and the author's own statements about the novel. It is onthis basis that the author's intention is visible, and the reader's contract is established. Literarytruth can thus be found both inside and outside the text.

This thesis discusses authors Elise Ottesen-Jensen and Elin Cederblom’s texts on sex education in the early 20th century. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how sexuality, women, men and gender are portrayed in the texts and books. The study aims to explore whether the authors texts vary depending on their ideological affiliation which is made visible through intersectional theory. Ottesen-Jensen writes from a working class and socialist perspective whilst Cederblom provides a conservative perspective on the subject. Through a qualitative text analysis, the study examines and compares how sexuality is portrayed and treated in the texts and how the discussion regarding sex education in relation to men, women and gender develops. To give the discussion a greater depth, the method also has a large focus on the authors context and the context of the time where the study takes place which makes connections and patterns more visible. The conclusion of this thesis is that the authors provide different views on sex education.  Ottesen-Jensen is significantly more progressive in her advice and opinions than Cederblom who has a conservative approach. Both authors have a clear view of what tasks a woman should be engaged in and what a man should do. While the man is seen as a figure of the public and working life, the woman has great responsibility at home in the reproduction, upbringing of children and everything else related to it. The source material matches the context of the time and its accepted views. Regardless of the authors' ideological affiliation both Cederblom and Ottesen-Jensen’s material discusses sex education in relation to thoughts and opinions about eugenics and population planning. What is most characteristic of the study's conclusion is the material's mixture of conservative and progressive opinions. Progressive opinions that are still relevant today such as views on abortion and prostitution.

Konst- och kulturskapare blir allt viktigare aktörer vid marknadsföringen av platser och konst och kultur får ett allt större inflytande på hur små och stora städer bygger upp sin image. Den mindre lansbyggdsortens förutsättningar för attraktivitet är under ständig förändring likväl som dess förhållande till storstadsregionerna. Hur kan mindre orter skapa attraktivitet med hjälp av konst och kultur? Syftet med uppsatsen är att med orten Vadstena i Östergötland som exempel, utforska en mindre ort på landsbygden och hur dess identitet och attraktivitet formas genom olika konstformer, kommunal- och regional styrning samt genom konstutövare. Uppsatsen är strukturerad utifrån ett antal interjuver gjorda med personer knutna till konst- och kulturverksamhet i Vadstena och Östergötland. Genom kvalitativa intervjuformer har utfallet jämförts med Philip Kotlers platsmarknadsföringsteorier samt Richard Floridas teori om den kreativa klassen. Av uppsatsen framgår att Vadstenas image i stor utsträckning bygger på dess kulturtillgångar men kommunen har även bedrivit ett aktivt varumärkesarbete som knyter an till stadens rika kulturhistoria och det samtida kulturlivet. Fördelana med att vara verksam i Vadstena är många. Bland annat handlar det om närheten till det mesta, det breda kulturutbudet öppenhet och mångfald samt att synas och därmed få sin kreativa identitet bekräftad. Vidare utrycker de konstskapare som intervjuats att de har en relativt fri roll i Vadstena, åtminstone ur ett ekonomiskt perspektiv och att detta kan i sin tur sätta avtryck i konsten.

This thesis focuses on the possibilities of precarity as a perspective in the field of literary studies in order to analyse how insecurity is portrayed in literature. Sweden has a great tradition of proletarian literature, but researchers in the neoliberal era find it problematic to understand the emancipating aspects of the new proletarian literature that does not focus on collective movement and articulated emancipation. This thesis explores the possibilities of precarity as a perspective for analysing how literature narrated through an individual and passive perspective can work as a social critique. The analysis focuses on the novels Kärlekens Antarktis [The Antarctica of Love] by Sara Stridsberg and De afghanska sönerna [The Afghan Sons] by Elin Persson and tries to answer questions about how these novels portray precarity and how the perspective of precarity enables an understanding of how the novels work as social criticism. The thesis mostly uses theories by Judith Butler and Isabell Lorey, and the analysis uses a comparative method in combination with a reading that focuses on the thematics of precarity. This is disposed in connection to Lorey’s three dimensions of precarity – precariousness, precarity, and governmental precarization. The analysis results in an understanding of how these kinds of novels can capture the biopolitical perspective, where politics and life emerge. The reading’s focus on the aspect of the body, followed by the hierarchical and societal aspects, shows how the novels’ individual perspectives can have collective tendencies in connection to the reader’s ability to feel solidarity with the characters.

<p>Ulla Isaksson (1916 – 2000) wrote many novels, often with a woman or several women as protagonists. In <em>Dit du icke vill</em> (“Where Thou Willst Not”) from 1956 she depicts a crisis of faith in a woman, which would not have been successful had she chosen a contemporary setting. She uses an adequate historical framework, the prosecution of witches in Sweden in the 17^th century, well documented in reliable sources. Her novel includes a message about oppression of women, manifest in patriarchal ambition to control ancient wisdom about healing and herbs and the denial of pre-Christian habits that include knowledge about female fertility, earlier exercised by midwives and wise women and men.</p><p>In “The Root of Evil” the novel is placed in a feminist tradition, where the author, like older writers like Fredrika Bremer, Ellen Key and Elin Wägner, pleads for “social mothering”.  A major difference is that, in her own life, Ulla Isaksson has experienced pregnancy, giving birth and breastfeeding which none of the pioneering Swedish feminist writers had. Emilia Fogelklou, pioneering theologian, wrote about witches as wise women, a study that influenced Ulla Isaksson. The witches are described as mirroring Hanna “the Good Mother”. Their fantasies about life at “Blåkulla” are similar to the everyday life at a wealthy farmstead. This kind of mirroring reminds of the theories of Gilbert and Gubar, who assume that female writers in the 19^th Century hid their revolt against patriarchy in mad women, like “The Madwoman in the Attic” in Jane Eyre. In the 1950s, golden age of the Swedish housewife, a female writer might well hide her anger at the circumscribed role model dedicated to women in a similar use of Anti-Women. The real witches clearly contrast the obedient protagonist, a true “Angel in the house”.</p><p>The villagers´ struggle to clear the ground from the ensnaring roots that hinder the male prosecution of witches imply a symbolic reading: this evil root is ancient matriarchal knowledge of childbearing and birth control. A theory on the original causes for the witch hunts in western Europe is introduced: the population sank in the 15^th century and one reason, beside plagues, starvation and warfare, was that women aware of how to prevent childbearing and giving birth to a lot of children were killed during the witch hunt. Churches and kings introduced the prosecution of witches and wise women, including midwives.</p>

Ulla Isaksson (1916 – 2000) wrote many novels, often with a woman or several women as protagonists. In Dit du icke vill (“Where Thou Willst Not”) from 1956 she depicts a crisis of faith in a woman, which would not have been successful had she chosen a contemporary setting. She uses an adequate historical framework, the prosecution of witches in Sweden in the 17th century, well documented in reliable sources. Her novel includes a message about oppression of women, manifest in patriarchal ambition to control ancient wisdom about healing and herbs and the denial of pre-Christian habits that include knowledge about female fertility, earlier exercised by midwives and wise women and men. In “The Root of Evil” the novel is placed in a feminist tradition, where the author, like older writers like Fredrika Bremer, Ellen Key and Elin Wägner, pleads for “social mothering”.  A major difference is that, in her own life, Ulla Isaksson has experienced pregnancy, giving birth and breastfeeding which none of the pioneering Swedish feminist writers had. Emilia Fogelklou, pioneering theologian, wrote about witches as wise women, a study that influenced Ulla Isaksson. The witches are described as mirroring Hanna “the Good Mother”. Their fantasies about life at “Blåkulla” are similar to the everyday life at a wealthy farmstead. This kind of mirroring reminds of the theories of Gilbert and Gubar, who assume that female writers in the 19th Century hid their revolt against patriarchy in mad women, like “The Madwoman in the Attic” in Jane Eyre. In the 1950s, golden age of the Swedish housewife, a female writer might well hide her anger at the circumscribed role model dedicated to women in a similar use of Anti-Women. The real witches clearly contrast the obedient protagonist, a true “Angel in the house”. The villagers´ struggle to clear the ground from the ensnaring roots that hinder the male prosecution of witches imply a symbolic reading: this evil root is ancient matriarchal knowledge of childbearing and birth control. A theory on the original causes for the witch hunts in western Europe is introduced: the population sank in the 15th century and one reason, beside plagues, starvation and warfare, was that women aware of how to prevent childbearing and giving birth to a lot of children were killed during the witch hunt. Churches and kings introduced the prosecution of witches and wise women, including midwives.

This dissertation investigates the way that feminist resistance is expressed in two Swedish and two German so-called New Woman novels from the turn of the twentieth century: Elin Wägner’s Pennskaftet (1910, Penwoman), Gabriele Reuter’s Aus guter Familie (1895, From a Good Family), Hilma Angered-Strandberg’s Lydia Vik (1904), and Grete Meisel-Hess’s Die Intellektuellen (1911). The theoretical apparatus is comprised by the work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Jacques Lacan, and Jessica Benjamin. By introducing a psychoanalytic and feminist perspective, this dissertation seeks to develop the possibilities for agency and resistance within the framework of Foucault’s theories. It investigates four textual and contextually grounded strategies of resistance that are prominent in these novels: individuality, openness, desire, and eugenics. This study demonstrates how Gabriele Reuter, Grete Meisel-Hess, and  Hilma Angered-Strandberg, inspired by the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche and Ellen Key, depict feminine individuality in relation to a scientific and philosophical discourse that specifically denied women individuality. The authors anchor individuality in a corporality that was similarly denied to women by a bourgeois and dogmatic Christian discourse. Openness and wit function as resistance strategies in Elin Wägner’s Pennskaftet. Humorous rejoinders and narrative comments can disarm a conservative. An open attitude towards the emancipation project could also help to resolve the conflicts between different feminist positions and between different women. Desire functions as an important resistance strategy in each of the novels examined. It is variously represented as a vital instinct, a desire for knowledge, and a sexual desire, as in Gabriele Reuter’s Aus guter Familie – or as a desire for suffrage, as in Pennskaftet, or for maternity legislation, as in Grete Meisel-Hess’s Die Intellektuellen. By formulating a notion of feminine desire, turn-of-the-century feminists were able both to seize control of sexuality from the church and to wrest morality from the grasp of the bourgeoisie. These resistance strategies could also have a biopolitical character: in Grete Meisel-Hess’s Die Intellektuellen, woman is placed at the service of humanity on eugenicist grounds, and her good qualities are seen as capable of promoting humanity’s progress. This dissertation shows that in these novels desire at the individual level serves to reinforce feminine subjectivity. Love is seen as associated with an intensified sense of life and as a precondition of creativity. At the social level, desire also functions as the basis for a feeling of solidarity among women that instils in them courage and an urge to persevere in the suffrage struggle, this latter a highly protracted process. In this way desire acquires political potential. A framing chapter on context provides the intellectual and philosophical backgrounds of the various strategies of resistance. It is followed by four analytical chapters, each of which addresses one novel.

Diss. Uppsala : Univ., 2003.