Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur historiska reseberättelser kan användas i svenskundervisning på gymnasiet. Detta gjordes genom en analys av Fredrika Bremers Hemmen i den nya världen (1853–1854) och Henry Morton Stanleys Hur jag fann Livingstone (1872) där genretypiska teman och konflikter identifierades utifrån bland annat Carina Lidströms genrekriterier och personabegrepp. De teman som analyserades är: persona, läsarens man på plats, mötet med andra kulturer samt kvinnligt och manligt. Dessa utgjorde tillsammans med bland annat Kathleen McCormicks litteraturdidaktiska repertoarteori grunden för den avslutande didaktiska diskussionen.  Resultatet visar att både Bremers och Stanleys reseberättelser har många teman och konflikter som lämpar sig för undervisning, bland annat att de visar på ideologiska motstridigheter i sin samtid, och att reseberättelsen som genre har hög didaktisk potential bland annat genom sin position mellan fakta och fiktion. / The aim of this essay is to examine how historical travel writing can be used in the teaching of Swedish in the upper secondary school. This is done by an analysis of Fredrika Bremer’s Homes in the New World (1853–1854) and Henry Morton Stanley’s How I Found Livingstone (1872), where the genre-specific themes and conflicts are identified, using Carina Lidstöm’s genre criterias. The themes are persona; the reader’s ”man on the scene”; meeting of other cultures, and female and male gender roles. Together with Kathleen McCormick’s literary didactic repertoire theory, these themes form the basis for the closing didactic discussion.  The results show that both Bremers’s and Stanley’s travelogues have many themes and conflicts that are suitable for teaching, including signs of ideological contradictions in their time, and that travel writing as a genre has a high didactic potential through its position between fact and fiction.

This thesis argues that King Leopold II, in his exploitation of the Congo, dealt the Congo a future of political, ethnic, and economic destabilization. At one time consisting of unified and advanced kingdoms, the Congo turned to one completely beleaguered by poverty and political oppression. Leopold acquired the Congo through unethical means and thus took the people's chances away at self-rule. He provided for no education or vocational training, which would stunt future Congolese leaders from making sound economic and political policies. Leopold also exploited the Congo with the help of concession companies, both of which used forced labor to extract valuable resources. Millions of Congolese died and the Congo itself became indebted through Belgian loans that were given with no assurance they could ever truly be paid back due to the crippled economy of the Congo. With the Congo now in crippling debt, the current president, Joseph Kabila, has little incentive to invest in reforms or public infrastructure, which stunts economic growth.1 For over a century the Congo has been ruled by exploitative and authoritarian regimes due to Leopold's initial acquisition. The colonization from Leopold lasted from 1885-1908, and then he sold it to his home country of Belgium who ruled the Congo from 1908 to 1960. Belgium helped prop up a dictator named Joseph Mobutu or Mobutu Sese Seko who ruled from 1965 to 1997. Afterwards he was overthrown by the Kabila family who has continued the exploitative rule and has made no significant efforts at democratization or reforms. Thus the ethnic conflicts, political oppression and economic woes that the Congo is facing today are inevitably linked to its Leopoldian past.