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The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the impression from a travel to Sweden of two travellers from distinct historical periods: Mary Wollstonecraft, who was an Enlightenment representative from Great Britain, and Gabriel Morris, a contemporary traveller and YouTube-filmmaker from Canada. The proposition is that there is no such thing as “an innocent eye”; that the nature of our perceiving the reality is a product (or a construct) of our social environment, upbringing, education, age, ethnicity, or nationality. For this thesis I read Mary Wollstonecraft´s Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and I watched Gabriel Morris´s videos from the journey to Sweden on his YouTube-channel. I have described the journey to Sweden of those two protagonists and put it later into context of their historical backgrounds. The main issue has been whether there are differences in their perceiving Swedish nature, people, and culture, and what these differences are based upon. On the other hand, what can be thought of as uniting these two travellers – based on a simple fact that they both were only visiting the country for a short time? The conclusion I made is that their historical background has affected their experiencing the country; while the common ground could be found in the nature of tourism itself.

Socialdemokraternas partistyrelse tillsatte 1989 en arbetsgrupp för att undersöka och presentera problemställningar och eventuella lösningar till dessa inför det svenska 90-talet. Genom denna arbetsgrupp skrevs debattboken 90-talsprogrammet som är huvudmaterialet för undersökningen. I 90-talsprogrammet placeras medborgaren som en viktig del av deras syn på mål och problemformuleringar. Inför 80-talet skrevs även då, en debattbok av relevans Det nödvändiga uppbrottet. Den bokens relevans används som en exemplifiering av yttradeåsikter under perioden innan 90-talsprogrammet. Med detta som bakgrund är undersökningens syfte att undersöka vilken syn 90-talprogrammets författare hade på medborgaren inom olika områden i samhället såsom arbetslivet och utbildning. Tidigare forskning och teorier om medborgarens roll i samhället utgör bakgrunden till undersökningen. Medborgaren som konsument och ett aktivt medborgarskap är de teman som lyfts inom den teoretiska utgångspunkterna. Till denna bakgrund kan man se en skiftning i synen på medborgarens ansvar. Genom att undersöka 90-talsprogrammet och analysera materialet utifrån teorin och genom att jämföra synsätt från olika perioder, kan man skapa en bild av hur socialdemokraternas syn på medborgaren sett ut och varit betydelsefull under denna period.

This study explores the ideological causes for restrictions on eating and drinking in Sweden during an approximate period from the year 1600 until 1720.Drawing on Michel Foucault´s theory of societal control in early modern Europe, a view on society is adapted, presupposing the control to be executed on grossly three levels: one national, one intermediary and one individual. The research material consists of normative texts, grouped into three sections, according to the position of their assumed receivers: in the first section are sumptuary laws, applying nationwide; in the second are texts giving instructions to heads of smaller communities on housekeeping and restraints; and in the third section are texts directed to individuals. In each group, statements of food and drink restrictions will be qualitatively analysed, with a focus on the ideological driving forces. The result of the study is of interest, since previous research exposes divergent opinions of reasons for consumption restrictions generally, and since food and drink is a category mostly neglected.

Uppsatsen är en studie av hur tre svenska resenärer till Ottomanska riket under 1700-talet framställer Orienten i sina skrifter och huruvida dessa framställningar kan sägas vara orientalism i Edward Saids bemärkelse. Michael Eneman reste på Karl XII:s uppdrag till området i början av 1700-talet. Hans reseskildring gavs ut postumt nästan tvåhundra år senare. Fredric Hasselquist var en lärjunge till Carl von Linné, vars reseskrift gavs ut av Linné efter Hasselquists död. Johan David Åkerblad tillbringade en stor del av sin ungdom på resa i Ottomanska riket. Han har inte efterlämnat någon reseskildring men väl brev och en anteckningsbok. Genom att studera de framställningar av Orienten som förekommer i dessa skrifter kan man se en tydlig skillnad mellan den närmast pietistiske Eneman, som ondgör sig över andra kristna inriktningar och deras irrläror, Hasselquist, som förhåller sig intresserat neutral till religionen och snarast betraktar religiösa föreställningar med en vetenskaplig blick som de naturalier han studerar under sin resa, och Åkerblad som är relativt ointresserad av religion och menar att det bibliska inte alls väcker samma starka känslor hos honom som de antika lämningar han ser. Det finns hos de tre resenärerna mycket få generaliserande och nedsättande kommentarer om de folkslag de möter och inte heller många jämförelser med Europa eller Sverige där de samhällen de besöker beskrivs som underlägsna. Därmed är det svårt att använda termen orientalism i Saids bemärkelse för dessa resenärer som kom från ett land utan koloniala ambitioner mot muslimska områden. Istället bör dessa resenärer snarast jämföras med samtida tyska orientalister vars huvudsakliga intresse för Orienten hade sin grund i religionen men senare även alltmer i historiska och filologiska problem.

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This thesis concerns the use of makeup by men during the late eighteenth century andthroughout the nineteenth century. The purpose is to study the discourse of makeup duringthis period, but with special focus on the man’s problematic use of makeup. To analyze this Ihave used toilet booklets (toiletthäften) as my main source of material and used discourseanalysis to analyze the material. In this thesis I discuss the view of using makeup among men. The concept andword “beauty” and the relationship between makeup and the new cleanliness practices thatemerged during the 19th century. Results show that makeup was seen as something very treacherous, whetherit was worn by men or women. The word “beauty” was in itself described as a woman andthis could have played a part in why men were urged not to openly show that they caredabout their appearance. The hygienic practices may have had a connection to the practice ofmakeup, but more research is needed. Key words: makeup, masculinity, beauty, hygiene.

In the early 17th century, Aristotelian ideas about the passions came under scrutiny. The dominant, if not only, understanding of the passions before that time came from Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas split most of his main passions into opposing pairs - love/hate, joy/sorrow, fear/bravery etc. Aquinas described the opposite of desire as 'fuga seu abominatio (flight or abomination).' Although grappled with by earlier philosophers such as Duns Scotus and Thomas Cajetan, it was not until the 17th century that thinkers attempted to challenge Aquinas's opposite of desire. This thesis looks at five writers who used a variety of terms, often taken to be near-synonyms of disgust in the historiography - Thomas Wright, Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth, Thomas Hobbes, Henry More and Isaac Watts - and challenges that view. Each of these men wrote works that, at least in part, attempted to understand the passions and each had a different understanding of Aquinas's opposite of desire. The thesis uses a corpus analysis to investigate uses of the words each thinker chose as an opposite of desire and then examines each writers' influences, experiences, and intentions, to analyse their understanding of the opposite of desire. Secondly, these various opposites of desire appear to bare a family resemblance to modern disgust. All are based upon the action of moving away from something thought of as harmful or evil, and all have an element of revulsion alongside the repulsion. This has led to much of the historiography of these sorts of passions making the assumption that these words simply referred to disgust. This thesis argues that these opposites of desire are not the same as disgust; the differences outweigh the similarities.

This qualitative thesis analyses the development of Marxian thought on riots and revolution in the works of Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou. Due to the structural limitations of this essay, the research has been limited to a comparison between Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and a selection of Žižek and Badiou’s works. Furthermore, the scope of the essay focuses on two material events; the coup d’état of Louis Bonaparte and the England riots of 2011. The comparison was concretised through the usage of Ludvig Beckman’s model for idea analysis and the method of ideal types. This study demonstrated how the modern theorists remain loyal to Marx’s basic analysis of society and concepts such as alienation and exploitation. However, the deterministic and eschatological aspects of Marx’s philosophy have been abandoned for a less ineluctable history, and resonate more towards the Hegelian notion of an open history. This study has also elucidated and cemented the vital importance of the material circumstances in a historical materialist study; moreover, it has revealed the necessity for the modern theorists to reinvent and radicalise a number of Marx’s original concepts for the modern world. Žižek and Badiou also contest Marx’s insistence on the requisite nature of violent revolution, and promote the politics of subtraction as an alternative.

This thesis discusses Descartes' conception and negotiation, in the period from 1637 to 1648, of the responsibilities arising from teaching. His concerns spring particularly from the teaching of sceptical arguments, and from his efforts to maintain his project's integrity as his followers take it up. My argument is twofold: that such responsibilities were a persistent and prominent concern through this crucial period in his career, and that they offered terms of criticism within which major early responses to his work, friendly and hostile, were formulated. In Chapter 1, I show how these concerns shape the Principia. Chapter 2 argues that Descartes' conception of his responsibilities are rooted in a widespread early modern conception of the risks of scepticism, and that they are visible, within the Discours, in his remarks about exemplarity and publication, as well as in the actual business of publishing the text. In Chapter 3, these concerns are linked to a positive conception of the gains Descartes hoped to secure for his students against pressures within Aristotelianism. Finally, in Chapter 4, I show that Descartes' critics mobilise this understanding to frame early attacks on the interactions between Cartesianism and existing scholastic institutions. In closing, I suggest three directions in which to develop historiographical issues raised in the thesis.