<p>The aim of this essay is to investigate the function and development of non-player characters (NPC) in the TV/computer game <em>Dragon Age: Origins</em>. The NPCs are analysed in order to see if their development is affected by the player character’s (PC) background and interactions. The game’s ethics is also investigated by studying how the NPCs treat the PC and what significance they give to his background and actions.</p><p>The results show that the NPCs are affected by the PC’s interactions, and furthermore, that they are round characters, which is unusual in TV/computer games. The NPC Alistair and the PC are vital for the game’s story, while the NPCs Leliana and Morrigan have a moral and psychological function. The NPCs are moral indicators and by either opposing or accepting the PC’s actions they show their own personality. The game’s norm is created by the player/PC. Also, the game sheds light on the player’s moral actions and gives the player a chance to reflect over his/her choices and the consequences thereof.</p><p>The results give way to a discussion on how games like <em>Dragon Age: Origins</em> can be used in learning. Through interactions and by letting the player project his/her own identity onto the PC, TV/computer games can show the consequences of actions. Since the player is not only told the story, but ‘lives’ it, the moral choices faced in the game make the player practice being responsible and facing moral dilemmas as if in real life, hence enriched by new experiences.</p>

I denna uppsats har jag undersökt hur jag som ämneslärare i musik och svenska på högstadiet kan aktualisera William Shakespeares pjäs En midsommarnattsdröm få eleverna studiemotiverade samtidigt som det ska främja deras utveckling ur ett mångkulturellt perspektiv. Med aktionsforskning som huvudmetod har jag utifrån läroplanen och hjälpmedel via intermedialitet som pedagogiskt verktyg, det vill säga olika medier och adaptioner, undersökt detta. Skolverket är en av de största källorna för mitt underlag förutom den empiri jag samlat in under undersökningen. Sedan använder jag mig av olika teorier om lärande, dramatik, pedagogik, didaktik, intermedialitet och litteratur om Shakespeare och En midsommarnattsdröm. Jag har undersökt dramats olika teman, ämnen och sakfrågor som anses aktuella även i vår tid och återkopplar innehllet i läro- och kursplaner. Detta för att belysa eventuella problem som uppstår med elever som är omotiverade eller som har svårt för skönlitteratur eller det svenska språket. Jag har prövat, reviderat och omprövat olika teorier jag funnit till underlag för att planera de lektionsupplägg jag skapat och har försökt utforma en lektionsmall som ska kunna bearbetas och anpassas av lärare. Jag har alltså undersökt om och i så fall hur denna lektionsmall skulle vara möjlig att genomföra och vad resultatet skulle generera samt vilka svårigheter jag som lärare möter och hur jag handskas med dessa. Att samarbeta ämnesöverskridande, där eleverna i detta fall arbetar med William Shakespeares pjäs En midsommarnattsdröm i både musik- och svenskämnet skapar utrymme för olika förutsättningar men för att dessa ska kunna bidra till lärande innebär det att dessa också måste bejakas. Ämnesöverskridande samarbete är ett av flera nyckelord i denna undersökning och i det här fallet är definitionen av begreppet den när elever arbetar med ett och samma projekt i två eller flera ämnen samtidigt. Jag har genom denna undersökning arbetat fram en mall för undervisning inom detta område. Mallen är skapad för att kunna bearbetas utifrån olika ämnen och förutsättningar. Mallen är inget facit men utgör en god grund att arbeta utifrån.

Uppsatsens ämne berör användningen av intermedialitet för att förmedla ett narrativ i Dante Gabriel Rossettis verk Lady Lilith och Sibylla Palmifera. I uppsatsen undersöks hur Rossetti problematiserar den samtida kvinnosynen. Med intermedialitet menas användningen av två medier i samma verk, i detta fall sonett och måleri. Syftet är att undersöka hur Dante Gabriel Rossetti problematiserade den rådande tudelade synen på kvinnan som antingen ond eller god. Den intermediala teorin som används bygger på W.T.J. Mitchells teori om relationen mellan bild och text, vad dessa medier tillför varandra samt skillnaden mellan dem. Genom analyser av både text och måleri undersöks de bägge verkens ikonologi. Dispositionen består av tre avsnitt. Det första avsnittet fungerar som en bakgrund till de övriga två avsnitten. Avsnitt två och tre består av enskilda analyser av de bägge verken med tillhörande texter.  Resultatet visar att Dante Gabriel Rossetti med dessa verk problematiserar dualiteten i den samtida kvinnosynen. Genom att använda mytologiska kvinnogestalter skapar Rossetti en mer nyanserad bild av synen på kvinnan under den viktorianska epoken. Användningen av sonett och måleri tillsammans fungerar väl i Lady Lilith då verket får en fördjupad inre mening. I dubbelverket Sibylla Palmifera relaterar dock sonett och målning inte lika bra med varandra.

<p>What is the relation of image and word, of sentences and pictures? What kind of message does this combination produce when juxtaposed on a single material plane? And how do we read its “infinite” relation? These are the questions at the center of this inquiry. My main interest concerns the exact nature of the relation between photographic images and textual elements of poetic language when these are juxtaposed in what I call Phototext poetry.</p><p>The thesis calls into question the conventional reading habits of the conjunction of photographs and texts, and seeks to understand the more complex connections intrinsic to the relation image/word and its material and perceptual play in poetic works. Does a text always “anchor” the multiple meanings of an image, as Roland Barthes argues? What if the alterations of an image could “anchor” certain fractions of a poetic, polysemantic textual construct? Is a photograph indifferent to the visual, material permutations of texts that certain contemporary poetic practices produce?</p><p>I discuss phototextual works and collaborations of various kinds, from Molin fontän [“Molin’s fountain”] (1866) over classic surrealist poetry to language-oriented writing. This last interest also shows (with ambiguity) in the thesis’ two close readings: 23:23 (2006) by Swedish poet Marie Silkeberg and The Tango (2001) by American poet Leslie Scalapino. Throughout the study, I also put these in relation to other works of various, and related, kinds, such as artists’ books, concrete poetry, and phototexts in 20th century art.</p><p>My theoretization of phototext poetry focuses on questions of function. My perspective on the phototextual meeting in poetry is therefore concerned, not with taxonomy, but with local, contingent definitions. That is not to say, however, that certain things cannot be attributed to its particular, juxtaposed form. An “unthinkable space” (Michel Foucault), the relation between verbal and visual derives its dynamics from the different ways it actually makes itself “thinkable” and, furthermore, is materially represented. From Craig Dworkin’s conception of illegibility, Jacques Ranciere’s term phrase-image, and Roland Barthes’s obtuse meaning, I try to weave a network of connections concerning the reader’s relation to the photo/text conjunction. My argument that a certain phrase can cooperate with a certain part of an image, that a photo can “anchor” a specific meaning in a polysemantic text, and that the typographical appearance of a text may well have a plastic quality, also suggests a reading that focuses on systems of verbivisual parts and contingent intermedial meetings rather than the stable relation of a determining text and a determined image. In sum, I argue that the relation of photographs and texts must always be approached as a local problem.</p><p>My second argument is that the phototext is a self-reflexive form – it investigates itself, as it were. When a photograph and a (poetic) text are juxtaposed, they try to define their own media characteristics. In short, they often investigate the premises for phototextual documentation, communication, and aesthetics. The phototextual form therefore shares a photographic trait, as a “process of rendering observation self-conscious” (John Berger).</p><p>I also trace the supplementariness and discursiveness of the relation between image and word, and investigate how it affects our reading of this “disjunctive conjunction”. The text and the image run through each other, both inside and among us, as Rancière would have it. This, in turn, produces a contemporary approach to aesthetics (as a term and philosophical tradition) in this thesis, which involves the practice as much as the aesthetic perception of the phototextual combination. However, I also see as necessary to negotiate with the ways in which the image-word relation has been theorized since the early eighteenth century, as well as with earlier, even ancient, conceptions.</p><p>In short, the aim of this thesis is to conceptualize the relation of photographs and texts in phototext poetry, not by destroying the dualistic positions of the visual and the verbal, but rather by re-negotiating them: by approaching them as located inside as well as between these two media, image and text. The relation of photographs and poetic text, I therefore suggest, performs its work “inside” language, at the same time opening up towards the “infinity of language” (Barthes).</p>

What is the relation of image and word, of sentences and pictures? What kind of message does this combination produce when juxtaposed on a single material plane? And how do we read its “infinite” relation? These are the questions at the center of this inquiry. My main interest concerns the exact nature of the relation between photographic images and textual elements of poetic language when these are juxtaposed in what I call Phototext poetry. The thesis calls into question the conventional reading habits of the conjunction of photographs and texts, and seeks to understand the more complex connections intrinsic to the relation image/word and its material and perceptual play in poetic works. Does a text always “anchor” the multiple meanings of an image, as Roland Barthes argues? What if the alterations of an image could “anchor” certain fractions of a poetic, polysemantic textual construct? Is a photograph indifferent to the visual, material permutations of texts that certain contemporary poetic practices produce? I discuss phototextual works and collaborations of various kinds, from Molin fontän [“Molin’s fountain”] (1866) over classic surrealist poetry to language-oriented writing. This last interest also shows (with ambiguity) in the thesis’ two close readings: 23:23 (2006) by Swedish poet Marie Silkeberg and The Tango (2001) by American poet Leslie Scalapino. Throughout the study, I also put these in relation to other works of various, and related, kinds, such as artists’ books, concrete poetry, and phototexts in 20th century art. My theoretization of phototext poetry focuses on questions of function. My perspective on the phototextual meeting in poetry is therefore concerned, not with taxonomy, but with local, contingent definitions. That is not to say, however, that certain things cannot be attributed to its particular, juxtaposed form. An “unthinkable space” (Michel Foucault), the relation between verbal and visual derives its dynamics from the different ways it actually makes itself “thinkable” and, furthermore, is materially represented. From Craig Dworkin’s conception of illegibility, Jacques Ranciere’s term phrase-image, and Roland Barthes’s obtuse meaning, I try to weave a network of connections concerning the reader’s relation to the photo/text conjunction. My argument that a certain phrase can cooperate with a certain part of an image, that a photo can “anchor” a specific meaning in a polysemantic text, and that the typographical appearance of a text may well have a plastic quality, also suggests a reading that focuses on systems of verbivisual parts and contingent intermedial meetings rather than the stable relation of a determining text and a determined image. In sum, I argue that the relation of photographs and texts must always be approached as a local problem. My second argument is that the phototext is a self-reflexive form – it investigates itself, as it were. When a photograph and a (poetic) text are juxtaposed, they try to define their own media characteristics. In short, they often investigate the premises for phototextual documentation, communication, and aesthetics. The phototextual form therefore shares a photographic trait, as a “process of rendering observation self-conscious” (John Berger). I also trace the supplementariness and discursiveness of the relation between image and word, and investigate how it affects our reading of this “disjunctive conjunction”. The text and the image run through each other, both inside and among us, as Rancière would have it. This, in turn, produces a contemporary approach to aesthetics (as a term and philosophical tradition) in this thesis, which involves the practice as much as the aesthetic perception of the phototextual combination. However, I also see as necessary to negotiate with the ways in which the image-word relation has been theorized since the early eighteenth century, as well as with earlier, even ancient, conceptions. In short, the aim of this thesis is to conceptualize the relation of photographs and texts in phototext poetry, not by destroying the dualistic positions of the visual and the verbal, but rather by re-negotiating them: by approaching them as located inside as well as between these two media, image and text. The relation of photographs and poetic text, I therefore suggest, performs its work “inside” language, at the same time opening up towards the “infinity of language” (Barthes).

The field of video game studies has through later years shown a growing interest in game's spatialfeatures, along with their narrative implications. By introducing earlier findings of spatialmanifestations of dreams and psychological content in narrative works, with regards to their medialrepresentation into this discussion, I hope to conjoin video game research (better known asludology) with a line of psychoanalytic inquiry, which hitherto seems to have been left unexploredwithin media research.    While establishing a viewpoint through the interdisciplinary field of media research andpsychoanalysis, my intention is to broach a discussion on the possibilities of expanding itsviewpoints and theoretical frameworks unto the video game medium. In the present thesis I will forthis purpose center the discussion on the dreamlike Portal games, developed by Valve Corporation,which manages to enact a psychologically interesting narrative content largely through its spatialfeatures, as well as their game mechanics.    The psychoanalytic approach I intend to adopt for this study will, apart from taking mediaspecifications into account, also necessarily, following Gilles Deleuzes and Félix Guattaris focus onthe historical-political situation in their critique of earlier psychoanalytic inquiry, be directedtowards a societal context while addressing the individual works. I will thus, while analyzingspatial-psychological implications of works in different media, be regarding contemporary topics ofcultural phenomena and theories on human psychology as important factors for the forms ofexpression and thematic content, which contemporary cultural artifacts may take.    The term transmediality, which below will be discussed in appliance to psychoanalytic inquiry,refers in this thesis to the definition outlined by the literary scholar Irina Rajewsky, who situates itsemergence in an ongoing development in the field of the interconnected narratology and intermedialstudy, in which I hope to engage and contribute.

The aim of this essay is to investigate the function and development of non-player characters (NPC) in the TV/computer game Dragon Age: Origins. The NPCs are analysed in order to see if their development is affected by the player character’s (PC) background and interactions. The game’s ethics is also investigated by studying how the NPCs treat the PC and what significance they give to his background and actions. The results show that the NPCs are affected by the PC’s interactions, and furthermore, that they are round characters, which is unusual in TV/computer games. The NPC Alistair and the PC are vital for the game’s story, while the NPCs Leliana and Morrigan have a moral and psychological function. The NPCs are moral indicators and by either opposing or accepting the PC’s actions they show their own personality. The game’s norm is created by the player/PC. Also, the game sheds light on the player’s moral actions and gives the player a chance to reflect over his/her choices and the consequences thereof. The results give way to a discussion on how games like Dragon Age: Origins can be used in learning. Through interactions and by letting the player project his/her own identity onto the PC, TV/computer games can show the consequences of actions. Since the player is not only told the story, but ‘lives’ it, the moral choices faced in the game make the player practice being responsible and facing moral dilemmas as if in real life, hence enriched by new experiences.

This essay examines through a postcolonial analysis of the intermedial aspects of comicbooks how stereotypes and depictions of the Other and the alien are formed in Tintin au Congo and Tintin en Amérique. The aim has been to call attention to the importance of the relationship between text and image to create meaning, as well as to gain a deeper insight into how different stereotypes are created and their function. Hergé illustrated the Tintin-books according to something that would come to be known as ”The Clear Line”, a way of drawing that focused on the readbility of the images. In this essay I argue that the simplicity of these readable images were used in his work as comic relief but also to create an awareness of deeper social issues in the world. There is a notable difference between Tintin au Congo and Tintin en Amérique where in the first album Hergé seems to be governed by these stereotypes, fully embracing them without questioning. In the second one however he is consciously and playfully using these images to make the reader aware of the problems with Othering, simultaneously using recognizable symbols that everyone can understand but with a critical gaze that not only reveals these problems but also condemns them. The use of these symbols and stereotypes highlights the importance of the relationship between text and image, as signification and meaning can differ depending on translation and the words used.

I skolans läseböcker används ofta bilder som stöd för läsningen. Men om bilder kräver att läsaren förstår bildkaraktärers sinnestillstånd riskerar de att hindra läsförståelsen hos elever med outvecklad mentaliseringsförmåga, vilka kan finnas bland exempelvis barn med autismspektrumtillstånd. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur mentaliseringskrävande bilder och relationen mellan ord och bild i läseböckerna Den magiska kulan 1A och Den magiska kulan 1C för årskurs 1 påverkar möjligheten till läsförståelse för elever med outvecklad mentaliseringsförmåga. Som utgångspunkt ligger intermediala studier och Langers teori om läsning som ett byggande av föreställningsvärldar. Läsebokens bild och skrivna text utgör likvärdigt meningsbärande textmodaliteter som tolkas i läsarens möte med texten. Genom kvalitativ innehållsanalys undersöks bilders mentaliseringskrav, samt omfattning och form av läsförståelsestöd som ges genom den skrivna texten. Resultatet visar att stora delar av materialet kräver mentaliseringsförmåga för läsförståelse. Den skrivna textens explicita uttryck av mentaliseringskrävande bildelement gör merparten av läseböckernas innehåll tillgängligt. Samtidigt utgör en betydande andel av bilderna hinder för läsförståelse genom implicit eller utebliven stöttning i den skrivna texten, främst i texter med kompletterande berättelseform.

This essay aims to investigate intermedial studies and to analyze the intermedial narrative that appears out of the cooperation between music, lyrics and song cover of the Swedish progressive djent metal band Vildhjarta. The narrative that appears out of the intermedial cooperation between the medias is then analyzed with literal studies and narratological concepts to put intermedial studies into a bigger context. This essay also explores different intertextual connections to other works of literature which shows is quite a lot. Since previous research about progressive metal and the band Vildhjarta is practically nonexistent research from the closely related genres of black metal and death metal have been applied to create a new base of previous research. The research in this essay concludes that Vildhjarta, in sometimes complex ways, use different medias to create and amplify the narrative and they also include a lot of different intertextual connections. / Den här uppsatsen undersöker det narrativ som uppstår i det intermediala samspelet mellan musik, låttext och låtomslag. Narrativet undersöks sedan med hjälp av litteraturvetenskapliga och narratologiska begrepp för att sätta in den intermediala analysen i ett större kontextualiserande perspektiv. I uppsatsen undersöks även intertextuella kopplingar och det framkommer flera referenser och kopplingar till andra litterära verk. Då forskningsläget kring genren men även bandet i princip är icke existerande har i stället forskning om black metal och death metal använts för att skapa ett användbart forskningsläge. I resultatet framkommer det att Vildhjarta på ett komplext vis använder olika medier för att skapa och förstärka narrativet men även att de olika låtarna innehåller mängder med intertextuella kopplingar.