Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka performativa diskurser kring barns kön som framträder i de kollegiala samtalen i förskolan. Metoden som användes var fokusgruppssamtal där deltagarna fick tre dilemman att diskutera kring kopplat till förskolans jämställdhetsarbete. Samtalen spelades in för att sedan kunna transkriberas och analyseras.Resultatet visar på att man kan lyfta ur vissa performativa yttranden som förekommer i samtalen mellan pedagogerna. Yttranden som kan ligga till grund för att pedagoger många gånger bemöter pojkar och flickor olika. Det framkommer att pojkar och flickor tillskrivs olika beteenden som också kan ligga till grund till hur barn formar sina könsidentiteter. Flera pedagoger lyfter också in samhällets och vårdnadshavares normer som en stark faktor vilket påverkar pojkar och flickor, vad man som barn förväntas leva upp till i sin könsroll. Pedagogerna samtalar om maktbegreppet i samband med att mansnormen har en starkare position, att det är generellt mer accepterat att en flicka väljer en pojkroll än att en pojke väljer en flickroll.

Uppsatsen är en redogörelse för en dekonstruktivistisk läsning av Karin Boyes första prosaverk Astarte (1931), utifrån James L. Calderwoods teori om creative uncreation i det poetiska skapandet. Med denna blick på texten så som varande en akt av nedmontering och med utgångspunkt i Judith Butlers teori om könets performativitet, framträder i läsningen av Boyes roman en strävan efter att plocka isär samhälleliga (van)föreställningar och schabloner gällande konsten, poesin, modet osv. i allmänhet och kvinnan, i synnerhet. Analysen är strukturerad efter Calderwoods idé om att det poetiska skapandet kan vara en rörelse från ingenting mot ett någonting eller en rörelse från någonting mot ett ingenting, och är således ordnad i två delar: en som behandlar creation, skapandet av föreställningar, och en rörande creative uncreation, nedmonterandet av dessa. I slutdiskussionen aktualiseras två essäer av Boye, ”Dagdrömmeriet som livsåskådning” och ”Språket bortom logiken”. Boyes tankar kring konst och litteratur som stelnad i konvention och hennes längtan efter ett nytt språk som kan söka sig bortom vedertagna symboler och tecken, sätts här i samband med resultaten för den dekonstruktivistiska läsningen av romanen. Uppsatsen innehåller även en kort redogörelse för Astartes mottagande vid dess utgivning och synen på romanen i tidigare forskning.

The field of rhetorical aesthetics has a long and rich history. Despite that history, however, aesthetic artifacts have yet to be considered with the same weight that conventional rhetorical artifacts are. My project is to consider the rhetorical effectiveness of aesthetic artifacts, making a case for more inclusion of these types of artifacts in rhetorical theory. I will demonstrate the effectiveness of the aesthetic by performing a comparative analysis of both an aesthetic and conventional reaction to the 2019 fires at Notre Dame de Paris. By considering the constitutive power of the aesthetic, I will argue that the depth of analysis that the aesthetic allows makes it, in some cases, a more effective space for rhetorical analysis than conventional artifacts.

The success of teacher strikes is often analyzed according to tangible outcomes, such as salary gains or the prevention of privatization bills. The point of this dissertation, however, is to argue that there are significant intangible outcomes as well. Using the West Virginia teacher strikes of 2018 and 2019 as a case study, I argue that the intangible outcomes of teacher strikes comprise a political-aesthetic education that expands the possibilities for how teachers can live within a neoliberal and patriarchal context. To do this, I develop a theoretical framework using three disparate yet nested concepts: counter-conduct, as used by Michel Foucault; performativity, as used by Judith Butler; and aesthetics, including everyday aesthetics, as used by Yuriko Saito, and somaesthetics, as used by Richard Shusterman. With this theoretical framework, I analyze the West Virginia teacher strikes as both political manifestations and aesthetic experiences. I collected data on the strikes through teachers’ written and spoken first-personal narratives, media interviews, academic books and articles, podcasts, videos, and images. Ultimately, I find that in their strikes, the West Virginia teachers performed counter-conduct against particular characteristics expected of them under neoliberalism and patriarchy. Even though not articulated or asserted, this counter-conduct could be aesthetically experienced through the sensuous and felt dimensions of the strikes. Teachers could feel, see, and hear the performance of alternative ways of being. This experience led to an expansion of possibilities for how teachers live as educators and as persons, even without dismantling the governmentalities of neoliberalism and patriarchy.

Då Disney är en storproducent inom barnkultur kan det vara av intresse att undersöka hur de har framställt karaktärer i sina filmer. Studien fokuserar specifikt på hur genus och kön framställs i två nutida Disneyfilmer då filmerna ger en kontemporär bild på Disneys syn på genus och kön. Studiens fokus är på framställningen av huvud- och bikaraktär i filmerna Trassel och Röjar-Ralf. Studien är kvalitativ och textanalys används som metod för analysen av filmerna. Begreppet den heterosexuella matrisen från Judith Butlers performativa genusteori används i analysen av karaktärerna. Ytterligare används Nikolajevas schema om stereotypa kvinnliga respektive manliga egenskaper för att kategorisera och synliggöra hur karaktärerna är normativa och ickenormativa. Resultaten visar på att karaktärerna upprätthåller de heteronormativa förväntningarna av utseende och sexualitet men har både kvinnliga och manliga egenskaper oberoende av kön. Vidare visar resultaten att karaktärerna i Trassel utvecklas från att vara mer normativa till att vara mer icke-normativa medans i Röjar-Ralf så är de redan från början mer icke-normativa.

The purpose of this study is to see how present the heteronormative is perceived to be within Christian contexts in Sweden today. I have conducted an interview study with priests, pastors, and deacons who either belong to the Swedish Church or the Equmenia Church to get an insight into what their experiences are about norms connected to gender identity and sexuality. I have also included a perspective on the culture of silence that has been shown to be present in previous research to see if it is something the informants have noticed in their workplaces. The interviews have been of a qualitative nature and carried out semi-structured. The material on which the analysis is based is the experiences of the informants. The study's theoretical framework is based on Judith Butler's gender theory of heteronormative and what consequences this can have for those who do not fit into the template for how the norm says a person should be. The results show that heteronormativity is present in the Swedish Christian contexts today, but that there are many people who want to work so that everyone can feel welcome. All informants believe that silence arises in some way related to LGBTQI, even if not all mention a pronounced culture of silence. There is still much to do so that the church can be a safe place for all people, but there are people who want to work for a church that affirms the identities of all people.

One way that children explore concepts of gender is through make-believe and performative play. One of the most prevalent presentations of gender that is packaged for children's play is the Disney Princess brand. In 2007 the Walt Disney Princess campaign profited over four billion dollars and expanded to include over 25,000 items for sale. Princess paraphernalia reflects a change in the way that young girls (ages 3-5) engage in imaginary play by creating a whole new paradigm of thought. As these girls project themselves into the role of a certain Princess, typical play transforms into a consumer based theatrical experience. Girls not only identify with the ideas of playing princess, but of being a Princess as well. Judith Butler examines gender as consisting of performative “acts” that are stylized, repeated, and public. Gender identity usually includes aligning one's self with socially accepted definitions of male or female. Using Butler's idea's about gender performance, this thesis looks closely at the Disney Princess brand and how it contributes to the idea of a gender identity through films, live performances at Disneyland, and merchandise designed for enhancing play. As media and consumerism plays an increasingly large role in children's lives, careful attention must be made to the influence of such brands, especially as the Princesses become defining models of the word female.

Tod und Trauer sind zentrale Motive der Gegenwartsliteratur des 21. Jahrhunderts. Dass dabei zugleich auch Religion und Glaube häufig eine große Rolle spielen, ist ein Hinweis darauf, dass in einer säkularisierten und industrialisierten Welt Gott und Religiosität im Angesicht von Tod und Vergänglichkeit wieder oder immer noch eine maßgebliche Bedeutung einnehmen. Wie begegnen gegenwärtige Erzähltexte dem Thema »Tod und Trauer«, wie positionieren sie sich gegenüber religiösen Ideen und welche Ansätze der Beschäftigung mit metaphysischen Fragen bieten sie an? Diesen Fragen geht die Untersuchung Von der Endlichkeit des Menschen erzählen. Sterben und Tod in der Gegenwartsliteratur anhand der Erzählungen Der Abend nach dem Begräbnis der besten Freundin. von Marlene Streeruwitz, Alice von Judith Hermann und Aller Tage Abend von Jenny Erpenbeck nach. Die Arbeit zeigt auf, dass sich die deutschsprachige Gegenwartsliteratur in ihrer Auseinandersetzung mit Tod und Trauer kritisch-reflexiv ins Verhältnis zu religiösen Vorstellungen, zur Problematik einer geeigneten Sprache und nicht zuletzt zu sich selbst als adäquates Reflexionsmedium der ›großen‹ Menschheitsfragen setzt.

Published in 1977, Wendell Berry's book The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture gained widespread popularity. More than half a century later, many of the notions of the body and the earth presented in its seventh chapter, "The Body and the Earth," remain relevant and important for environmental discourse today. Berry's discussion of the body and the earth examines their mutuality and codependence from an ontological, theological, agricultural, and even biological perspective. The coupling of this text with Judith Butler's, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? contemporizes his argument through its more socio-political and philosophical claims regarding life and the body. Through the discussion of societal frames that often prescribe the value of life and bodies, Butler introduces the concept of precarity, or the imposition of violence and its resultant instability of the body. Driven by the external forces of society, precarity weakens, commodifies, and exploits the body, creating unsustainable social systems. As we learn from Berry, this bodily precarity parallels the violence and mistreatment of the earth. The body, and its ecological and anthropological interconnectedness, establishes both material and immaterial ties to the earth, suggesting that any damage done to the body affects not just itself, but the entire system. In bringing together Butler and Berry through an ecocritical dialogue, a new ethic regarding the formation and meaning of a life emerges, prompting revision of the current societal parameters that establish the definitions of the body and the earth. Berry's resurgent relevance comes from his admonitions to repair the relationships of all bodies and the networks of which they are a part. Thus, the connection between an individual and their body, other bodies, and the earth must be restored for an environmental ethic to both persist and establish productive environmental change.

This poststructuralist research into managerial subjectivity follows ten senior managers’ experience, during significant organizational restructuring in the National Health Service. Located in the North of England the managers were interviewed three times during an eighteen-month period. An autoethnographic component is integral to the study; this recognises the researcher was a practising manager undergoing the same organizational change, whilst researching the field. Judith Butler’s theories provide the principle theoretical framework for the study. Whilst the managers narrated a fantasy of having a ‘true’ and coherent self, the research illustrated how fragile, fleeting and temporary each managerial self is and how passionately attached to their managerial subjectivity (despite how painful) they were. Emotion is presented as inextricably tied up with gender performativity and managerial subjectivity; despite best efforts the emotional ‘dirt’ of organizations cannot be ordered away; there is a constant seepage and spillage of emotion – as illustrated in the vignettes and profiled in the Butlerian deconstruction. During organizational change there was a fear of a social (organizational) death and even the most senior of managers were profoundly vulnerable. This fear and vulnerability heightened in contact with others perceived as more powerful (in critical conversations and interviews). Failure to receive the desired recognition and the risk of being organizationally unintelligible compounded this vulnerability and triggered recurrent, unpredictable patterns of loss, ek-stasis and unravelling of the managerial self. This acute vulnerability during restructuring anticipates and therefore (re) enacts a Machiavellian discourse, one that excuses unethical behaviour and relations as a ‘necessary evil’.