The purpose with this essay is to investigate how different theories about literary competence can help us understand why Sven Delblanc’s novel Änkan and Mara Lee’s novel Ladies have generated so many various interpretations as they have. To fulfill this purpose a comparative study of book reviews about the two novels Änkan and Ladies has been made. The theories about literary competence that have been used in this study are Joseph Appleyard’s theory about reader-roles, Judith Langer’s theory about imaginary worlds and Magnus Persson’s theory about genre perspectives. The results that are presented in this study are that those book reviews that express expectations about the novels as being genre-typical are often more disappointed about the reading experience than those readers who have expectations about the novels as being genre-transgressing and with deeper meaning. The discussion about genres has therefore given an interesting perspective about the correlation between the readers’ expectations and the many, various interpretations that follow.

This papers purpose is to compare the female protagonist as a subject and reader in Madame Bovary, Watermelon and Bridget Jones´s diary. The aim is feministic, where Judith Butler’s concepts of subjectivity and performativity have been used besides the method of close reading. These novels are pioneering works of each genre; the realistic novel and chick lit. Emma Bovary loses her subjectivity and turns in to a passive object when she is desired and looked at by men. Instead dead objects gets animated, which produces an extremely objectifying portrait of Emma. This culminates with the depiction of her suicide. Surprisingly Emma’s position as a subject, if she ever has one, appears through her reading. The performativity of the texts gives her power and agency to try to change her life within the limits of the bourgeoisie marriage. The protagonists of Watermelon and Bridget Jones´s diary are two female subjects in a modern society, who loves reading. Despite their different opportunities to live fulfilling lives, as compared to Emma, they tend to objectify themselves in relationship to men. They also emphasize the importance of love and having a man in their life, which is according to the genre. Interpreted through Butler, an explanation could be that the power of submission not only sets the outer limits, it also influences our internal desires. These chick lit-novels also discuss literature and cultural hierarchy, where the protagonists tend to prefer popular literature. Watermelon also contains an opening for subversion, depicted by Claire’s achieved independency at the end of the novel, and through some gender-parodies. Most of all, these two chick lit-novels tend to reiterate and consolidate a traditional gender-order through their performativity, although ironizing over the same. Keywords: Reading, genre, realistic novel, chick lit, feminism, Judith Butler, subjectivity, performativity, Madame Bovary, Watermelon, Bridget Jones´s diary. / Uppsatsens syfte har varit att analysera och jämföra den kvinnliga protagonisten som subjekt och läsare i tre romaner; Madame Bovary, Vattenmelonen och Bridget Jones dagbok. Metoden har varit närläsning och den teoretiska ingången feministisk och normkritisk. Judit Butlers teorier har varit tongivande, inte minst begreppen subjekt och performativitet. Resultaten visade bland annat att Emma Bovary tenderar att förlora sin roll som subjekt och förvandlas till ett passivt objekt när hon blir betraktad och åtrådd av män. Istället animeras döda ting som får liv och börjar agera som subjekt, vilket skapar en extremt objektifierad gestaltning av Emma som kulminerar i gestaltningen av hennes självmord. Om det alls går att finna någon subjektsposition hos Emma, uppstår den paradoxalt nog genom hennes läsning. Texternas performativitet skapar förvisso orimliga förväntningar på kärleken, men får även Emma att förändra sitt liv inom de snäva ramar 1800-talets borgerliga äktenskap innebär. Protagonisterna i Vattenmelonen och Bridget Jones dagbok är två kvinnliga subjekt som lever i ett modernt samhälle och liksom Emma älskar de att läsa. I dessa romaner förs även en diskussion kring litteratur och kulturella hierarkier. Alla tre protagonister i de undersökta romanerna kan kategoriseras som passionerade läsare och de föredrar att läsa populärlitteratur. I Vattenmelonen och Bridget Jones dagbok har protagonisterna helt andra förutsättningar till självförverkligande och att leva ett självständigt liv, jämfört med Emma Bovary. Trots detta tenderar både Claire och Bridget att objektifiera sig i sina relationer till män. De verbaliserar ofta vikten av kärlek och att ha en man i sitt liv, vilket också är genretypiskt. Tolkat enligt Butler (och Foucault) är förklaringen till detta ”frivilliga” förtryck att underordning inte enbart skapas genom yttre begränsningar, utan även genom påverkan av människors inre, via internaliserade drömmar och önskningar. I Vattenmelonen finns trots allt en subversiv ansats, vilken gestaltas genom Claires nyvunna självständighet i slutet av romanen, samt i förekomsten av ett antal genusparodier. Mest av allt tenderar dock dessa två chick lit-romaner att återupprepa och befästa traditionella genusmönster, trots att de samtidigt ironiserar över dessa.

<p>The aim of this study is to analyse how pornography is used in the American comics X-Men, published by Marvel under the authorship of Chris Claremont.</p><p>I have applied Butler and MacKinnons theories about pornography as a performative speech, to this special art form. I have also investigated how censorship has influenced the comics evolution and whether it has affected the way women and sexual and ethnical minorities are represented. To corroborate how these theories apply, I have analysed three main female fig-ures in The X-Men comics - Storm, Phoenix and Shadowcat - and I have tried to identify how they relate to existing stereotypes.</p><p>The conclusion of this essay is that the women characters in X-Men break the existing stereo-types and create new implications. This reinforces Butler’s theory about the possibility to re-verse hate speech and diminishes MacKinnons perspective of pornography as an imperative.</p>

<p>This is a study of the novel <em>Mes mauvaises pensées</em> (2005) by the French writer Nina Bouraoui. I use an intertextual comparative method, where I read the novel against three intertexts: Marie Cardinal <em>Les mots pour le dire</em> (1975), the David Lynch movie <em>Mulholland Drive </em>(2001) and novels and photographies by Hervé Guibert. Main focus is on the relation between body and language. Using the psychoanalytic theories by Julia Kristeva I examine the melancholy of the narrator in <em>Mes mauvaises pensées</em>. The melancholic subject mourns a Thing which is the unrepresentable archaic mother. Melancholy is connected to the notion of exile; the subject belongs to a lost place in the past which it is still holding on to. The narrator of <em>Mes mauvaises pensées</em> is still living in her childhood, even though she is a grown up woman. I show how the place from where she speaks is the child. The female body and the female sexuality are not represented in the text, there is a missing link between the female body and it’s representation in language – in the symbolic order. According to Kristeva the melancholic denies the loss of the Thing – in the end the mother – and clings to the unrepresentable void. By realizing and acknowledging the loss one can reconstruct the bond to the archaic mother in language. Bouraoui’s failure in writing <em>the feminine</em> into the text is interesting because it puts lights on the conditions of writing the body for women. The theory of l’écriture féminine is an inspiration for the analyses and I contrast it to Judith Butler’s idea of gender performativity. There is a conflict in what constitutes gender and sex between psychoanalysis and queer theory, which is also found in the narrator in Bouraoui’s novel – trying to create herself through pure performativity she never succeeds to act independently of the mother and the female body.</p>

<p>“ if you only read the book … you get the knowledge into your head once. If you talk about it, you get a more distinct memory of it, I think” (Emma, 11)</p><p>This thesis shows how a novel by Maj Bylock, Drakskeppet, was used in education within thematic work, the Viking Age, among ten-year-olds and eleven-year-olds for five weeks. The aim of the project was to investigate if and how pupils create or develop an historical consciousness when they had written and talked about the text in a novel. The study examines and analyses how three pupils in particular look upon history and ‘time’ in this process and if identification with characters in the novel takes place.</p><p>In the theoretical framework, which focuses on Judith Langer and her theories on ‘envisionment building’, that is on how children create text worlds , a general survey presents research findings about how children (10-12 years) interpret fiction. Furthermore the very complex construct of ‘historical consciousness’ is discussed.</p><p>In the second part, the study is described and its results are discussed: When these children form their personal historical consciousness their focus on the past and the present is apparent, while they have few links to the future. From the way characters’ lives are presented in Drakskeppet these young readers notice social differences in this fictional society of the past. Even though they also see parallels with the time they live in, they often conclude that ”things were worse” in the past. Another result is that an historical consciousness is generally developed when children can emotionally connect to their own lives.</p><p>A second conclusion drawn in the analysis of this project is that children should read fiction to learn about and understand History. In thematic work of this kind, pupils are offered opportunities to develop their reading and interpreting capacities even though the purpose of the work is the emergence of the pupils’ historical consciousness. It should be understood from this investigation, though, that reading without talking about the texts seems to have very little effect on how children develop their understanding of texts or an historical consciousness.</p>

The present dissertation examines constructions of femininity in the lyrical and didactical works of Elisabeth von Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1510-1558). It shows how this widow ruler and promoter of the reformation transforms and re-interprets contemporary ideas about women and gender according to her own personal interests, and how gender roles are thus negotiated in her texts. In accordance with current theoretical ideas about subjectivity, discourse, and gender, it is shown among other things how Elisabeth von Braunschweig-Lüneburg uses established genres to further her own personal agenda, and how she manipulates contemporary notions of gender in order to create authority for herself as a political force, as an upholder of Christian virtues, and, most importantly, as a writer. The analysis is based on an understanding of subjectivity as dialogical – as a negotiation with the surrounding culture – and of gender as socially constructed. Using the theories presented by Judith Butler and Joan Wallach Scott as a basis, the study shows how Elisabeth works within the various discourses available to her in order to describe established gender roles in a fashion that challenges prevailing notions of femininity and a woman’s place in society. The study focuses on a number of aspects of femininity important in Elisabeth’s texts as well as in the cultural context in which they were written. The textual construction of woman as writer, ruler, preacher, wife, mother, and widow is examined. The dissertation presents not previously acknowledged insights into the ambivalence coloring Elisabeth’s descriptions of women and femininity.

“ if you only read the book … you get the knowledge into your head once. If you talk about it, you get a more distinct memory of it, I think” (Emma, 11) This thesis shows how a novel by Maj Bylock, Drakskeppet, was used in education within thematic work, the Viking Age, among ten-year-olds and eleven-year-olds for five weeks. The aim of the project was to investigate if and how pupils create or develop an historical consciousness when they had written and talked about the text in a novel. The study examines and analyses how three pupils in particular look upon history and ‘time’ in this process and if identification with characters in the novel takes place. In the theoretical framework, which focuses on Judith Langer and her theories on ‘envisionment building’, that is on how children create text worlds , a general survey presents research findings about how children (10-12 years) interpret fiction. Furthermore the very complex construct of ‘historical consciousness’ is discussed. In the second part, the study is described and its results are discussed: When these children form their personal historical consciousness their focus on the past and the present is apparent, while they have few links to the future. From the way characters’ lives are presented in Drakskeppet these young readers notice social differences in this fictional society of the past. Even though they also see parallels with the time they live in, they often conclude that ”things were worse” in the past. Another result is that an historical consciousness is generally developed when children can emotionally connect to their own lives. A second conclusion drawn in the analysis of this project is that children should read fiction to learn about and understand History. In thematic work of this kind, pupils are offered opportunities to develop their reading and interpreting capacities even though the purpose of the work is the emergence of the pupils’ historical consciousness. It should be understood from this investigation, though, that reading without talking about the texts seems to have very little effect on how children develop their understanding of texts or an historical consciousness.

The aim of this study is to analyse how pornography is used in the American comics X-Men, published by Marvel under the authorship of Chris Claremont. I have applied Butler and MacKinnons theories about pornography as a performative speech, to this special art form. I have also investigated how censorship has influenced the comics evolution and whether it has affected the way women and sexual and ethnical minorities are represented. To corroborate how these theories apply, I have analysed three main female fig-ures in The X-Men comics - Storm, Phoenix and Shadowcat - and I have tried to identify how they relate to existing stereotypes. The conclusion of this essay is that the women characters in X-Men break the existing stereo-types and create new implications. This reinforces Butler’s theory about the possibility to re-verse hate speech and diminishes MacKinnons perspective of pornography as an imperative.

This is a study of the novel Mes mauvaises pensées (2005) by the French writer Nina Bouraoui. I use an intertextual comparative method, where I read the novel against three intertexts: Marie Cardinal Les mots pour le dire (1975), the David Lynch movie Mulholland Drive (2001) and novels and photographies by Hervé Guibert. Main focus is on the relation between body and language. Using the psychoanalytic theories by Julia Kristeva I examine the melancholy of the narrator in Mes mauvaises pensées. The melancholic subject mourns a Thing which is the unrepresentable archaic mother. Melancholy is connected to the notion of exile; the subject belongs to a lost place in the past which it is still holding on to. The narrator of Mes mauvaises pensées is still living in her childhood, even though she is a grown up woman. I show how the place from where she speaks is the child. The female body and the female sexuality are not represented in the text, there is a missing link between the female body and it’s representation in language – in the symbolic order. According to Kristeva the melancholic denies the loss of the Thing – in the end the mother – and clings to the unrepresentable void. By realizing and acknowledging the loss one can reconstruct the bond to the archaic mother in language. Bouraoui’s failure in writing the feminine into the text is interesting because it puts lights on the conditions of writing the body for women. The theory of l’écriture féminine is an inspiration for the analyses and I contrast it to Judith Butler’s idea of gender performativity. There is a conflict in what constitutes gender and sex between psychoanalysis and queer theory, which is also found in the narrator in Bouraoui’s novel – trying to create herself through pure performativity she never succeeds to act independently of the mother and the female body.

I uppsatsen analyseras de två karaktärerna Harry Haller och Hermine, från Hermann Hesses Der Steppenwolf, med hjälp av Judith Butlers queerteori. Karaktärernas förhållande till varandra, köns- och genusroller samt heteronormativiteten undersöks och sätts i samband med bokens maskerad- och teatermotiv. Förutom att maskerad- och teatermotivet undersöks i relation till karaktärerna, analyseras det också i sig självt med utgångspunkt i Judith Butlers teorier om det konstruerade könet och dragshowens subversiva funktion.