This project is framed by a dilemma: representations of teaching practice are critical in teacher education, and yet the representations we rely on dangerously oversimplify teaching. My central questions emerge from this dilemma. In telling stories about teaching, how messy can the story be before it becomes unintelligible? Why does messiness matter and what does it produce for teachers-to-be? After examining both canonical accounts of teacher knowledge and emergent research that is productively disrupting the field, I draw on the work of Karen Barad to help me imagine both a new way of telling teaching stories, what I call diffractive storytelling, and a new way of thinking about their use in teacher education. In particular, I take up Barad’s concept of apparatus to consider what knowing is made possible by traditional teacher stories, what knowing is foreclosed, and what these possibilities and limitations mean for teacher education. Finally, I turn to other apparatuses at work in teacher education, especially standardized assessments such as edTPA, the new performance-based assessment of teacher readiness being implemented across the country. I argue that attending carefully to the apparatus-ness of the instruments used in teacher preparation allows us to contest the naturalization of narrow conceptions of teaching practice and sustains the paradox of holding to standards while resisting standardization.

The aim of the study is to elucidate what enables positive attitudes towards buying sex. The study has a posthumanist approach and the data is gathered trough hidden observations of a Swedish web forum dedicated to discussions of prostitution. The theoretical frame that is used in the study consist of concepts from the material feminists Karen Barads and Donna J. Haraways theories and Niels van Doorns argument of the embodiment of virtual texts. A theoretical inspired thematic analysis is used to examine the data from the observations of the web forum. The study shows that positive attitudes towards buying sex are given space and permanence though a variety of intra-actions between material and human agents. At the same time the result of the intra-actions is that the positive attitudes get mediated and endorsed, which enables positive attitudes towards buying sex. In addition to that, the intra-action between material and human agents creates normative understandings about buying sex and prostitution, which also enables these attitudes. In conclusion, the study shows that the enablement of positive attitudes towards buying sex is created through intra-action between not only human agents, instead the material shows to have a significant part in the enablement of positive attitudes towards buying sex.

In this thesis the aim is to examine how objects matter with regards to orientation in the work To Pieces written by the Finnish author Henry Parland. The question posed by Sara Ahmed in Queer Phenomenology becomes the starting point of this work. The aim of returning to this question is to accentuate the role of objects in the process of orientation. More specifically how the things themselves make up the life-world, which can be described as a “coherency of things”. When the lifeworld and the subject is aligned the world is familiar and open. It becomes a world that lets the subject in question extend itself and act as it intends. When the orientation fails, the subject becomes disorientated, the world falls apart. The things are used as tools to extend the subject in its world. But things are not mere tools for the subject to extend itself with. The things can be seen as having agency, something that is examined through the theory of agential realism by Karen Barad. Here the agency of matter is examined in such a way that the binary opposition of subject-object is questioned. Instead Barad suggest that we return to the matter itself and examine how it intra-acts in such a way that the boundaries and entities are formed within the so-called phenomena. Together these two theories are put to work in the novel To Pieces which becomes a place for them to join together by showing how orientation is formed reciprocally in the subject-object discourse. The novel is full of human intra-action with things, be it mirrors, photografies, cigarettes, hats, or other humans who are reduced to objects. From here the things themselves set in motion a kind of revolution, which questions the anthropocentric order.

The theoretical movement known under the heading of posthumanism has entered the academic field. Posthumanisms most prominent feature is to retrieve the concept of matter into the analytical framework. Matter is understood to be under-theorized within the social sciences as a result of the permeative focus upon language and discourse. A prevailing understanding of posthumanism that has been used within educational science and philosophy thus consists of moving the searchlight from language/discourse onto matter. Notably, these scholars are turning to the philosopher Karen Barad in order to spell out their posthumanistic implications. The aim of the thesis is to give an account of the philosophy of Karen Barad in contrast to other prevailing renderings of her. The analysis is carried out using a contrastive methodological approach. In this study I demonstrate how my reading of Barad differs from the scholarly readings that I choose to engage with. The results show that with an alternative conceptual understanding of Barad’s posthumanistic theory the analysis is being steered towards the entanglement of matter and discourse rather than towards the materialistic components of a posed problem. In addition, the results also show how a focus on the ontological underpinnings of Barad’s theoretical framework can give crucial contributions when it comes to understanding the generative conditions of science and knowledge-making.

The aim of this thesis is to look closer at the phenomena Snapchat dysmorphia and the underlying aspects of what it involves. I have done this by using Karen Barads concept of intra-action, agency and discourse together with glitch theory. Through a materialistic influenced discourse analysis of several videos of young people discussing the phenomena I have seen how discourses on femininity play a crucial part in the making and taking of selfies. I have found that young women taking lots of selfies do this as a part of a selfie making practice that is a part of a selfie culture. By deconstructing the phenomena and what parts that play a part in it I could see what the underlying features was for example discourses on femininity and ideals but also the normalization of plastic surgery and image editing on social media.

Syftet med denna studie är att utifrån ett posthumanistiskt perspektiv observera och belysa materialet och hur det liksom människan har likvärdig betydelse för vad som sker i lek i en naturmiljö. Detta gjorde vi genom att observera de meningar som uppstår i intra-aktion mellan och inom de performativa agenterna. Studiens empiriska material är producerad genom partiellt deltagande videoobservationer och är analyserad genom Karen Barads agentiella realism. De begrepp som användes i bearbetningen av analysen är: intra-aktion, transformation, mening och performativ agent. Studiens resultat visar på hur agenterna samhandlar och att leken tar olika vägar beroende på vilket material, vilken miljö och vilka barn som för stunden sammanflätas. Det framgår att platsen och dess naturmaterial står i ständig transformation med de andra performativa agenterna som de intra-agerar med och bör på så sätt ses som medskapare av leken. Resultatet visar även på vikten av en närvarande pedagog som hjälper barnen att materiellt artikulera de nya meningar som uppstår.

The purpose of this study is to examine children's intra-active relations with sounds in an explorative work at a preschool (1-to 2-year old children) analyzed through the lens of agential realism (Barad 2007, 2008), and to examine its didactical effects. This study has a transdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary design based on preschool didactics and the natural sciences, mainly physics andbiology. Research data consist of pedagogical documen-tation in the form of a short video sequence generated in a preschool sound project. An agential realistic approach in this study means an analysis of how sound is produced intra-actively in children's play and exploration in a pre-school. Barad’s agential realism also defines specific ethical stances for both the researcher’s involvement in the production of knowledge and the ethical implications of what that new knowledge and reality reveals(Barad 2007, 2008). The results of this study demonstrate the possibility to work with young preschool children around sound and how sound can be understood as a significant partner in children's play and exploration. This work ́s transdis-ciplinary goal, which is to work across the boundaries of preschool practice and scientific theory, contributes new knowledge about how sound vibration, frequency, loudness, hearingand acoustics intra-acts with children ́sbodies, feelings and thoughtsand the educational environmentsand discourses that children face in preschool. This study's specific impact on practice is that preschool staff can gain a greater understanding on the significance and im-pact of furnishings, architecture and organization according to time and place on how children express themselves and explore sound as a material-discursive phenomenon.

“Doctor Moreau and The Hunt for The Ethical Figure. From unsuccessful man-making to respectful relations with Jacques Derrida, Donna Haraway and H. G. Wells” In H. G. Wells’ science fiction novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), a scientist on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean attempts to create humans from animals. Wells draws on Charles Darwin’s theories on the origins of species and the descent of man to create a horror story in which the uniqueness of the human is called into question. This study uses the novel to investigate the re-emergent interest in human-animal relations, within the natural sciences as well as the arts and humanities, in the past twenty years. In what is often termed “the Animal Turn,” theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway, who are at the centre of this study, have dedicated a significant amount of their work to the animal question and in particular to the ethics of inter-species relationships. Furthermore this essay stages the interaction of fiction and theoretical discourse in an analysis that probes challenges inherent to the relations of humans to other species, such as the practice of eating meat, the killing of animals, and animal rights. Moreover, it considers how the figure of the animal has been used to define the human, as well as to dehumanize people in the justification of abuse and persecution. However, human-animal ethics also has positive connotations, discussed through the figures of positivity and possibility in play, sharing, contact and responsive responsibility. Taking its inspiration from Karen Barad’s method of diffraction, this study foregrounds new pattern-making while exploring how Derrida’s and Haraway’s strategies for formulating a new ethics are present in their use of tropes and figures. / Science fiction-romanen The Island of Doctor Moreau skrevs 1896 och handlar om hur en vetenskapsman på en avlägsen ö i Stilla havet försöker skapa människor av djur. Författaren H. G. Wells inspirerades av Darwins teorier om arternas uppkomst till att skriva en skräckberättelse där mänsklighetens unikhet sätts ur spel. Den här studien använder Wells text i syfte att undersöka hur relationen mellan människor och andra arter har kommit att få ett nytt intresse inom en mängd olika vetenskapliga, praktiska och konstnärliga ämnen i slutet av 1900-talet och början av 2000-talet, något som har kommit att kallas ”The Animal Turn”.  I centrum för studien återfinns teorier formulerade av filosofen Jacques Derrida och den feministiska vetenskapsteoretikern och biologen Donna Haraway. Båda två har ägnat stor del av sina respektive arbeten åt djurfrågan, framför allt med enträget intresse för hur ett etiskt förhållande mellan arter kan se ut. Studien låter romanen och de teoretiska texterna samverka i en analys som diskuterar utmaningar i människa-djur-relationer – som köttätande, dödande och rättigheter. Människan har till exempel använt sig av djuret för att definiera sig som människa, men också för att dehumanisera andra människor, och därmed kunnat utnyttja eller våldföra sig på dessa människor. Men människa-djur-etiken har också positiva aspekter: kontakt över språkgränser, att tillsammans utgöra världsmedborgare som alla består av och är beroende av varandra, att dela lek och arbete, att se och upptäcka den andre.  Med inspiration från Karen Barads användning av metoden diffraktion vill den här uppsatsen utforska Derridas och Haraways strategier för att formulera en ny etik genom bruket av figurer och troper.

abstract: Since the Enlightenment, humanist philosophy has understood materiality as an inert and determinate world categorically separate from the sphere of consciousness and language. However, after evolving significantly during the 20th century, the natural sciences now recognize the complexity, indeterminacy and agency of matter. A parallel transformation can be observed in contemporary Spanish and Latin American literature and is exemplified in the works of Cristina Peri Rossi and Cecilia Vicuña. Drawing on knowledge which emerges from the natural sciences, the humanities and personal experience, these poets explore multiple dimensions of materiality from the microscopic world of subatomic particles and DNA molecules to the macroscopic world of the body and the structure of the universe. The theoretical orientation of this study emerges from posthumanism, which critiques the epistemological foundations of humanist thought and reconfigures reductionist concepts of matter, discourse, the subject, and agency which are grounded in dualistic ontology. Material feminist theorists explore materiality through interdisciplinary approaches which establish a dialogue between posthumanism, feminist theory and the natural sciences. The material feminist Karen Barad proposes an agential realist ontology which constitutes the principal theoretical framework of this thesis. According to Barad, phenomena are not exclusively social or material but rather material-discursive practices, and the concept of agency is reconfigured as the product of the dynamics of intra-action rather than an as an attribute restricted to the human sphere. Furthermore, this thesis utilizes diverse materials from the areas of literary criticism and scientific research in order to achieve an authentically interdisciplinary interpretation of materiality in the poetry. Peri Rossi and Vicuña express a profound questioning of the fundamental assumptions of humanism and offer perspectives which take into account matter's agency and dynamism. Their poetry presents materiality as a constant process of creation and as an active participant in the unfolding of reality, thereby opening up new horizons of investigation. By interpreting the works of Peri Rossi and Vicuña through the lens of posthumanist theory, this study contributes to a growing body of interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary Spanish and Latin American literature. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2013

The aim of this paper is to examine the possibility to be impossible, to examine how the socially intelligible can come to exist. This is done through the concept of sex/gender, as sex/gender has such a determining place in the production of what can be understood as human, it also has the properties to shed light on the possibility to be and exist beyond the socially intelligible. In this paper I will interview and analyze how four genderqueer people understand themselves and their identity in relation to the phenomenon sex/gender. Through Karen Barad’s concept of posthumanist performativity and her conceptualization of phenomena and intra-action I understand sex/gender, not as entities, but as phenomena of ever changing and ever intra-acting agents. The study suggests that the limitations of the concept of sex/gender can be addressed through an understanding of the body as itself a web of intra-actions, that is, the body as a phenomenon.