I denna uppsats görs en komparativ analys av vissa av Lars Ahlins och James Kelmans estetiska utgångspunkter och berättarstrategier, så som de kommit till uttryck i författarnas estetiska utsagor och skönlitterära prosa. I den komparativa analysen används vissa narratologiska begrepp. Särskild uppmärksamhet ägnas författarnas hantering av berättarinstansen i prosan och synen på berättarsituationen.

The fictions of James Kelman are most intriguing when read in terms of the frictions they reveal. This thesis defines these frictions and uses theories of exile, postcoloniality, nationalism, space and the “ordinary” in order to elucidate them. Kelman’s career has been fraught with tensions born of a troubled relationship with the British literary establishment. Kelman puts this down to the censorship and elitism he believes define that establishment, and his self-confessed refusal to conform to its expectations. This thesis considers the perception of exile that has become the vantage point from which he has written about the lives of marginalised characters and through which he deconstructs Scottish identity and the plight of the Glaswegian working classes. This thesis focuses on three of Kelman’s finest works of fiction: How Late It Was, How Late (1994), A Disaffection (1989) and The Busconductor Hines (1984), each of which was written in the period between Margaret Thatcher’s taking office in 1979 and Scotland’s successful devolution in 1997. This period has proved to be a defining one for Scotland and its latter years have been marked by the development of a newly confident sense of Scottish identity which rejects English hegemony as well traditionally parochial notions of Scottishness. This has informed, and been informed by, a new movement within Scottish literature that seeks to relaunch Scottish culture through a rejection of both past frustrations and “couthie” representations of Scotland in favour of more productive explorations of wider human concerns. This thesis makes a case for the key role Kelman has played in this shift, and challenges the widely held perception that his work does little more that mourn a past way of life and expose a relentlessly bleak present.

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This thesis studies contemporary Scottish fiction by four writers Agnes Owens, James Kelman, Irvine Welsh, and Alan Warner, focusing on the problematic position of women characters and feminocentric texts within the dominant class and national(ist) discourses. It argues that the intimate interconstitution between Scottish masculine subjects and class/national politics alienates women from an active political subjectivisation, that the gender matrix of femininity/masculinity underlies the normative selection of which gendered subjects, and accordingly whose symbolic 'voice', can be perceived as 'historical' and 'political'. Scottish working-class men and the texts in which they are the central characters have been considered paradoxically as both a literary reflection of 'political defeatism', but also a form of 'subaltern' counter-politics to British neoliberalism and imperialism. This thesis points out that the common parameters of the debate on the possible (dis)continuation of both class and national(ist) discourses are masculinist, and as such women tend to be perceived as 'non-political' in this (re)politicisation of aesthetics. More fundamentally, these discourses are problematic for women's politicisation because they follow the rule of modern politics which assigns politicality on a fraternal basis, that political struggles are between men of different classes, nationalities and so on. The research interrogates this masculine-centrism in the dominant representational praxis which provides the discursive link between literature, politics, and history which (dis)places feminine subjects into a 'dehistoricised', 'depoliticised' space. It seeks to renegotiate the fraternal terms of this practice and to read feminine subjects and women-centred narratives as capable of conceptually illustrating emancipatory politics.

This paper argues that the interactive problem-solving workshops created by political scientist John Burton and applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by social psychologist Herbert Kelman, while not, as yet, resulting in a just and permanent peace agreement, are effective in resolving intractable conflict, and, if persistently used, can significantly help to produce such an agreement. This is done by closely examining two books of Burton and a series of articles by Kelman to describe their process; the characteristics of intractable conflict are also reviewed from the work of social psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal. It is then argued that the psychological elements of intractable conflict and the satisfaction of basic human needs are addressed in the interactive problem-solving workshops, exactly what is needed in intractable conflict. It is also suggested that the many outsider recommendations for the resolution of this conflict will not work because they do nothing to address the psychological elements. Recommendations are made to use the workshops to resolve disputes between the Hamas and Fatah political parties and various elements on the Israel side of the conflict; the top leaders of both sides of the conflict are also urged to participate in a workshop. This paper also notes that a fully completed peace agreement already exists in the form of the Geneva Initiative, assembled by Israeli and Palestinian persons exhibiting the qualities promoted by the workshops.

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The books in this new series suggest that we live in an exciting age of explorations. We now have the great opportunity to chart the territories between disciplines and cultures, to map forgotten or as yet undiscovered areas of thought, culture and writing. The monographs and collections from Leipzig try to break out of unproductive oppositions say between East and West, North and South, humanities and sciences, or academic discourse and journalism. Instead we are encouraging the emergence of triangular constellations, such as between Newfoundland, Scotland and West Africa, or between travelogue, science and women’s writing, or between alchemy, prehistory and bicycles. Pioneer studies on contemporary authors will be another asset of this series. The focus of Leipzig Explorations is on literatures in English, albeit with a strong emphasis on comparative and interdisciplinary studies. We particularly encourage essayistic writing that combines academic knowledge with passion and curiosity.

This thesis is a critical study of Scottish literary culture since 1989. It examines and interrogates critical work in Scottish literary studies through a ‘critical nationalist’ approach. This approach aims to provide a refinement of cultural nationalist literary criticism by prioritising the oppositional politics of recent Scottish writing, its criticism of institutional and state processes, and its refusal to exempt Scotland from this critique. In the introduction I identify two fundamental tropes in recent Scottish literary criticism: opposition to a cultural nationalist critical narrative which is overly concerned with ‘Scottishness’ and critical centralising of marginalised identity in the establishment of a national canon. Chapter one interrogates a tendency in Scottish literary studies which reads Scottish literature in terms of parliamentary devolution, and demonstrates how a critical nationalist approach avoids the pitfalls of this reading. Chapter two is a study of two novels by the critically neglected and politically Unionist author Andrew O’Hagan, arguing that these novels criticise an insular and regressive Scotland in order to reveal an ambivalent, ‘Janus-faced’ nationalism. Chapter three examines representations of Scottish traditional and folk music in texts by A. L. Kennedy and Alan Bissett, engaging with the Scottish folk tradition since the 1950s revival in order to demonstrate literature and music’s ambivalent responses to aspects of literary and cultural nationalism. Chapter four examines texts by Janice Galloway, Alasdair Gray and James Kelman, analysing the relationships they construct between gender, nation and class. Chapter five examines three contemporary Scottish texts and elucidates an ethical turn in Scottish literary studies, which reads contemporary writing in terms of appropriation and exploitation.

This thesis takes issue with Fredric Jameson’s suggestion that contemporary science fiction is sending back “more reliable information [about current political and economic organisation] than an exhausted realism” and it develops an alternative Marxist defense of contemporary realist fiction. Can realism's techniques adequately represent the complexity of contemporary political organization? The thesis presents readings of key realist texts — by Pat Barker, Maurice Gee, Kerstin Hensel, James Kelman and David Peace — testing their potential to produce the knowledge of history, industrial politics and the metropolis traditionally central to literary realism’s concerns. (For complete abstract open document).