Dystopian fiction seeks to make conscious the faults of contemporary society through estrangement. Newspeak plays an important role in this estrangement, being a euphemistic and propagandistic language meant to distort the characters' perception of the fictional world. This type of language, however, has two different functions: one fictional and one didactical, where the latter seeks to emphasize the negative aspects of the fictional world to the reader. In this thesis I analyze the use of newspeak and language control as a means for social criticism in five Swedish dystopian novels published from the late 1950s through to the late 1970s. The novels analyzed are: Strålen (1958) by Ann Margret Dahlquist-Ljungberg, De sista (1962) by Arvid Rundberg, Elektra. Kvinna år 2070 (1967) by Ivar Lo-Johansson, Klotjorden (1970) by Kerstin Strandberg, and Järnblommorna (1979) by Jenny Berthelius. Apart from newspeak and language control I also examine the use of obsolete language and literary onomastics. Additionally, the thesis contains a smaller bibliography of Swedish utopian and dystopian novels published from 1950 to 1979. Language plays a central role in the novels analyzed: they contain different forms of newspeak and whilst these languages only figurate sporadically, their function is clearly didactic and meant for social criticism. Language control on the other hand, is a common theme that is often used to accentuate a totalitarian threat towards society. Most of the novels, however, primarily deal with obsolete language. It is the lost and forgotten that produces anxiety. This type of language emphasizes a loss of normative values that makes the reader question the fictional society as well as their own.

This essay applies human-animal studies in relation to the Swedish author Kerstin Ekman's books Guds barmhärtighet (1999), Sista Rompan (2002) and Skraplotter (2003) together called Vargskinnstrilogin. Kerstin Ekman's authorship is characterized by a coexistence between human, nature and animals where the stories entangle them into a dense complexity. As a reader, one is constantly reminded of this coexistence through Ekman's narrative approach as her stories contain many contact zones between humans and animals, which creates space for problematizing this entangled coexist from a posthumanistic perspective. The animals in the stories are at different distances to the human being based on their characteristics of being regarded as wild, domesticated or ferral. Based on these three categories, the wolf as a representative of the wild animals is analyzed in a theoretical context focusing on the function of different power structures within the anthropocentric paradigm. Ferral conditions are analyzed on the basis of, among other things, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's theories of animal-becomings, escape lines and rhizom where the dog mainly exists when it is embodied in close interaction with humans in Ekman's stories. The domesticated animals are analyzed on the basis of the tension between rural and urban, where the progress of the civil society are rapidly changing during the 20th century which creates changed relations between people and agricultural animals.

This thesis is a study of spatial practice and literary depictions of homes in novels by Elsie Johansson, Kerstin Thorvall and Kristina Sandberg. The theoretical perspective is based on Henri Lefebvre´s view on social space, and on the concept of spatial practice. Research questions are: What homes are depicted? How does spatial practice function in the texts? How does the depictedspatial practice relate to norms and ideals? The novels, published 1993-2014, depict an interesting period in Swedish history (cirka 1920-1970) when politics and society at large was deeply involved in reshaping the homes and lives of Swedish citizens. The aim was to turn the citizens into new, healthy and rational parts of the new and rational society. Housewives where put in a position where the new rational housekeeping clashed with the standards and practices of earlier generations. Class is found to be a crucial factor in performing and experiencing domesticity in the studied novels. Housewive characters in the Thorvall and Sandberg novels, raised in working class families, struggle in adapting the spatial practice of home in their new middle class environments.Part of the thesis is a discussion on domesticity seen as an adaptive pracitce – catering to the needs of husbands and children. The novels show this, but also depict housework being used as a way to escape unpleasant conversations or forget ones unpleasant feelings. Another task with complex connotations and uses is cleaning. Cleaning in these novels have a strong connection to positive feelings like pleasure and pride, but also to negative feelings of shame and a loss of control. Acting normal to achieve a state of normality within the home and family is a common strategy for the housewives. The material is found to support Lefebvres idea on the importance of spatial practice - sense of home, for the studied housewife characters, is found to be more dependent on spatialpractice than on the home itself.

x, 197 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This dissertation investigates the cultural importance of the "monstrous Other" in postmodern literature, including novels from Sweden, Finland, and the United States. While the theoretical concept of "the Other" is in wide circulation in the humanities and social sciences, the concept has only recently been modified with the adjective "monstrous" to highlight a special case of the Other that plays an important role in the formation of human subjectivity. In order to better understand the representational legacy of the monstrous Other, I explore some of the principal venues in which it has appeared in western literature, philosophy, folklore, and politics. Using a Foucauldian archaeological approach in my literature survey allows me to trace the tradition of the monstrous Other in such sources as medieval bestiaries, the wild man motif in folklore and popular culture, and the medicalization of intersexual embodiment. In all cases, the monstrous Other is a complex phenomenon with broad implications for the politics of subjectivity and the future of social and political justice. Moreover, the monstrous Other poses significant challenges for the ongoing tenability of normative notions of the human, including such primary human traits as sexuality and a gendered, "natural" embodiment. Given the complexities of the monstrous Other and the ways in which it both upholds and intervenes in normative human identities, no single theoretical approach is adequate to the task of examining its functioning. Instead, the project calls for an approach that blends the methodologies of (post)psychoanalytic and queer theory while retaining a critical awareness of both the representational nature of subjectivity and its material effects. By employing both strains of theory, I am able to "read" the monstrous Other as both a necessary condition of subjectivity and a model of intersubjectivity that could provide an alternative to the positivism and binarism of normative subjectivity. The texts that I examine here reveal the ways in which postmodern reconfigurations of the monstrous Other challenge the (hetero)normativity of human subjectivity and its hierarchical forms of differentiation. My reading of these texts locates the possibilities for a hybridized, cyborgian existence beyond the outermost limits of positivistic, western subjectivity. / Committee in charge: Ellen Rees, Chairperson, German and Scandinavian; Daniel Wojcik, Member, English; Jenifer Presto, Member, Comparative Literature; Aletta Biersack, Outside Member, Anthropology

Diese Examensarbeit vergleicht zwei phantastische Jugendbücher aus dem Bereich der Romantic Fantasy (Romantasy) und analysiert inwiefern diese als Entwicklungsromane gelten. Die Trilogien sind die Edelstein Trilogie von Kerstin Gier und die Zeit Trilogie von Sandra Regnier. Der erste Abschnitt definiert und zeigt die Merkmale und Muster von Entwicklungsromanen, Fantasy und Romantasy auf. Der zweite Teil analysiert beide Trilogien auf ihre dargestellten Konflikte, die die Protagonisten bewältigen müssen und deren erfolgten Entwicklungsprozess. Es wird gezeigt wie phantastische Aspekte den Entwicklungsprozess beeinflussen und wo sich Merkmale des Entwicklungsromans in moderner Jugendbuchliteratur wiederfinden lassen.

Denna uppsats analyserar och tolkar Kerstin Thorvalls roman Det mest förbjudna (1976) komparativt i ljuset av begrepp från Epikuros (341 f. Kr. - c:a 270 f. Kr.) hedonistiska och materialistiska filosofi framställd i dess mest betydande kvarstående källa, Lucretius (c:a 95 f. Kr. - c:a 55 f. Kr.) lärodikt De rerum natura. Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka om/hur motiv ur Epikuros etik förekommer i Thorvalls roman; och att utforska om hedonism medverkar/motverkar feminism i romanen. Metoden är en tvärvetenskaplig komparativ analys och tolkning mellan Thorvalls roman och Epikuros filosofi i Lucretius dikt. Metoden inspireras av Pierre Machereys i boken À quoi pense la littérature (1990). Undersökningsresultat struktureras tematiskt efter några av de jämförda verkens motiv: religionens ondo, behovet av att avlägsna rädslan för döden, njutningen som det högsta goda, kritiken av tvåsamma kärleken, synen på kunskap. Min teoretiska utgångspunkt är Epikuros och Lucretius hedonistiska filosofi; och, i mindre utsträckning, ett intersektionellt perspektiv (med fokus på kategorierna kön, genus och sexualitet). Resultatet visar huvudsakligen att trots skillnader gällande begärens begränsning, kan slutsatsen dras att Thorvall gör en feministisk omtolkning av hedonistiska motiv och vägleder läsaren mot ett feministiskt och hedonistiskt etiskt mål.

Uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka om en nära läsning av Moa Martinsons Kvinnor och äppelträd med fokus på de manliga karaktärerna förmår öppna texten för tolkning på något nytt sätt, huvudsakligen i ett självbiografiskt perspektiv. Även den omtvistade frågan om Kvinnor och äppelträds strukturella uppbyggnad behandlas i uppsatsen.       Skildringarna av männen - Förskinnsbonden, Gamlingen, Liter-Olle med sin hund och Videbonden – visar sig leda mot en undertext, som inte frilagts i tidigare analyser. Martinsons sorg efter sina två drunknade söner tränger oupphörligt fram. Hennes kamp för att komma undan sina minnen och gå vidare avspeglas i romanen. Den svåra och kvardröjande sorgen och andra traumatiska, undanträngda händelser från det första äktenskapet kan vara en anledning till att Martinson ständigt återkom till självbiografiska skildringar i sitt författarskap. Inte mindre än nio av hennes romaner är självbiografiska.      En jämförelse av hur mor Sofi och Sally i boken behandlar de män som kommer till deras innersta rum visar sig kasta ljus över diskussionen om romanens struktur - om denna är litterärt, medvetet uppbyggd eller om de ingående berättelserna är sammanfogade mindre planmässigt, mer fristående gentemot varandra. Den figura som Ebba Witt-Brattström ser som en bekräftelse på romanens stränga, medvetna uppbyggnad, att mor Sofi förebådar sin ättling Sallys öde genom sin moderlighet ställd mot Sallys revolutionära inställning, vänds i uppsatsens perspektiv till sin motsats. Mor Sofi och hennes väninna Fredrika vänder upproriskt upp och ner på hela världen då Förskinnsbonden vågar sig fram till badstugans dörr. I motsvarande situation kapitulerar Sally och gifter sig med inkräktaren, Videbonden. Innebörden är rimligen att Witt-Brattströms tolkning av figuran faller och därmed inte kan användas som argument för något planerat samband mellan det inledande kapitlet om Sofi och de senare berättelserna om Ellen och Sally.