THE SPITE HOUSE, OR, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT is the beginning of a novel in verse about Rick, an angry millennial who works odd jobs, joins a commune, and explores the subtle art of being a class traitor.

Andrew Feenberg, a philosopher of technology, argues for a democratic rationalization of technology, whereby subjugated actors intervene in the design process to achieve their interests. He claims that environmentalism represents one of the greatest opportunities for this kind of intervention. His suggestion seems viable; most if not all of the current environmental problems stem from maladaptive technologies. Transforming these technologies is therefore imperative if we are to move toward more sustainable societies. Feenberg, however, does not address the details of his proposal or offer more than a few brief examples of what he is advocating. I use Feenberg's Critical Theory of technology to analyze and assess various environmentalisms. Along the way I expose the deficiencies of his theory and attempt build on his work. One problem, however, is that environmentalism is by no means a homogonous entity; rather, it is composed of numerous strands with their own unique histories, aims, and strategies. I argue that of the various environmentalisms grassroots environmental justice resonates most with Feenberg's theory. To illustrate, I present a case study of the toxics movement that emerged out of the Love Canal incident. I conclude by showing how grassroots environmental justice could enhance their effectiveness by employing the suggested Critical Theory of technology. / Ph. D.

According to Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, our postmodern era and its correlate political problematic requires a shift in positing socialist strategy. Their wager is that by shifting away from essentialist Marxism, and towards a post-Marxist theory of hegemony which they adapt from Gramsci, the analytic for overturning contemporary hegemony will take the form of a radical democratic politics. My contention is that in shifting away from essentialist Marxism through their post-structuralist deconstructive stance, Laclau and Mouffe overstep and make their analytic for socialist strategy impotent. In order to show where Laclau and Mouffe have gone wrong I use primarily the work of Michel Foucault and Slavoj Žižek in order to demonstrate how a post-structuralist theory of ideology need not be a post-Marxist theory of ideology. / Master of Arts

Stemming from a recent surge in articles related to Korean masculinities, and based in afeminist and queer Marxist theoretical framework, this paper asks how gender, with a specificfocus on what is referred to as soft masculinity, is constructed through K-pop performances, aswell as what power structures are in play. By reading studies on pan-Asian masculinities andgender performativity - taking into account such factors as talnori and kkonminam, andinvestigating conceptual terms flower boy, aegyo, and girl crush - it forms a baseline for aqualitative research project. By conducting qualitative interviews with Swedish K-pop fans andperforming semiotic analysis of K-pop music videos, the thesis finds that although K-popmasculinities are perceived as feminine to a foreign audience, they are still heavily rooted in aheteronormative framework. Furthermore, in investigating the production of genderperformativity in K-pop, it finds that neoliberal commercialism holds an assertive grip overthese productions and are thus able to dictate ‘conceptualizations’ of gender and projectidentities that are specifically tailored to attract certain audiences. Lastly, the study shows thatthese practices are sold under an umbrella of ‘loyalty’ in which fans are incentivized toconsume in order to show support for their idols – in which the concept of desire plays asignificant role.

The topic of this thesis is the disputes between the teacher strikes 1966 and 1971 and how the labour movement perceived the teachers and the srikes throught the perspective of class. Various text sources from different agents within the labour movement has been examined. Interprations of two marxist theories and Bourdieus theory of habitus has been used to define various ”class perspectives”. The thesis argues that the labour movement percieved the teachers as a different class from the labourer and that the strikes were percieved as a threat to the labour movements interests.

Syftet med vår studie var att beskriva och söka kunskap om det offentliga samhällsarbetet i Örebro kommun .  Problemområdet var  hur utförarna av samhällsarbete förklarar  social problematik, hur samhällsarbetet utförs, samt på vilket sätt medborgarna är delaktiga. Empiri insamlades genom en  kvalitativ intervjustudie. Respondenterna  var  fyra  offentligt anställda samhällsarbetare  i Örebro. Resultaten analyserades med utgångspunkt i marxistisk teori och strategier samt principer för samhällsarbete. Analysen visade likheter mellan respondenternas orsaksförklaringar till social problematik  och  marxistisk teori. Arbetssätten har  vissa kopplingar till marxistisk teori, men  inte i samma utsträckning som orsaksförklaringarna. Medborgarna är delaktiga i arbetet, men visst företrädarskap förekommer, något som svårligen kan betraktas som samhällsarbete  på grund av att medborgarna ej är delaktiga i detta.  Offentligt samhällsarbete i Örebro bedrivs huvudsakligen utifrån ett konsensusperspektiv.  Nyckelord: Samhällsarbete, offentligt, områdesutveckling, delaktighet, marxism / The purpose of this study was to describe and seek to understand the public community work in Örebro municipality. The questions  were  how the community workers explain social problems, how the community work is executed and in what way the citizens participate in community work. This is a qualitative interview study. The respondents were  four publicly employed community workers in Örebro. The results were analyzed with marxist theory and strategies and principels for community work. The analysis showed similarities between  the respondents’  explainations of social problems and  marxist theory. The strategies of community work have some similarities with marxist theory, but not to the same extent as the responents’ explainations of social problems. The citizens participate in the community work, but advocasy is used to some extent, and this can hardly be described as community work due to lack of citizen participation. Public community work in Örebro is mostly conducted with a consensus perspective.   Keywords: Community work, public, community development, participation, marxism

Marriage is arguably one of the most important events and choices to be made in one’s life, especially for many of the female characters in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Whether characters are searching for a husband for themselves or is searching for someone else, marriage is the source of many conflicts. Social class plays an important part in the marital process in Regency England and remains a point of tension in the novel. Moreover, the women seemingly have different yet similar experiences with the marriage process. This essay will analyze Catherine de Bourgh, Caroline Bingley, Mrs Bennet, Jane Bennet, Elizabeth Bennet as well as Charlotte Lucas, with the focus of the essay being their views and experiences with marriage through a characterization study in order of their social class. The essay will be positioned within classic Marxism due to the importance of social classes in Marx as well as in Neo- Marxism. The main part of the analysis consists of whether a female character acts in agreement or disagreement with the ISAs (Ideological State Apparatuses) as presented by Louis Althusser. It will be evident that some will be in agreement while others are in disagreement. Because of this the essay will also show that regardless of the social classand relation to the ISAs a woman’s main purpose in life is to be a wife and mother, even if Austen hints at characters breaking free from this ideology to make way for a new way of thinking.

The purpose of this essay has been to examine how the concept of class, based upon György Lukács theory of reflection, is shown in the novel Doctor Glas by the author Hjalmar Söderberg. Class is also compared to its relation to locations mentioned in the novel. The method the essay is using, is a comparative reading between the novel and the chronicle En Stockholmskrönika från sekelskiftet, also written by Söderberg. I try to trace and point out where these differences can be shown, in relation to where the characters in the novel are geographically located. The essay confirms that the concept of reflection does not apply, or fails to do so, on Söderberg’s novel or on the compared chronicle.

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Evengy Pashukanis was a russian legal scholar who with his book Law and Marxism: a general theorydeveloped a theory according to which law emerges from the exchange of commodities undercapitalism. The aim of this essay, called “the Right to the commodity and the origins of subjectivity”,is to determine the meaning of the term “legal subjectivity” and how the legal subject gains “adouble” with a “juridically constituted” will and how this affects a concrete person’s lived experienceaccording to Pashukanis. Legal subjectivity arises from the need of commodities to be exchanged onthe market, which makes the law and the economy mutually dependent upon each other. Thecommodity gives subjectivity to its owner and engenders it with a profit maximizing will, asubjectivation completed through a mutual recognition between two commodity owners in whichthey recognize each other’s abilities to hold rights and duties. This means the subjects recognize eachother as formally equal and independent. This leads to the beliefs that the will comes from theconcrete person and not the commodity, and that the subject is autonomous when in fact it is theresult of a social interplay. When the two legal subjects get into a conflict it gives rise to a statemachinery in the form of the judiciary and the law which appears neutral but acts in accordance withthe needs of the capitalist system, and the legal form, which the machinery then spreads to othersocial relations, turning them into to relations between legal subjects based on rights and duties. Thestate and the economy appear separate but are linked through the legal subject. The legal formtransforms the legal subject into its own double, this more abstract subjectivity can be described asdifferent roles that the legal subject acts out in different scenarios with a will based on the needs ofthe capitalist system, although the will seems to be free and absolute and emanating from theconcrete person. The legal subjectivity is coded as a male and limited in what duties it can take on.