Gamla normer som kretsat kring kärlek och relationer har idag försvunnit och kärleken har, likt samhället, moderniserats. Relationer har blivit friare och partners har blivit utbytbara. Den känslomässiga investeringen har därmed kommit att bli svårare i moderna relationer. Men trots detta söker människor efter sin perfekta match och ett långvarigt förhållande. Gift vid första ögonkastet är ett samtida realityprogram där deltagare som längtar efter kärlek ska gifta sig med en främling. Programmet ger insyn i hur par, från att aldrig ha träffat varandra, ska gifta sig och under ett par veckor bo ihop som hustru och man. Under programmets gång ska de bygga en relation för att vid programmets slut bestämma om de vill vara fortsatt gifta eller om de ska skilja sig. För att se hur moderna relationer och känslomässig investering förmedlas i reality-TV utgår den här studien i observationer av det svenska och amerikanska Gift vid första ögonkastet. Studien visade att kärleken i Gift vid första ögonkastet utgjordes av ett stort frihetsbehov och att kommunikation både möjliggjorde och skapade problem för den känslomässiga investeringen. Det var när deltagarna visade att de var redo att släppa på delar av sin frihet och värderade tilltro till sin partner som det känslomässiga engagemanget kom att kommuniceras som allra tydligast. / Old norms that revolve around love and relationships have today disappeared and love has, like society, been modernized. Relationships have become freer and partners have become replaceable. The emotional investment has thus become more difficult in modern relationships. But despite this, people are looking for their perfect match and a long-lasting relationship. Married at First Sight is a contemporary reality show where participants who long for love are about to marry a stranger. The program provides insight into how couples, from never having met each other, gets married and live together as a wife and husband for a couple of weeks. During the program they will build a relationship so that they in the end of the program can decide whether they want to remain married or whether they want to divorce. To see how modern relationships and emotional investment are conveyed in reality TV, this study is based on observations of the Swedish and American Married at first sight. The study showed that love in Married at first sight consisted of a great need for freedom and that communication both enabled and created problems for the emotional investment. It was when the participants showed that they were ready to let go of parts of their freedom and valued trust in their partner that the emotional commitment came to be communicated most apparent.

Ugolino (c. 1380-1457) wrote one of the largest treatises on music theory in the first half of the fifteenth century. This work, the "Declaratio musicae disciplinae," is comprised of five books that cover everything a musician of the era would need to know, from plainchant to harmonic proportions, from musica practica to musica speculativa. However, the treatise has received contradictory interpretations by modern scholars, some viewing it as mainly practical, others as mainly theoretical. I argue that in Book 2, which deals with counterpoint, Ugolino crystallizes the relationship between theory and practice, while offering distinctive contrapuntal practices. Ugolino presents a unique view music's place in the structure of knowledge, one which is highly dependent on Aristotelian philosophy. He posits that music is a science and that it is a branch not of mathematics, as it had traditionally been categorized, but of natural philosophy. This viewpoint shapes the entire treatise and is evident in the book on counterpoint. There, he presents an Italian tradition of teaching counterpoint known as the "regola del grado." Ugolino is the first author to present this tradition entirely in Latin. In addition, he offers an unusual description of musica ficta. In it, he presents a diagram, the "duplex manus," that mixes together both musica recta and musica ficta. Ugolino's work suggests that theory and practice, although arranged hierarchically, need not be in conflict, and that a treatise such as his can be both eminently practical and highly theoretical.

The core question in this master thesis is: What happens to the essence of an object when it becomes out of date and is no longer in use? I am addressing the sense of dignity in once meticulously designed technical/mechanical items that now has become obsolete. The intention has been to investigate how to give new meaning to obsolete items and find new eligibility for their existence.  The investigation was conducted through the development of a method: collection, analysis, deconstruction, investigation and resurrection of a number of O.T.M.I. (Obsolete Technical Mechanical Items).   The resurrection process consisted of the (re-)writing of the objects’ narratives. These stories along with the objects’ parts, spaces and sounds created a frame for a scenography, a soundtrack and characters to act in a film to tell the story. As interior designers we have the opportunity to transform space and fill it with stories. Imagination is an important tool: We benefit from having the ability to imagine, for instance, how different surfaces will reflect sound and light. Our imagination is highly visual. So I have transformed my imaginary world of Obsolete Technical Mechanical Items to visual and audial elements that support the content and values of a story through researching the objects, finding how to clarify and support the story. The Re-Story.

This study aims to understand how social and sexual relations are initiated, negotiated and constructed among homo- and bisexual men within a specific sexual field; the geo-social application Grindr. It’s based on qualitative and semi-structured interviews with six self-identified homosexual men in Sweden from various age groups and with various social backgrounds who are using, or has used, Grindr in order to initiate and establish contacts with other homo- and bisexual men. Of certain interest are their experiences of using the application and being a part of its social and sexual setting.   In order to analyse the interviews, a combination of sexual script theory and sexual field theory has been used, together with Norbert Elias theories on the relationship between the established and the outsiders. The results indicate that Grindr is a refuge and safe space for homo- and bisexual men and queer persons from the social and sexual norms that prevails in a heteronormative society. As such, Grindr could be understood as a social and sexual field of its own, in which interpersonal scripts and negotiations are crucial for establishing contacts of various kinds. There is also a remarkable sexual stratification based on various sexual capitals that the users of Grindr use to position themselves in relation to each other in order to be regarded as desirable. One consequence of these “structures of desire” is that some personal and bodily qualities often are regarded in a less favourable way, sometimes with stigmatization and marginalization of groups of people as dire consequences of these structures of sexuality. There’s also a remarkable distinction, resistance and ambivalence against the heteronormative society and its cultural scenarios, but at the same time it was a necessary part in the collective self-image of being an outsider group.