<p>In the 60’s and 70’s a large group of Yugoslav migrants came to Sweden in search for jobs. These people mostly belonged to the generation born after the Second World War, a generation brought up in the official discourse of “Brotherhood and Unity”. A discourse downplaying ethnic differences in favour of a national identification. With the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s their Yugoslav national identity was beginning to be contested. The Serb migrants had to redefine themselves due to the changing situation and to replace or redefine their Yugoslav identities. This paper presents a case study for three individuals in this group and how they defined themselves before the break-up and how they handled the break-up. It presents how they today look upon Yugoslavia and how that place has changed meaning in their everyday narratives. The question I try to answer is whether someone can call himself Yugoslav when Yugoslavia no longer exists, and how the image of Yugoslavia has changed due to the break-up. I show that the image of Yugoslavia is still very much alive but this image has turned from a place in physical space to a place in their narratives, close to Foucault’s definition of a Utopian place. A place in their minds, perfected in form. They still call themselves Yugoslavs, if the social context allows that, they still use the term to relate to their origin and in discussions of place.</p>

<p>Based on the on the assumption that the two recent Swedish poetry collections <em>mil</em> by Anna Hallberg and <em>mallamerik, mallamer, malameri, mallame, amerik, mallameka, merikka, </em>by Lars Mikael Raattamaa, are constructed with theoretical questions about identity, national identity, language hierarchy and power in mind, this study aims to investigate the ways in which these issues come to expression. Simplified, the term <em>language-poetry</em>, or <em>språkmaterialism</em>, can be used to describe a language-philosophical poetry that aims to eliminate the hierarcic structures between writer and reader in a text and invite the reader to become the co-worker of it. The study shows that by different ways of eliminating the <em>centre</em> of the text, the text is made democratical. But one question that this study asks is how can a nation's conventional and standardised written  language – the language of the centre – be used to write itself out of this centre into the margin? Stepping from a theoretical background of postcolonial theories on identity and national identity, including reflections as those given by Benedict Anderson, Madan Sarup, Timothy Brennan, Stefan Helgesson and Mia Cuoto, the analysis points out how this poetry laborates with the terms <em>bugging, repetition, national language identity, and space </em>as poetic material, in order to work in line with ─ and contrary to - conceptions of a unified and shared language. Adapting and transforming the architectural term sprawl into literature, and spreading similar phrases over the pages by, for example, thematizing names, Swedish suburbs, and the use of language referents made empty, an elimination of the textual centre is shown to take place. This study concludes that in these poems it is by pointing out markers of a Swedish identity which is transparent that identity becomes both constituted and articulated, as well as problematized; concepts of collectivity, orality, and lack of textual coherence create a dimension of  boundlessness in language.  </p><p> </p>

<p>This study explores the role of learning and education in American historical fiction written in the 1820s. The United States has been, and still is, commonly considered to be hostile to scholarly learning. In novels and short stories of the 1820s, however, learning and education are recurrent themes, and this dissertation shows that the attitudes to these issues are more ambivalent than hitherto acknowledged. The 1820s was a period characterized by a political struggle, expressed as a battle between intellectuals, represented by the sitting president, John Quincy Adams, a Harvard professor, and anti-intellectuals, headed by the war hero Andrew Jackson. The battle over the place of scholarly learning in the U.S. was played out not only on the political scene but also in historical fiction, where the themes of learning and education become vehicles for exploring national identity. In these texts, whose aim is often to establish an impressive national history, scholarly learning carries negative connotations as it is linked to the former colonizer Britain and also symbolizes social stratification. However, it also stands for civilization and progress, qualities felt to be necessary for the nation to come into its own. The conflicting views and anxieties surrounding the issues of learning and education tend to center on a recurrent character in these texts, the learned person. </p><p>After providing an overview of how the themes of learning and education are treated in historical narratives from the 1820s, this dissertation focuses on works of three writers: <i>Hobomok</i> (1824) and <i>The Rebels</i> (1825) by Lydia Maria Child, <i>The Prairie</i> (1827) by James Fenimore Cooper, and <i>Hope Leslie</i> (1827) by Catharine Maria Sedgwick.</p>

In 1901 the Qing regime, in power 1644-1911, took wide-ranging measures to reform the Chinese Empire. Fundamental changes were carried out within the field of education, resulting in the completion of China’s first modern educational system in 1904. Modern schools mushroomed across China and modern textbooks introducing non-traditional knowledge became common reading in the classrooms. Modern geography textbooks informed schoolchildren about the circumstances within the Empire and, to some extent, about the conditions in foreign countries. Thus these textbooks gave them an idea of their own nation in relation to the rest of the world.   The thesis examines the images of the inhabitants of the multiethnic Qing Empire, as encountered in a wide range of textbooks and other teaching materials, on the school subject of geography, used at various institutions of modern learning during the closing years of the Qing era. The focus is on the Han Chinese majority of China Proper (i.e. the eighteen provinces), although the images of the other major ethnicities of the Qing Empire are also examined, as well as the peoples of neighbouring Korea and Japan. This study highlights the extent to which the late Qing era was influenced by Japanese approaches towards reforms and modernization, especially in the field of education. During the process of introducing modern school geography in China, Chinese textbook compilers largely relied on Japanese sources on geography, thereby facing a Japanese, nationalistic and colonial discourse, which implied that Japan, as the most civilized nation in the East, was also in her right to dominate the region. Although Chinese educationalists hardly accepted Japan’s self-proclaimed position as the rightful leader of Asia, they were nevertheless influenced by Japanese descriptions of the continent and its peoples.

The essay analyses the discursive construction of national identity in the present naturalisation test of the Federal Republic of Germany. The essay includes an overview of immigration to Germany, and a survey of political measures to improve the integration of immigrants. The language and structure of representative multiple-choice questions (and answers) of the naturalisation test are analysed by using the method of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The theoretical background of this study is grounded in cultural studies. The methodological framework consists of a combination of critical discourse analysis and textual analysis. Criteria of the linguistic analysis are: the situational context of the text, thematic roles, deixis, lexical repetitions, modality, coherence (including implicit meanings and presuppositions), intertextuality and interdiscursivity, competence and performance. The analysis shows that national identity is conceptualized by the multiple-choice questions of the naturalisation test. National identity is above all constructed by the German language. One of the qualifications which the examinee has to fulfil is competence in German on the level B1 (of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). Linguistic competence is necessary in order to answer the questions. National identity is linguistically created by using alterity. Binary oppositions are constructed by stipulations and presumptions about migrants living in Germany. These oppositions are created by giving three alternative answers, which represent prejudices about foreigners; we is represented by an idealized construction of Germans, and the other is represented by stereotypical assumptions about foreigners. National identity is created by the content of the questions, too. Many questions deal with German laws and standards, which implies that being a German means to be law-abiding. The present study shows that German identity is constructed by language and the construction of alterity.

Based on the on the assumption that the two recent Swedish poetry collections mil by Anna Hallberg and mallamerik, mallamer, malameri, mallame, amerik, mallameka, merikka, by Lars Mikael Raattamaa, are constructed with theoretical questions about identity, national identity, language hierarchy and power in mind, this study aims to investigate the ways in which these issues come to expression. Simplified, the term language-poetry, or språkmaterialism, can be used to describe a language-philosophical poetry that aims to eliminate the hierarcic structures between writer and reader in a text and invite the reader to become the co-worker of it. The study shows that by different ways of eliminating the centre of the text, the text is made democratical. But one question that this study asks is how can a nation's conventional and standardised written  language – the language of the centre – be used to write itself out of this centre into the margin? Stepping from a theoretical background of postcolonial theories on identity and national identity, including reflections as those given by Benedict Anderson, Madan Sarup, Timothy Brennan, Stefan Helgesson and Mia Cuoto, the analysis points out how this poetry laborates with the terms bugging, repetition, national language identity, and space as poetic material, in order to work in line with ─ and contrary to - conceptions of a unified and shared language. Adapting and transforming the architectural term sprawl into literature, and spreading similar phrases over the pages by, for example, thematizing names, Swedish suburbs, and the use of language referents made empty, an elimination of the textual centre is shown to take place. This study concludes that in these poems it is by pointing out markers of a Swedish identity which is transparent that identity becomes both constituted and articulated, as well as problematized; concepts of collectivity, orality, and lack of textual coherence create a dimension of  boundlessness in language.

This thesis explores the symmetry between theatres and museums, and investigates how a museum experience is similar to a theatrical event. Particularly, this project examines how the Canadian War Museum performs historical narrative through its use of three performative elements of a theatre production: space, objects and actor’s body. Firstly, this thesis analyses how creating a historical narrative is similar to fiction writing and play writing. It follows the argument of Hayden White and Michel de Certeau who recognize a historical narrative as a performative act. Accordingly, this thesis examines the First World War exhibit at the Canadian War Museum as a space of performance. I apply Lubomír Doležel’s literary theory on possible worlds, illustrating how a museum space can create unique characteristics of a possible world of fiction and of history. Secondly, this thesis employs Marie-Laure Ryan’s theory of narrativity to discuss how museum objects construct and perform their stories. I argue that the objects in museums are presented to the public in a state of museality similar to the condition of theatricality in a theatre performance. Lastly, this thesis investigates the performance of people by applying various theories of performance, such as Michael Kirby’s non-acting/acting continuum, Jiří Veltruský’s concept of the stage figure, and Freddie Rokem’s theories of actors as “hyper-historians.” In this way, this thesis explores concrete case studies of employee/visitor interactions and expands on how these communications transform the people within the walls of the museum into performers of historical narrative. Moreover, according to Antoine Prost, the museum as an institution is an educational and cultural authority. As a result, in all of these performative situations, the Canadian War Museum presents a historical narrative to its visitors with which it can help shape a sense of national identity, the events Canadians choose to commemorate and their personal and/or collective memories. In its interdisciplinary scope, this thesis calls upon theories from a variety of academic fields, such as performance studies, history and cultural studies, museology, and literary studies. Most importantly, however, this project offers a new perspective on the performative potentials of a national history museum.

The project of this thesis has been to examine the results of the development of the reputation and concept of the historical figure of Horatio Nelson as symbol of masculinity from nearly the beginning of the myth-making and mythologizing in the nineteenth century to the present. There have been several studies recently that examine Nelson the myth, Nelson as legend, Nelson as hero: they study the process of the development of this character. As a result of the mythologizing the history of Horatio Nelson is likely lost. However the memory of Nelson a very different thing and the focus of this thesis has been reinforced through commemoration throughout the two centuries since his death coming to a logical conclusion in 2008. This was done in both the public sphere (in the form of monuments) and in the private sphere (Nelson was merchandised) with the logical result in the first part of the twenty-first century being a manifestation of Nelson in fan culture on the internet. He has now been essentialised, extrapolated, and used in a wide variety of ways to navigate masculinity by both genders.

Place identity changes and transforms in relation with changing social conditions and physical environment. Social conditions change the place identity by changing people&rsquo / s perceptions and experiences in the space, while, at the same time, they are affected by these perceptions and experiences. Thus, place identity is in a state of flux in time with individuals, objects and societies. This thesis aims to study the evolving identity of public spaces by focusing on the case of Ankara, specifically the example of G&uuml / ven Park which was developed as a part of the public space strategy of creating a modern, westernized and secular capital city of newly-founded Turkish Republic. Therefore, as far as Ankara is concerned, beside &lsquo / place identity&rsquo / , the notion of &lsquo / national identity&rsquo / becomes prominent. This research examines the changes in the identity of G&uuml / ven Park in relation to the shifts in the identity of Ankara, and the analyses on the public space are carried out regarding three criteria -form or physical setting, activities and meanings attached to the public space- in different time periods.

This thesis explores the symmetry between theatres and museums, and investigates how a museum experience is similar to a theatrical event. Particularly, this project examines how the Canadian War Museum performs historical narrative through its use of three performative elements of a theatre production: space, objects and actor’s body. Firstly, this thesis analyses how creating a historical narrative is similar to fiction writing and play writing. It follows the argument of Hayden White and Michel de Certeau who recognize a historical narrative as a performative act. Accordingly, this thesis examines the First World War exhibit at the Canadian War Museum as a space of performance. I apply Lubomír Doležel’s literary theory on possible worlds, illustrating how a museum space can create unique characteristics of a possible world of fiction and of history. Secondly, this thesis employs Marie-Laure Ryan’s theory of narrativity to discuss how museum objects construct and perform their stories. I argue that the objects in museums are presented to the public in a state of museality similar to the condition of theatricality in a theatre performance. Lastly, this thesis investigates the performance of people by applying various theories of performance, such as Michael Kirby’s non-acting/acting continuum, Jiří Veltruský’s concept of the stage figure, and Freddie Rokem’s theories of actors as “hyper-historians.” In this way, this thesis explores concrete case studies of employee/visitor interactions and expands on how these communications transform the people within the walls of the museum into performers of historical narrative. Moreover, according to Antoine Prost, the museum as an institution is an educational and cultural authority. As a result, in all of these performative situations, the Canadian War Museum presents a historical narrative to its visitors with which it can help shape a sense of national identity, the events Canadians choose to commemorate and their personal and/or collective memories. In its interdisciplinary scope, this thesis calls upon theories from a variety of academic fields, such as performance studies, history and cultural studies, museology, and literary studies. Most importantly, however, this project offers a new perspective on the performative potentials of a national history museum.