This essay explores how anti-normativity is achieved in Veronica Roth's novel Carve the Mark and uses Lois Lowry's The Giver and Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness as points of comparison. It examines if Roth, Lowry, and Le Guin follow through with creating characters that are more than superficially queer by destabilizing gender and traditional attitudes towards identity markers. Using queer theory and gender performativity theory, this essay examines if the queerness of the characters and their relationships hold up when juxtaposed to normativity. When exploring the novels, it can be seen that these authors fail to create characters and relationships that are anything but superficially queer.

Yiwen Zhan defends a new account of the pragmatics of assertion, according to which assertions are agents’ performative speech acts of commitment to truth. He explains how such a pragmatic approach can be fitted into Fregean context and account for the force–content relation, non-assertoric contents, context-sensitivity, constitutive norms, belief and the dynamics in discourse, and other related problems.

The thesis deals with a friendship between heterosexual woman and homosexual man, the way it is created, the way it is maintained and the threats it has to face. The thesis defines the meaning of essential theoretical concepts such as gender, sexuality, friendship or intimacy and trust. It is based on ten semi-structured interview with women who define the relationship with their gay friends as a close one. It reflects ways, how gender and sexual identities are negotiated in the friendship, puts friendship with a gay man into a broader context of friendly relationships in a heteronormative society and traditional binary oppositions of feminine and masculine. The thesis also looks into strategies of how the informants construct their own identity, identity of their gay friend ad where they place the boundaries of this relationship.

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This thesis is concerned with the Canadian state’s rhetoric of reconciliation, the logic of exceptionality that supports it, and the ways this logic helps soften Indigenous communities for resource development. In formulating my theoretical framework, I draw from Agamben’s theories of sovereignty and states of exception, Mark Rifkin’s reworking of Agamben’s theories to accommodate a settler-colonial context, Pauline Wakeham’s application of the logic of exceptionality to rhetorics of apology and terrorism, and Glen Coulthard’s concepts of translation (as the attempt to bring Indigenous discourses and life ways into the realm of a Western/settler-colonial discourse of state sovereignty) and grounded normativity (as a way of making visible the contingency of such narratives of state sovereignty). Following the work of James Tully and John Borrows in Resurgence and Reconciliation, particularly the argument that transformative reconciliation must involve reconciliation with the living earth, my project aims to show that official reconciliation actually prevents the possibility of transformative reconciliation because of the role it plays in furthering an extractivist agenda by “exceptionalizing" Indigenous peoples and life-ways to rhetorically contain Indigenous anti-colonial or anti-industry actions, physically contain Indigenous dissenters during moments of crisis (i.e. states of exception), pre-emptively frame Indigenous dissenters as terroristic, and foreclose discussions of ongoing colonialism. / Graduate

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In the cooperation between the EU and Ukraine since the EU-Ukraine AssociationAgreement was signed in 2014, the EU has relied heavily on discourse to project power. Theinvasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on the 24th of February 2022 caused a severeescalation of the conflict that has ravaged Ukraine since 2014, and the reactions of theEuropean Union have been strong. But what has the role, or more importantly, thediscursively constructed role, of the EU been in the Ukraine situation before the invasion?Additionally, how has this role been legitimised by the EU institutions responsible for theunion’s foreign policy? This study offers a poststructuralist analysis of how the EU constructsitself as a more coherent and powerful actor in European politics, than it actually may be.Employing Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulated power in a similar way to the study of theEU:s discourse with Serbia and Kosovo by Gashi Krenar, the analysis focuses on how theUkrainan national identity, and the conflicts facing the nation are discussed in official EUdocuments. Special attention is given to expressions of normativity and sovereignty, theambiguity of which may conceal more obscure meanings. The results I present are used as afoundation for my understanding of the EU’s discourse as constituted by a deliberatediscursive strategy of simulating power, a strategy that is used in very different ways in theyear 2014 and then seven years later, in 2021.

Nombre de travaux contemporains en philosophie de la perception s’inspirent de l’ouvrage Sense and Sensibilia du philosophe anglais John L. Austin (1911-1960). En examinant le langage ordinaire pour reconnaître la diversité des phénomènes perceptifs, Austin vise entre autres à démontrer l’impossibilité de les réduire aux catégories métaphysiques traditionnelles. Charles Travis est de ceux qui se sont risqués à réinvestir la phénoménologie linguistique d’Austin. Se réclamant ouvertement d’Austin qui soutenait que « nos sens sont muets », il développera la thèse du silence des sens selon laquelle la perception n’aurait pas un contenu représentationnel. Cette thèse aura une grande influence sur Jocelyn Benoist, qui reprendra à son compte l’idée selon laquelle la perception n’est pas intentionnelle. Travis et Benoist s’entendent donc pour dire qu’en tant que la perception est silencieuse — et donc non-conceptuelle — elle ne peut être intentionnelle. Or, il s’en suivrait alors que la phénoménologie serait fondamentalement incompatible avec la radicalité de leur critique réciproque contre le représentationnalisme, basée sur la thèse d’inspiration austinienne du silence des sens. L’intuition à l’origine de ce mémoire réside dans la perspective selon laquelle ces conclusions constitueraient en fait une radicalisation de la thèse véritablement défendue par Austin, le mutisme n’étant pas synonyme de silence. Si Austin a pu démontrer très efficacement l’autonomie de la perception par rapport au langage, la reprise de cette idée chez Travis et Benoist les a menés à une thèse plus radicale selon laquelle la perception ne serait pas une activité que l’on pourrait qualifier de normative. Partant de cette idée, j’interroge la portée et les limites de la thèse d’Austin et de ses héritiers en examinant le rôle de la normativité en jeu dans la perception. Dans ce mémoire, je soutiens que les conclusions que Travis et Benoist tirent de la thèse du silence des sens qu’ils attribuent à Austin constituent en fait une radicalisation de la position véritablement défendue par l’Oxonien. La thèse de Travis et Benoist doit être nuancée dans la mesure où d’autres types de normes jouent un rôle transcendantal pour la perception. Dès lors que l’on considère l’expérience sensible, non pas comme une activité exclusivement épistémique et cognitive, mais comme une pratique incarnée, la thèse du mutisme des sens devient compatible avec une conception normative de la perception. / Much contemporary work in philosophy of perception draws on the work Sense and Sensibilia by the English philosopher John L. Austin (1911-1960). By examining ordinary language to recognize the diversity of perceptual phenomena, Austin aims, among other things, to demonstrate the impossibility of reducing them to traditional metaphysical categories. Charles Travis is one of those who have ventured to reinvest Austin's linguistic phenomenology. Following in the footsteps of Austin, who maintained that "our senses are dumb", he developed the thesis of the silence of the senses, according to which perception has no representational content. This thesis had a major influence on Jocelyn Benoist, who took up the idea that perception is not intentional. Travis and Benoist agree that since perception is silent - and therefore non-conceptual - it cannot be intentional. It would then follow that phenomenology would be fundamentally incompatible with the radicalness of their reciprocal critique of representationalism based on Austin’s inspired thesis of the silence of the senses. The intuition behind this dissertation lies in the prospect that these conclusions might in fact constitute a radicalization of the thesis actually defended by Austin, since mutism is not synonymous with silence. If Austin demonstrated very effectively the autonomy of perception in relation to language, the revival of this idea by Travis and Benoist led them to a much more radical thesis, according to which perception would not be an activity that can be described as normative. Based on this idea, I question the scope and limits of the thesis of Austin and his heirs by examining the role of normativity at play in perception. In this dissertation, I argue that the conclusions Travis and Benoist draw from the silence of the senses thesis they attribute to Austin are in fact a radicalization of the position actually defended by the Oxonian. Travis and Benoist's thesis must be tempered insofar as other types of norms play a transcendental role for perception. As soon as we consider sensible experience not as an exclusively epistemic and cognitive activity, but as an embodied practice, the thesis of the mutism of the senses becomes compatible with a normative conception of perception.

Vi har genomfört en komparativ kvalitativ innehållsanalys av filmen High Fidelity (2000) och serien High Fidelity (2020). Vårt syfte har varit att synliggöra hur romantiska relationer samt män och kvinnor representeras över tid. Studien har utgått från teorier om socialkonstruktivism, genus, representation, stereotyper och normen om tvåsamhet. Vi har tagit del av vårt material i sin helhet samt utifrån specifika scener för att genomföra en djupare analys. I kontrast till tidigare forskning som studerat verken utifrån musikteori, har vi studerat verken ur nya perspektiv. Studien bidrar till vidare forskning om ämnet genom att undersöka ett inte tidigare berört verk; High Fidelity (2020). Vårt resultat visar att både filmen och serien innehåller representationer som bekräftar och reproducerar normer. Serien innehåller, jämfört med filmen, en mer komplex och inkluderande representation av kvinnor. Sammantaget för de båda verken är att tvåsamhet tycks vara det centrala temat och idealet. / This essay consists of a comparative qualitative content analysis of the film High Fidelity (2000) and the series High Fidelity (2020). The aim of the analysis was to make visible how men and women and romantic relationships are represented over time. The study was based on theories of social constructivism, gender, representation, stereotypes and heteronormativity. We have taken part of the material in its entirety as well as on the basis of specific scenes in order to carry out a deeper analysis. In contrast to previous research that has treated the works based on music theory, we have studied the works from new perspectives. The study contributes to further research on the subject by examining a work not previously touched upon; High Fidelity (2020). Our results show that both the film and the series contain representations that confirm and reproduce norms. Compared to the film, the series contains a more complex and inclusive representation of women. Overall for both works, the norm of twosomeness seems to be the central theme and ideal.

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