In 2021, Sweden was ranked as the European country with the highest number of fatal shootings per million inhabitants. As a result, gang violence is described as a national crisis and has turned in to one of the main debate themes among political parties ahead of the parliamentary election in 2022. In the debates on gang violence, it is often linked to migration politics. Swedish Television (SVT) has broadcasted numerous programs on gang violence, and these programs are the main material used in this study.  Drawing on feminist- and critical whiteness theory I examine how ideas of gender, whiteness and Swedishness interplay in the construction of gang violence as a national crisis. By using a retrotopic, a security politic and an affective theoretical perspective it is possible to analyze who is portrayed as vulnerable or problematic in relation to the gang violence. A further ambition of this study is to investigate the connection between folkhem nostalgia and the construction of gang violence as a national crisis. I argue that the Swedish exceptionalism is being used to establish collective feelings of folkhem nostalgia, which contributes to the understanding of gang violence as a national crisis. Based on a thematic analysis (Braun & Clark 2006) I show how feelings of folkhem nostalgia are used to establish narratives of a threatening and problematic Other; a male non-white threat within the nation. Further, the debates and documentaries broadcasted on SVT can be seen as part of political and national interests, where a (hi)story of folkhemmetas a part of the Swedish exceptionalism is being used to establish certain feelings and perceptions related to gender and race. This enables a placement of gang violence in another place, in another culture and in another body.

This dissertation delves into the portrayal of Sabbatai Zevi, the 17th-century Jewish messiah who converted to Islam, within 20th-century literary works. Specifically, it scrutinizes how this historical figure is woven into literature and delves into the significance of his portrayal in works written in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English. Utilizing Fred Davis’s insights on nostalgia’s correlation with historical disruptions and Svetlana Boym’s notions of nostalgia for both the past and future, this study interprets Sabbatai Zevi’s melancholic demeanor and his followers’ disillusionment with his conversion as manifestations of a concept termed here as “melancholic nostalgia,” denoting feelings of irretrievable loss. Given that these literary pieces emerged during pivotal moments in 20th-century Jewish history, this dissertation asserts that Sabbatai Zevi’s literary representation serves as a poignant symbol of melancholic nostalgia, resonating with the profound shifts in modern Jewish narrative.

En el verano de 88, el MoMA de Nueva York inauguró la exposición de arquitectura en la que se mostraban obras que revelaban la deconstrucción de la forma arquitectónica. La arquitectura que comparece en esta exposición manifiesta el agotamiento de la arquitectura tradicional: desde la moderna funcionalista hasta la postmoderna y nostálgica. Sin embargo, dicho "agotamiento" no es solamente el formal sino que, con mucha frecuencia, en la literatura arquitectónica no es más que el trasunto del agotamiento ideológico en otras áreas del saber. El fenómeno deconstructivista parece ser un "momento reflejo", una suerte de deslizamiento del ocaso de las ideologías a la arquitectura. Por tanto, puede sostenerse que "la deconstrucción arquitectónica" no hubiera sido posible, sin el decurso natural de la postmodernidad como crítica a la modernidad. Lo que sucede es que la teoría deconstructivista, que en su genealogía es postmoderna, acaba por deslegitimar incluso a la propia postmodernidad. De manera, que si la función y "el espíritu de los tiempos" tenían el carácter de fundante en la modernidad arquitectónica y la recuperación de la memoria y el significado "plurívoco y polifónico" lo eran para la postmodernidad, la deconstrucción destituye e inhabilita en cierto modo a ambas a la vez. Cualquier categoría fundante sobre la que se pueda sostener fiablemente una estructura del saber es tildada de intencionada, contaminante, prejuiciosa. Junto a esta situación de crítica y desembalaje de los criterios tradicionales de racionalidad, se advierte en clara sintonía con el mundo literario, la imposibilidad de alcanzar un significante que refiera unívocamente y en estado puro a un significado. No hay posibilidad de dar con el significante perfecto. Siempre remite a otro y después a otro, en un proceso sin fin que nos hace dudar de la posibilidad de dar con el significado verdadero de las cosas y a la postre con lo que las cosas son. El propio lenguaje está viciado y esta contaminació / García Sánchez, R. (2007). Una revisión de "la deconstrucción postmoderna" en arquitectura [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/3448

This thesis focuses on Astrid Lindgren and film tourism in the Vimmerby region in Sweden. Lindgren introduced her imagined worlds in her books and films, which was inspired by her personal experience of growing up in Vimmerby. Film location sites and other film tourism places around Vimmerby indicate the relationship between the imagination of the author and the local region. This thesis draws on the concept of imagination and Stijn Reijnders research about Places of the Imagination, as well as Abby Waysdorf and Reijnders research on film tourism as an imaginative experience. By focusing on these sites and the advertisement, the main research question is what experience these sites offer for the film tourist and how they present the local identity and imagined world by Lindgren. This thesis introduces a new approach called imaginative archaeology. It describes film tourism as an archaeological reconstruction of imagination and the imagined world, that is presented on screen. As a result, the film tourism sites offer an archaeological reconstruction. The film sites can be seen as archaeological sites, the tourism sites in Vimmerby provide traces of Lindgren’s imagination, the theme park can be seen as an open-air museum and the film museum offers a museum experience for the film tourist.

This study examines how scent can be used as a tool in a museum context to deepen the learning for visitors. When scent is brought into a museum context, it creates new conditions for enhancing a visitor’s experience of a museum visit. Therefore, the purpose of this essay is to highlight if scent has a potential as a tool for learning in a museum context and how our sense of smell can make us remember. Through a reading of previous research in the field and with two qualitative interviews, one with and museum curator and one with a fragrance creator, the picture of how museums have worked with scent as a multisensory tool has deepened. This study is based on three different theoretical frameworks. The first theory is based on J. Douglas Porteous’ concept of smellscapes. The second theory is based on Karin Johannisson’s concept of nostalgia. The last theory is based on Richard Stevenson’s five approaches to incorporating scent into a museum environment. The study shows that by using multisensory tools in exhibitions it may be easier for a visitor to remember an exhibition or a museum visit if another sense than vision is integrated. By analysing the qualitative interviews based on the theoretical frameworks, the study shows how scent incorporated in a museum context can deepen the learning for visitors and change the way knowledge is communicated by incorporating multiple senses, in this case focusing on smell. By using smell visitors can, through own lived experiences, remember different memories connected to it. The analysis has shown that scent has a potential to deepen the learning in a museum context.

The 1980s is a formative decade in American history. America sought to reestablish itself as a global power and to reassert the dominant ideology of white, patriarchal capitalism. Likewise, media producers in the 1980s sought to reassert the dominance of the white, male, muscled body in filmic representations. The identity politics of the 1980s and the depictions of the white, muscled body once prominent in the 1980s have been the site of conservative nostalgia for a young, male-dominated, cult audience that is a subset of a larger cultural trend known as retro film culture. This thesis provides historical context behind the populist 1980s B-action films from Cannon Group, Inc that celebrate violent masculinity in filmic representations with white, male action heroes. Equally important is the revival of VHS collecting and how this 1980s-inspired subculture reinforces white, patriarchal capitalism through the cult films they valorize and their capitalistic trading practices despite their claims of oppositionality against mainstream taste and Hollywood films. Lastly, this thesis reveals how a new cycle of contemporary films primarily produced outside of Hollywood reasserts and celebrates the dominance of the white, male, muscled body in filmic representations despite a postmodern and hyperconscious exterior. Overall, I argue how these areas of nostalgia are distinct, yet not unrelated, because they reassert white, patriarchal capitalism through the revival of conservative nostalgia for the 1980s.

No final da década de 1960 e início da seguinte, dentro do contexto que se convencionou chamar de cinema experimental ou de vanguarda norte-americano, um número sem precendetes de cineastas dedicou-se à elaboração de filmes-diário ou autobiografias filmadas. Esse movimento é acompanhado, no caso de alguns dos realizadores, por um interesse por outras formas (literárias ou pictóricas) de autorre- presentação e escrita de vida e por um esforço reflexivo sobre as possibilidades, usos e potências dessas formas no cinema. Partindo do entendimento que a autobiografia transforma-se em um campo de interesses para cineastas, críticos e público apenas a partir deste momento, esta tese pretende abordar como ela é formulada e inventada por cineastas como uma forma possível para o cinema. A partir da análise de textos e filmes de três cineastas centrais para essa elaboração, notadamente Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas e Hollis Frampton, demonstramos o papel do gênero na transformação de um panorama artístico e criativo. De um lado, como se verá, a autobiografia afirma-se e inventa-se como uma tentativa de dialogar e responder a uma história artística que incluí o próprio cineasta, de outro, ela propõe-se como um lugar de singularização e transformação dessa história. / On the threshold of the seventies, the autobiographical genre emerged as one of the main tendencies of the north-american avant-garde film. This event was followed by a growing interest in other forms of self representation and life narratives in painting and literature and by an intellectual effort to reflect on the uses, qualities, possibilities and predecessors of the new form in film. Understanding that autobiography becomes a field of interest for filmmakers, critics and public alike only at this moment in time, this dissertation intends to broach how autobiography is fashioned by filmmakers into a form viable for cinema. Relying on a vast documentation of writings by Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage and Hollis Frampton, three filmmakers whom we consider to be central to the understanding of the genre as such, and on close readings of their autobiographical films we demonstrate the role played by the genre in the transformation of a creative and artistic environment. As will be seen, the emergence of the genre responds to a historical and aesthetic transformation in experimental films and offers itself as a peronal narrative for this changing history.

No final da década de 1960 e início da seguinte, dentro do contexto que se convencionou chamar de cinema experimental ou de vanguarda norte-americano, um número sem precendetes de cineastas dedicou-se à elaboração de filmes-diário ou autobiografias filmadas. Esse movimento é acompanhado, no caso de alguns dos realizadores, por um interesse por outras formas (literárias ou pictóricas) de autorre- presentação e escrita de vida e por um esforço reflexivo sobre as possibilidades, usos e potências dessas formas no cinema. Partindo do entendimento que a autobiografia transforma-se em um campo de interesses para cineastas, críticos e público apenas a partir deste momento, esta tese pretende abordar como ela é formulada e inventada por cineastas como uma forma possível para o cinema. A partir da análise de textos e filmes de três cineastas centrais para essa elaboração, notadamente Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas e Hollis Frampton, demonstramos o papel do gênero na transformação de um panorama artístico e criativo. De um lado, como se verá, a autobiografia afirma-se e inventa-se como uma tentativa de dialogar e responder a uma história artística que incluí o próprio cineasta, de outro, ela propõe-se como um lugar de singularização e transformação dessa história. / On the threshold of the seventies, the autobiographical genre emerged as one of the main tendencies of the north-american avant-garde film. This event was followed by a growing interest in other forms of self representation and life narratives in painting and literature and by an intellectual effort to reflect on the uses, qualities, possibilities and predecessors of the new form in film. Understanding that autobiography becomes a field of interest for filmmakers, critics and public alike only at this moment in time, this dissertation intends to broach how autobiography is fashioned by filmmakers into a form viable for cinema. Relying on a vast documentation of writings by Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage and Hollis Frampton, three filmmakers whom we consider to be central to the understanding of the genre as such, and on close readings of their autobiographical films we demonstrate the role played by the genre in the transformation of a creative and artistic environment. As will be seen, the emergence of the genre responds to a historical and aesthetic transformation in experimental films and offers itself as a peronal narrative for this changing history.

Cette thèse étudie la perception de la marque vieille par les consommateurs selon une perspective anthropomorphique de la marque (perception et stéréotypes des personnes âgées). La marque perçue vieille est appréhendée en fonction des caractéristiques qui lui sont associées. Elle est multidimensionnelle et ambivalente (positive ou négative). Cinq études sont menées dans cette recherche. Une étude qualitative exploratoire (étude 1), nous conceptualisons et définissons la marque perçue vieillie, identifions ses dimensions, ses conséquences et ses modérateurs. Trois études quantitatives (études 2, 3 et 4), nous construisons un outil de mesure composé de quatre dimensions : expertise, déclin, intemporalité et entretien. Une étude quantitative (étude 5), nous testons un modèle intégrateur et les hypothèses de la recherche. Les dimensions de la marque perçue vieille ont des effets significatifs sur la nostalgie du consommateur, l’attachement à la marque et la confiance dans la marque. Ces relations sont modérées par l’orientation temporelle vers le passé et l’âge du consommateur, ainsi que le type de vieillissement de la marque (positif versus négatif) / This doctoral dissertation examines the perception of the old brand by consumers from an anthropomorphic perspective of the brand (perception and stereotypes of the elderly). The brand perceived as old is apprehended according to the characteristics associated with it. It is multidimensional and ambivalent (positive or negative). Five studies are conducted in this research. In study 1 which is an exploratory qualitative study (study 1), we conceptualized and defined brand perceived oldness, identified its dimensions, its consequences and moderators. Following that, three quantitative studies (studies 2, 3 and 4) were carried out in which we built a measurement scale consisting of four dimensions: expertise, decline, timelessness and maintenance. Finally, a quantitative study (study 5) was executed to test an integrative model and research hypothesis. The brand perceived oldness dimensions have significant effects on consumer’s nostalgia, brand attachment, and brand trust. These relationships are moderated by consumer’ temporal orientation towards the past and age, and by the type of brand oldness (positive versus negative)

Memory and nostalgia work in complex, paradoxical ways in Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men and The Road, both haunting the main protagonists, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and the father, as well as bringing them to crucial realizations. These men give up the traditional hero role for the more meaningful and generative image of “carrying the fire,” which unites these two novels. Carrying the fire represents a memorial and nostalgic longing for home and family. Bell and the father attain this vision because of their obsession with the past, and because of their struggle with memory and nostalgia. Memory, for these characters, has both personal and collective dimensions. Nostalgia, likewise, has a dual function, following Svetlana Boym's definition of nostalgics as being capable of restorative and reflective longing for the past. Family, or Paul Ricœur’s theory of close relations, bridges the gap between the conflicts of memory and nostalgia, acting as the means by which they understand this vision of carrying the fire while also embodying it. Additionally, the duality of both memory and nostalgia drive Bell and the father to seek for a prophetic vision, for stability in the past to deal with the threats in the present, which appears in the narrative structures of each novel.