Syftet med detta examensarbete har varit tudelat, med både kvalitativ och kvantitativ innehållsanalys. Den första har syftat till att undersöka vilken ställning historieämnet har haft i läro- och kursplaner, från år 1962 till 2012. Analys skulle också ske över vilken historia elever möter genom läromedel i historieundervisningen, vilket har skett utifrån Staffan Selanders definition av pedagogisk text-traduktion. Den kvantitativa innehållsanalysen har berört vilka och antalet begrepp eleverna möter i epokskildringen av häxprocesserna. Resultatet har visat att historieämnet som en del av styrdokumenten ständigt har haft en hög status, trots att det i den samhälleliga kontexten har gått att utläsa motsatt scenario. Kopplingen mellan nutid, dåtid och framtid har genom de tre granskade läroplanerna visats bli allt tydligare, likaså elevens egen påverkan av historien i morgon. Faktamässigt har historieskildringarna visats vara korrekta till text, dock skiljs läromedlen åt mellan hur stort utrymme epoken får och därmed hur utförliga texterna är. Detta har sett ut på liknande sätt över de 50 åren som de åtta utvalda läromedlen har blivit granskade, från först utgivna läromedel och det sist utgivna i undersökningen. Bilden som kunskapsbärare är en svaghet i faktatexterna om häxprocesserna då majoriteten av läromaterialen påvisar en inkorrekt faktabild, vilket motsäger texternas innehåll. Av de granskade begreppen kring häxprocesserna har ingen större förändring skett av vilka begrepp eleverna har mött över tid, däremot har utrymmet i textmassan av begreppen förändrats. Dock från ett läromedel till ett annat, ju kortare texter kring epoken desto större procentuellt utrymme tillges begreppen och vice versa. / The purpose of this essay has been twofold, with both qualitative and quantitative content analysis. The first aimed to investigate whether the status of the subject of history has changed in the curriculum, from 1962 until 2012. Analysis would also be done of the history students meet through study material in history teaching, the analysis was based on Staffan Selander's definition of pedagogical text transformation. The quantitative content analysis has touched whom and the frequency of concepts students meet in the era depiction of the witch trials. The result has shown that the subject of history as a part of the governing documents has had high status, even though the social context has been to deduce the opposite scenario. The link between present, past and future, has through the three examined curricula shown to become increasingly evident, and so has the student's own impact of the history tomorrow. Fact wise, historical depiction has shown to be accurate to the text. However, teaching materials differ between the amount of space the era gets and how detailed the texts are. This has shown to be the manner through the eight selected textbooks that have been examined in this study, from the first, of the year 1962, published study material to the last issued, in the year 2012. The image is a weakness in fact depiction of witch trials when the majority of materials use an incorrect factual picture, which contradicts textual contents. Among the examined concepts of witch trials, no major change of what concepts the students face has occurred over time. However, the space in the body of text of the terms has changed, from one material to another. The shorter the texts about the era is, the greater the percentage of space of concepts and vice versa.

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Based on the Salem witch trials of 1692-1693, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible treats a historical event that could be considered overflowing with patriarchal oppression. Despite the author’s clear disapproval of the historical cruelty, the play continuously reveals patriarchal structures and shows misogynist tendencies in its depiction of women. This essay suggests that the two main female characters Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor function as representations of binary oppositions based on the patriarchal assumption of two categories of women: the ‘bad girl’ and the ‘good girl,’ which both reinforce the idea of women as unnuanced objects rather than multifaceted subjects. By arguing that Abigail and Elizabeth represent the binary pairs ‘selfish/sacrificing’ and ‘promiscuous/frigid,’ the essay finds that the two women are depicted as ‘either/or’ and that the unnuanced portrayals result in an unsympathetic reading of them. Finally, the essay concludes that regardless if the woman is a ‘good girl’ or a ‘bad girl,’ she is socially punished or given unflattering characteristics in order not to compete with the male protagonist in terms of reader sympathy. / Arthur Millers pjäs The Crucible skildrar häxprocesserna i Salem 1692-1693, en historisk händelse som kan anses vara genomsyrad av patriarkalt förtryck. Trots författarens uttalade förakt gentemot häxprocessernas grymhet finns det tydliga och återkommande patriarkala strukturer i den stundom misogyna pjäsen, särskilt i dess kvinnoporträtt. Denna uppsats visar hur de två kvinnliga huvudkaraktärerena Abigail Williams och Elizabeth Proctor fungerar som representationer av binära motsatser baserade på den patriarkala idén om två kategorier av kvinnor: den ’dåliga flickan’ och den ’duktiga flickan’, vilka förstärker synen på kvinnor som onyanserade objekt snarare än mångfacetterade subjekt. Genom att argumentera för hur Abigail och Elizabeth representerar de binära paren ’självisk/självuppoffrande’ och ’promiskuös/frigid’ finner denna uppsats att Abigail och Elizabeth är porträtterade som ’antingen/eller’ och att den onyanserade karaktäriseringen resulterar i en osympatisk läsning av dem. Slutligen påvisar uppsatsen att oavsett om kvinnan är en ’duktig flicka’ eller en ’dålig flicka’ blir hon socialt bestraffad eller försedd med osmickrande karaktärsdrag i syfte att inte konkurrera med den manliga protagonisten om läsarens sympati.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In mid-January of 1691/2 two young girls in the household of Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem Village, Massachusetts, began exhibiting strange behavior. "It began in obscurity, with cautious experiments in fortune telling. Books on the subject had 'stolen' into the land; and all over New England, late in 1691, young people were being 'led away with little sorceries.'" The young girls of Salem Village had devised their own creation of a crystal ball using "the white of an egg suspended in a glass" and "in the glass there floated 'a specter in the likeness of a coffin.'"

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This thesis focuses on the significance of blood and the perception of the body in both learned and popular culture in order to investigate problems of identity and social exclusion in early modern Europe. Starting from the view of blood as a liminal matter, manifesting fertile, positive aspects in conjunction with dangerous, negative ones, I show how it was believed to attract supernatural forces within the natural world. It could empower or pollute, restore health or waste corporeal and spiritual existence. While this theme has been studied in a medieval religious context and by anthropologists, its relevance during the early modern period has not been explored. I argue that, considering the impact of the Reformation on people’s mentalities, studying the way in which ideas regarding blood and the body changed from late medieval times to the eighteenth century can provide new insights about patterns of social and religious tensions, such as the witch-trials and persecutions. In this regard the thesis engages with anthropological theories, comparing the dialectic between blood and body with that between identity and society, demonstrating that they both spread from the conflict of life with death, leading to the social embodiment or to the rejection of an individual. A comparative approach is also employed to analyze blood symbolism in Protestant and Catholic countries, and to discuss how beliefs were influenced by both cultural similarities and religious differences. Combining historical sources, such as witches’ confessions, with appropriate examples from anthropology I also examine a corpus of popular ideas, which resisted to theological and learned notions or slowly merged with them. Blood had different meanings for different sections of society, embodying both the physical struggle for life and the spiritual value of the Christian soul. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 develop the dualism of the fluid in late medieval and early modern ritual murder accusations against Jews, European witchcraft and supernatural beliefs and in the medical and philosophical knowledge, while chapters 5 and 6 focus on blood themes in Protestant England and in Counter-Reformation Italy. Through the examination of blood in these contexts I hope to demonstrate that contrasting feelings, fears and beliefs related to dangerous or extraordinary individuals, such as Jews, witches, and Catholic saints, but also superhuman beings such as fairies, vampires and werewolves, were rooted in the perception of the body as an unstable substance, that was at the base of ethnic, religious and gender stereotypes.