In the form of a theory testing case study based upon the seminal works of Kenneth Waltz and Stephen Walt, this thesis seeks to uncover whether defensive realism can be applied with focus on Israeli international conduct. This is defined by their wartime actions as well as their peacekeeping efforts. The paper analyses two major historical events; namely the six-day-war and the recent Israeli-Arab peace treaties. Thereafter it delves into the preexisting conditions of each combattant in the war, then reviews the events unfolding during the conflict in the first part of the analysis, followed by the second part examining the contents of the Abraham Accords, as well as the official statements of Bahrain and Sudan regarding peace with Israel.  Following this, the thesis examines the details and terms of the Abraham Accords and treaties between Israel, Bahrain and Sudan. A hypothesis is presented predicting that both tenets of defensive realism will be applicable to their respective parts of Israeli history. It is subsequently found that the first tenet of defensive realism has explanatory value with regards to the six-day-war, the second tenet of defensive realism that follows also proves to hold significant merit, and the thesis concludes that the given hypothesis therefore is correct. Both tenets of defensive realism are applicable to respective units of analysis on Israel, which therefore suggests that the theory of defensive realism offers a good framework for explaining the actions of the Israeli state.

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Under 2015 drabbade Sverige av en migrationskris, även kallad den syriska flyktingvågen. 160 000 syriska migranter ansökte om asyl under samma år. Syftet med denna uppsats, är att undersöka vuxna syriers upplevelser som har flytt sitt hemland på grund av inbördeskriget, där de har migrerat till Sverige. Studien har gjorts med hjälp av fem deltagande respondenter, som är födda, uppväxta och var bosatta i Syrien, men som har migrerats till Sverige sedan kriget utlöstes under mars 2011. Tre av respondenterna är kvinnor och två är män. Studien valdes att göras genom en kvalitativ ansats, där en semistrukturerad intervju användes för att få bättre förståelse för respondenternas åsikter samt för att få svar på forskningsfrågorna. Resultatet visar att syriska migranters åsikter av delaktighetsbegreppet förknippas med begreppen gemenskap, trygghet och acceptans. Studien utvisar på de vanliga utmaningarna med att migrera till ett nytt land, som att lära sig det nya språket, människor, arbete, den nya samhällets kultur, lagar och regler. Det även visar att syriska migranter blir segregerade från restenav samhället och känner sig i utanförskap i stället att vara delaktiga i det nya samhället. Studien uppvisar också att varje enskild syrisk migrant har en skyldighet att ta ansvar och utvecklas och försöka sitt bästa med att förhålla sig till den svenska samhället.

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The aim of this essay is to show that the protagonist of the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment is more open to change in his life than is often assumed by commentators. In the end of the novel the student Raskolnikov confesses the murder of two women, and he is sentenced to eight years in a prison colony. In a short scene Raskolnikov seems to experience a spiritual awakening, a "resurrection", with the words of the original text. The genuineness of that conversion, foretold in the epilogue, has been contested by critics. That negative assessment is a starting point for this essay. Is a new beginning, a spiritual restoration or even a resurrection, like in the biblical tradition, at all imaginable for Raskolnikov? I propose it is, based on my reading of the novel. I will especially look back on an episode before the main action of the novel starts. It concerns Raskolnikov's engagement to a young girl who died before the couple could get married. The story about the fiancée suggests that a more purposeful future for the main character - in contrast to who he seems to be in the novel - cannot be dismissed. One main argument for the spiritual transformation of Raskolnikov is an experience he has in the minutes before the resurrection scene. He envisions the biblical patriarche Abraham on his fields with grazing herds. I interpret this as a myth about possibilities. Abraham lives in the beginning of time and God gave him a mission. Abraham lives a long and full life. Life does not have to end in misery but can be meaningful and long also for Raskolnikov.

This thesis studies the relationship of irony, as defined in Kierkegaard's The Concept of Irony to the text and subject of Fear and Trembling. Irony is interpreted in this thesis as negative space, which both binds and separates and which assumes meaning equal to or greater than the positive space that binds it. This definition applies to Kierkegaard's Socrates who lived ironically in the space between actuality and ideality. This thesis considers how Abraham also lived in ironic space and why ironic space is a prerequisite for faith. Unlike Socrates, Abraham did not stop with irony, but used irony to open ironic space in which a knight of faith can be both separated from and reconciled to his actuality. Because in Fear and Trembling the Virgin Mary is compared to Abraham, this thesis examines at length how irony is related to Mary both in terms of her faithfulness and her maternity. Irony can then be seen as a necessary circumstance of maternity. The negative space of the female anatomy becomes ironic because it can take on more meaning than it can have alone, particularly in its ability to create (an)other person. Faith and maternity share irony as a requirement for their modes of living because both require an ironic separation from the masculine sphere. Applying the relationship of irony to faith and the maternal offers a interpretive possibilities for the knight of faith that otherwise go unnoticed.

This study involves an analysis and evaluation of criticisms made of some of the work of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, and a reevaluation of his work and character in the light of the findings of the study. The criticisms were concerned in particular with the method used in translating into English certain material from the language of the original source found on papyrus in an Egyptian tomb. This material is part of a book known as "The Book of Abraham." In general the criticisms dealt with the life's work and character of Joseph.

The purpose of this study is to compare all the major printings of the texts of "The Book of Abraham" and the "Writings of Joseph Smith," both presently contained in "The Pearl of Great Price", to note the various changes in the texts and to evaluate the significance of those changes.

How does the body manifest religious belief? What happens when that belief shatters? These questions were critical in sixteenth-century France when religious conflict rattled many individuals’ faith. A startling—and related—motif in the literature of the period features one part of the body overwhelming the world. These texts, this dissertation argues, manifest religious belief through this motif. While several scholars have examined the role of fragmentation in Renaissance culture, particularly how this fragmentation intersects with cartography and anatomy, the religious dimension of this phenomenon has not been emphasized enough. Through a method of close textual and visual analysis, this study argues that in an era when openly stating one’s personal religious beliefs could have fatal consequences, the digestive tract, heart, and other parts of the body sometimes took on the work of expressing religious belief. This process resembles synecdoche but differs in that, instead of the part representing the whole, the part swallows it. The word “swallows” is indeed appropriate: the mouth appears in several of these texts as the part that consumes, contains, or incorporates the entirety. In Chapter One, the Dutch cartographer Abraham Ortelius’s 1564 map of the world reveals the cartographer’s spiritual inclinations by portraying the world as a heart, or rather, a lung. In Chapter Two, the Huguenot Jean de Léry’s traumatic experiences during the Wars of Religion combine with his time spent among cannibal tribes to force a redefinition of humanness in his memoire, Histoire d’un voyage faicte en la terre de Bresil (1578). In Chapter Three, God’s sensing, digesting body in the Protestant poet Guillaume du Bartas’s hexameron, La Sepmaine (1578), functions as a declaration of Calvinist faith. In Chapter Four, Alcofrybas’s journey into Pantagruel’s mouth in Rabelais’s Pantagruel (1532) veils a distinctly Christian humanist message. In Chapter Five, the monster Quaresmeprenant in Rabelais’s Quart Livre (1552) translates a refusal, or perhaps failure, to reconcile religious differences with a refusal to reconcile the parts of Quaresmeprenant’s body.