This thesis concentrates on literature during India's battle for independence from the British Empire. These publications look at the outcomes of Europe's intent to colonize and its impact on the marginalized, colonial subjects down to the personal level. Delving into the tragic reality of colonialism and investigating its impact as portrayed in the novels selected, this thesis argues that the selected texts operate as resistance literature subverting the colonial discourse in retrieving South Asian culture and history. This project explores specific forms of resistance within the tropes of memory, history, and gender to pose a larger question of decolonial futures in the postcolonial aftermath. The explorations of Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi, Rabindranath Tagore's The Home and the World, and R.K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma all represent multiple ways of studying the independence movement in their resistance frame. Analyzing these works through a postcolonial perspective unveils underrepresented voices and the intricacies of the Independence landscape. Ahmed Ali incorporates nostalgia as an argument for abolition and articulates Muslim identity in India's rapidly transforming environment. Tagore writes from his real experiences, recounting the confusion and disarray that plagued the Independence movement as disputes erupted on how to fight for India's sovereignty. R.K. Narayan embraces the ‘Quit India' protest and Gandhi's pacifist ideals while worrying about the future after the Mahatma's death. These writers decolonize readers' minds, and campaign for India's independence against the Empire Such literature gives the colonized a voice as they actively resist the British colonization in every aspect of existence.

Studien undersöker relationen mellan skapandet av arpilleras och erfarenheten av exil utifrån konstnären Cecilia Valdés och den politiska och konstnärliga organisationen Salvador Allende-kommitténs ateljé. I relation till exil behandlar frågeställningarna följande ämnen: motivval, skapandets syfte för individen i exil och exilens påverkan på den skapande erfarenheten. I uppsatsens inledning presenteras undersökningens syfte och frågeställningar, centrala teoretiska perspektiv och metod. Sedan introduceras material och tidigare forskning, följt av en beskrivning av uppsatsens disposition. Uppsatsens undersökande del består av två kapitel vilka behandlar centrala motiv och känslotillstånd i ateljéns verksamhet. Undersökningen avrundas med en avslutande diskussion samt förslag på framtida forskning. Utifrån Sara Ahmeds affektteori, Edward W. Saids begrepp kontrapunktiskt perspektiv, Wendy Browns teori om samtida politiserade identiteter och sårade anknytningar och semiotisk bildanalys, har följande slutsatser nåtts: Den traditionella symboliken inom arpilleras skiftade i innebörd genom erfarenheten av exil. Ateljéns kollektiva verksamhet omvandlade exilen till en emanciperande erfarenhet snarare än att grunda den i förbittring. Slutligen skiljer sig anledningarna till ateljéns grundande från motiven bakom liknande verksamheter i Chile under militärdiktaturen.

Studien undersöker relationen mellan skapandet av arpilleras och erfarenheten av exil utifrån konstnären Cecilia Valdés och den politiska och konstnärliga organisationen Salvador Allende-kommitténs ateljé. I relation till exil behandlar frågeställningarna följande ämnen: mottival, skapandets syfte för individen i exil och exilens påverkan på den skapande erfarenheten. I uppsatsens inledning presenteras undersökningens syfte och frågeställningar, centrala teoretiska perspektiv och metod. Sedan introduceras material och tidigare forskning, följt av en beskrivning av uppsatsens disposition. Uppsatsens undersökande del består av två kapitel vilka behandlar centrala motiv och känslotillstånd i ateljéns verksamhet. Undersökningen avrundas med en avslutande diskussion samt förslag på framtida forskning. Utifrån Sara Ahmeds affektteori, Edward W. Saids begrepp kontrapunktiskt perspektiv, Wendy Browns teori om samtida politiserade identiteter och sårade anknytningar och semiotisk bildanalys, har följande slutsatser nåtts: Den traditionella symboliken inom arpilleras skiftade i innebörd genom erfarenheten av exil. Ateljéns kollektiva verksamhet omvandlade exilen till en emanciperande erfarenhet snarare än att grunda den i förbittring. Slutligen skiljer sig anledningarna till ateljéns grundande från motiven bakom liknande verksamheter i Chile under militärdiktaturen.

Makala haya yanachanganua ishara na uashiriaji kama mbinu ya kimtindo ya kuwasilisha maana na kukuza uhusika na maudhui katika riwaya ya Nyuso za Mwanamke (2010) ya Said Ahmed Mohamed. Nimechanganua aina tatu za ishara ambazo ni ishara bia, ishara za kaida na ishara za kifasihi kama zinavyoainishwa na Frye na wenzake (1985). Lengo kuu ni kuchanganua na kubainisha jinsi ishara zinavyowasilisha maana na itikadi za jamii katika matini husika. Ishara hizi pia husaidia kukuza maudhui, ploti na kuongeza ujumi katika matini za kifasihi. / This article analyses symbols and symbolism as stylistic devices of communicating meaning and as a technique of characterisation and theme development in Nyuso za Mwanamke (The Faces of a Woman, 2010) written by Said Ahmed Mohamed. I analysed three types of symbols which are natural symbols, conventional symbols and literary symbols following Frye et al. (1985). This study aims at showing how symbols are used in literary works to communicate meaning and the ideology of the society depicted in the text. Symbols also help to build the theme, the plot and adding aesthetic value in literary texts.

Literary theory represents a way of thinking and a body of writing that is dedicated to the analysis of literary texts. It is a means through which literary critics come to appreciate the nature of the literary texts they seek to analyze and the methodology that informs their practice. Analyzing three 21st Century Swahili novels, this paper examines a paradigm shift: literary theory becomes the sub¬ject under examination as opposed to its conventional role where it would ideally offer systematic views of what such texts would mean. Said Ahmed Mohamed’s Dunia Yao (2006) and Nyuso za Mwanamke (2010) on the one hand, and Kyallo Wadi Wamitila’s Musaleo! (2004), on the other, represent a new kind of writing that experiments on literary theory as a subject for criticism. In these texts, we read about the tenets and practice of a variety of literary theories including Russian formalism, Saussurean and Jakobsonian structuralism, Derrida’s deconstruction, Edward Said’s post-colonial theory, and Carl Gustav Jung’s psychoanalytical theory. While this experiment that the two novelists engage in may appear elitist for the average reader at first, the paper contends that this form of writing will in the long term assist in the domestication of literary theory. Further, the three texts could greatly assist in pedagogical issues if read alongside other mandatory course books on literary theory.

Literary theory represents a way of thinking and a body of writing that is dedicated to the analysis of literary texts. It is a means through which literary critics come to appreciate the nature of the literary texts they seek to analyze and the methodology that informs their practice. Analyzing three 21st Century Swahili novels, this paper examines a paradigm shift: literary theory becomes the sub¬ject under examination as opposed to its conventional role where it would ideally offer systematic views of what such texts would mean. Said Ahmed Mohamed’s Dunia Yao (2006) and Nyuso za Mwanamke (2010) on the one hand, and Kyallo Wadi Wamitila’s Musaleo! (2004), on the other, represent a new kind of writing that experiments on literary theory as a subject for criticism. In these texts, we read about the tenets and practice of a variety of literary theories including Russian formalism, Saussurean and Jakobsonian structuralism, Derrida’s deconstruction, Edward Said’s post-colonial theory, and Carl Gustav Jung’s psychoanalytical theory. While this experiment that the two novelists engage in may appear elitist for the average reader at first, the paper contends that this form of writing will in the long term assist in the domestication of literary theory. Further, the three texts could greatly assist in pedagogical issues if read alongside other mandatory course books on literary theory.

This research investigates the intersection of religion, self-identification, and imperialism in a number of Arab American literary works. It engages a wide array of, and contributes to, scholarship from American Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Islamic Studies, Global Studies, and Transnational Literary Theory. The project examines two groups of writers: the first group consists of American cultural conservatives of Arab or Muslim descent, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nonie Darwish, Bridgette Gabrielle, and Wafa Sultan, while the second includes Arab American literary writers Mohja Kahf, Leila Ahmed, Ibrahim Fawal, and Alia Yunis. The former employ the traditional autobiography genre to produce master narratives, while the latter utilize the memoir, novel, and short-story cycle genres to challenge hegemonies and master narratives. The cultural conservatives, I contend, belong to a growing transnational body of writers whose phenomenon constitutes an extension of what Matthew F. Jacobs calls an “informal network” of transnational self-identified specialists (4). In their autobiographies, Ali, Gabrielle, Darwish, and Sultan concentrate on the Middle East, Muslims, and Arabs, but they are unique in the sense that their policy-oriented personal narratives explicitly seek to influence not only American attitudes and practices aimed at Arabs and Muslims, but also those directed at American citizens of Arab or Muslim descent. Furthermore, their culturally-conservative traditional autobiographies Infidel (2007), Nomad (2010), Heretic (2015), Now They Call Me Infidel (2006), Because They Hate (2006), They Must Be Stopped (2008), and A God Who Hates (2009) deem American multiculturalism a serious danger to the United States and the West, a thesis not unlike Samuel P. Huntington’s in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). In this research project, I claim that Arab American literary writers have had to face, and write against, the predominance of this old-new clash of civilizations idea which has evolved into a discourse promulgated by the self-identified experts of the “informal network” and the cultural conservatives of Arab or Muslim descent. The Arab American literary novels, memoirs, and short-story cycles my study closely examines trouble the clash of civilizations discourse. Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006), Ahmed’s A Border Passage (1999), Fawal’s On the Hills of God (1998), and Yunis’s The Night Counter (2009) are arguably representative of trends in, though not limited to, the contemporary Arab American memoir, novel, and short-story cycle genres and are best understood as literary writing within the context of this broader American tradition of interpreting the Middle East, Arabs, and Muslims and the specific cultural conservative fixation on Arab and Muslim Americans. / Graduate

This dissertation is concerned with a fundamental problem at the heart of Arendt’s The Human Condition—namely, ‘the problem of idleness’. This problem is related to the three types of human Arendt identifies as correlated to dominant activities in one’s life, animal laborans, homo faber, and the acting person. It explores Arendt’s predictions of an oncoming automation crisis, and the possibility of a corresponding crisis in the production—consumption cycle. The problem of idleness can be understood as the claim that if people are provided freedom from job-holding so that they may pursue other activities, they would likely turn to consumption to occupy their time. I claim that this problem of idleness is important in any consideration of an oncoming automation crisis, especially in relation to Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a solution to such a crisis. I claim that there is a hole in the UBI literature concerning this problem of idleness, and if left unaddressed it would result in both an ineffective UBI, and in a crisis of meaning for the general populace. This dissertation demonstrates what the problem of idleness is, why it is important, and what possible solutions exist. This contributes to the UBI literature by diagnosing and attempting to solve a gap in the literature which I argue would cause practical challenges in the implementation and stability of a UBI system. I also contribute to the Arendtian literature by problematizing traditional readings of Arendt, and offering a reappraisal of her thought on Marx, art, and the social.

Denna studie behandlar monsterkroppar i HBO:s tv-serie True Blood (2008 – 2014) och deras tillblivelse samt orientering utifrån skevhet, performativ materia och temporalitet. Med utgångspunkt i Sara Ahmeds queera fenomenologi analyseras empirin genom en queer och reparativ läsning i syfte att studera huruvida True Blood som tv-serie kan ha emancipatorisk och subversiv potential. Studiens empiriska omfång utgörs av sju sända säsonger av True Blood, innehållandes totalt åttio avsnitt, och som urval har primärt tre kvinnliga karaktärer följts. Dessa tre karaktärer definieras ha monsterkroppar utifrån den normativa människokroppen. I analysen diskuteras, förutom de tre valda karaktärerna, även andra monsterkroppar. Slutsatsen är att True Blood som text utmanar och ifrågasätter, genom sina monsterkroppar, normativa föreställningar och räta linjer och därmed anses ha emancipatorisk och subversiv potential.

This work comprises two main parts. The first part outlines our efforts to expand on the recent work of Gütlich et.al. by synthesizing Co(II) based spin crossover systems within a dendritic framework. We wanted to investigate the possibility of synthesizing different first generation, triazole containing dendrimers using “click” type reactions and their coordination ability with Co(II) ions. To this end we have had limited success mainly due to the numerous challenges in synthesizing a pure dendrimer product. The second part details our efforts in the synthesis of a mononuclear Co(II) based single molecule magnet. This comes as an extension to recent reports by Chang and Long where they have successfully obtained mononuclear Fe(II) single molecule magnets by inducing structural distortions within the complexes to amplify the spin-orbit coupling. We postulated that the use of Co(II) in conjunction with a bulky ligand framework would lead to desirable magnetic properties. We chose the known bis(imino)pyridine ligand scaffold due to its rich chemistry and its interesting and unexpected coordination behaviour, as we have seen in previous research efforts by our lab. To this end we were successful in isolating and characterizing 4 compounds, and we have carried out detailed magnetic measurements on the two most magnetically interesting species.