This study analyzes the politics of contemporary conspiracy theory discourses in the United States. Departing from the predominant methodological individualism that characterizes many contemporary analyses of conspiracy theory, which take the individual subject as the unit to be explained and governed, this study situates the production and proliferation of conspiracy theory discourses in the context of cybernetics and related transformations in politics that have tended to reduce democratic representativeness and increase forms of economic and political inequality. Cybernetics, which is often defined as the science of command and control, offers a series of concepts that facilitate an understanding of how freedom and control have become aligned in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries in the United States. I utilize Michel Foucault's governmentality approach to formulate a cybernetic governmentality methodology, which analyzes the governance of subjectivity in and through cybernetic systems of communication. Cybernetics, which seeks to invite the individual subject to realize itself through 'choice' and by way of its imbrication into machinic systems, conceptualizes the subject as a consumer and processor of information. I put forth the notion of the scripted political to analyze a key tension within contemporary U.S. politics, as politics is becoming increasingly uncertain yet also often appears to be strongly controlled by political and economic elites. Conspiracy theory, as a speculative genre of thinking, aims to steer events towards certain political ends. Conspiratorial speculation has become a popular means to connect and reflect on a felt obsolescence or superfluity on the part of the individual subject. To substantiate these arguments, I specifically analyze the discourses of QAnon and Covid-19 conspiracy theories. These discourses express political fantasies that often privilege the idea of a liberal autonomous individual subject. The politics of contemporary conspiracy theory in the United States thus concerns the fact that these conspiratorial discourses seek to perform a form of liberal subjectivity. However, this performance of individual liberal subjectivity is always caught in cybernetic systems of communication, which seek to produce value, harvest data, and maximize the attention of their 'users', thus undermining the potential for any meaningful form of liberal subjectivity. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study analyzes the politics of contemporary conspiracy theory discourses in the United States. Whereas today many scholars approach conspiracy theory as concerning the beliefs of individual subjects, whose thoughts are considered deviant and potentially requiring reform or monitoring, this study engages with conspiracy theory discourses and their conditions of possibility. While many acknowledge that conspiracy theory is a response to a felt loss of control, this notion of control is understood to be only potentially true or valid. Cybernetics, which is often defined as the science of command and control, offers a series of concepts that facilitate an understanding of how freedom and control have become aligned in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries in the United States. Cybernetics, which seeks to invite the individual subject to realize itself through 'choice' and by way of its imbrication into machinic and technological systems, conceptualizes the individual subject as a consumer and processor of information. I develop a new notion that I call the scripted political to study a key tension within contemporary U.S. politics, as politics is becoming increasingly uncertain yet also often appears to be strongly controlled by political and economic elites. Conspiracy theory is a speculative genre of thinking that is well-suited to produce social and political meaning in a condition of information saturation characteristic of today's social domain. It does so, among other things, by providing explanations about the operations of what many conspiracy theorists consider to be concentrated forms of power and by attempting to steer events towards certain desirable political ends. However, as a way of producing social and political meaning, conspiracy theory often misses the mark. Yet, despite its frequent factual inconsistencies, conspiratorial discourses and speculations have become popular means to create social connections and to reflect on a sense of obsolescence or superfluity felt by many individual subjects. To support these arguments, I focus on the conspiratorial discourses of and about QAnon and about the Covid-19 pandemic. These discourses express political fantasies that often privilege the idea of a liberal autonomous individual subject. However, I show in this study that fantasies about a re-empowered mode of individual liberal subjectivity are often caught in cybernetic systems of communication, which are more interested in producing economic value, harvesting all sorts of data about individual subjects, and maximizing the attention of their 'users', thus undermining the potential for any return to a meaningful form of liberal subjectivity.

Ancien élève de Husserl et Heidegger, Günther Anders (1902-1992) composa une oeuvre philosophique dont la particularité est d'interroger la situation de l'homme face aux événements les plus sombres du 20e siècle. Ce travail, élaboré à partir d'une lecture de l'oeuvre éditée à ce jour, complétée par celle du Nachlass, vise à ressaisir l'unité, la cohérence et la singularité de sa pensée autour d'une question majeure : comment un monde technicisé, un monde sans hommes, est-Il compatible avec une éthique pour des hommes sans monde ? Décrire les ombres du monde, celles d'abord laissées par un monde humain technicisé, c'est déceler les idéalités de la technique qui recouvrent chaque chose d'une évidence artificielle. Observer le monde fabriqué par des hommes devenus des ombres, c'est aussi percevoir qu'ils peuplent un environnement dont ils sont les produits. Ce monde artificiel, à défaut de ne faire que soulager l'hostilité naturelle, ajoute d'autres souffrances au poids de la nécessité, que les arts parviennent à peine à déjouer. Théoriser les ombres du monde, c'est relever la négativité d'un nihilisme réalisé par la technique, à refuser. L'hypothèse philosophique ici défendue est celle d'un nihilisme métaphysique conçu comme préalable nécessaire au refus de toute autre pratique nihiliste. A cet effet, à partir de l'oeuvre d'Anders se conçoit une philosophie occassionnelle comme pratique théorique d'une sobriété tragique. Si briser toute idée métaphysique aboutit à désenchanter les victimes de trop naïves généralités, cette théorie n'impose cependant en rien de s'interdire de faire de la métaphysique. / As a former student of Husserl and Heidegger, Günther Anders (1902-1992) wrote a philosophical work which characteristic is to examine the situation of man facing the darkest events of the 20th century. Our thesis developed with a reading of the edited work supplemented by the Nachlass, aims to synthesize the unity consistency and uniqueness of his thoughts by asking a specific question : how a technical world, a world without men, could be compatible with any ethic for men without world ? To describe the shadows of the world left by a technical one, is meant to identify idealities which cover everything with an artificial obviousness. To observe the world made by men, who themselves became shadows, is like to perceive thet they are living in a environment whose they are the products. This artificail world, instead of relieving man about the nature hostility, adds other difficulties, which the technology is only sometimes able to cope with. To theorize the shadows of the world is meant to seek the specific negativity of nihilism, which is produced by technology. Our task is to show that we can refuse the nihilism as an attitude. The philosophical hypothesis defended here is metaphysical nihilism designed as prerequisite for the refusal of any other nihilistic praxis. The philosophical work of Anders allows us to conceive an occasional philosophy as a theoretical practice, pointed out as a tragic sobriety. If to break any metaphysical idea leads to disenchant the naïve victims of generalities, this theory however does not refrain us from doing metaphysics.

Programmet för skolan är baserat kring en enad volym med en sammanhängande form där dagsljusinsläpp mot ett centralt rum gör interiören öppen och luftig. Byggnaden har fyra våningar, inklusive markplan, samt ett källarutrymme för byggnadens teknikrum. På entréplan finns många av skolans servicerum och administration samt träslöjdsal och idrottssal. Första och översta våning inhuser hemvister för årskurs F till 6. Bibliotek, musiksal och bildsal är placerade på byggnadens översta våning. Ambitionen för skolan är att ge elever och personal en skola med en större närvaro i stadsmiljön. Med ett öppet program och en stor trappgång uppmot årskurs F till 6 blir entrén en viktig upplevelse av byggnaden. Exteriören ansluter till den befintliga Anders Franzéns park som färdigställdes 2014. En omläggning och breddning av Kanalvägen tillgodoser parkering och leveransyta för trafik till och från skolan. Interiören menar upphöja entrén i byggnaden med hjäp av en öppen foajé/ allrumsyta och en visuell koppling till skolans övre, tre plan. Skolans huvudtrapp har en funktion som en flak gradäng och menas kunna utnytjas som en plats för elever att mötas i och umgås vid. Ljus släpps in genom stora fasadpartier av glas till klassrum, hemvister och allrum. De centrala korridorerna genom byggnaden har, utöver skenljus, en långsträckt takslits som ger dagljus till centrumrummen och gradängen Hållbarheten i byggnaden kommer ur dess flexibla program. Genom att frångå behov av bärande interiöra väggar är planen i hög grad förändringsbar. Då läroprogrammen är samlade på de två mellersta våningsplanen kan de pedagogiska rummen ändras utan att påverka serviceytor eller övervåningen/atriumet. Byggnaden har en total yta på 5800 kvm vilket har tillgodosett ett större bibliotek, en foaje med allrum, gradängtrappen och en större idrottsal. Framförallt Idrottssalen är en yta som skulle kunna hållas öppen utanför skoltid och användas av både elever samt boende i närområdet. / The school program is based around a single volume with a coherent form where daylight openings towards a central space makes the interior open and airy. The building has four floors, including ground plan, as well as a basement space for servicerooms. On the ground floor lies the school’s service rooms and administration, as well as a carpentryhall and sports hall. First and second floors house homes for year 0 to 6. Library, music hall and artsrooms are located on the top floor of the building. The ambition for the school is to give students and staff a school with a greater presence in the urban environment. With an open programs and a big staircase up to grade 0  to 6 makes the entrance an important experience of the building. The exterior joins the existing Anders Franzéns park which was completed in 2014. A reorganization and broadening of Kanalvägen provides parking and delivery space for traffic to and from school. The interior means raising the entrance to the building with the help of an open foyer/ entrence room and a visual connection to the school’s top three levels. The school’s main staircase has a function as a flak stand and is meant to be used as a place for pupils to meet and hang out. Light is emitted through large facade portions of glass to classrooms, student abode and family rooms. The central corridors through the building has, in addition to lighting, an elongate roof slit that gives daylight to the central space and stand. The durability of the building comes from its flexible program. By depriving the need for bearing interior walls, the plan is largely changeable. As the learning programs are compiled on the two middle floors, the educational rooms can be changed without affecting the service areas or the upstairs/atrium. The building has a total area of 5800 sqm, which has accommodated a larger library, a foyer with entrence room, stand-staircase and a larger sports hall. Especially the sports hall is an area which could be open outside school hours and used by both students and residents in the surrounding area.

This thesis is a reception study of Susanne Ostens book, theatre play and children’s film Flickan, mamman och demonerna. The study aims to examine how proffesional crituiqe, published in daily press and journals, handles the crituiqes genre conventions with the theorie that if the cirtic averts from the crituiqes genre conventions that their/societys doxa on what we expect from children’s art will become more visible, and the inescapable follow up question: does this ecpectation mirror how we perceive children and their capabilities?  The theorie is an investigation of the professor and litterary scholar Anders Johansson’s essay Slitas itu publisched Critica Obscura: Litteraturkritiska essäer, where Johansson makes the claim that socitys doxa will become visible if the ciric does not follow the crituiqes genre conventions and that this will lead to an erosion of the crituiqes porpose. Johanssons theory is acompanied by, amongst others, Jaquline Rose’s The Case of Peter Pan, Or, The Impossibility of Children's Fiction, and Perry Nodelmans article “The Other: Orientalism, Colonialism, and Children’s Literature” pulished in Children’s Literature Association Quarterly17, no, chosen since the thesis as a whole practices a post colonial reading of the chosen crituiqe. The result of the investigation is that: where the critic averts from the crituiques genre conventions, and involves their own oppinions without porper motivation (E.g. where affective failures has occurred) in the text, a clear pattern of our conteporary doxa of how we perceive children and how the art made for them should behave/be. The pattern/tendancy found is that children’s art is expected to have a didactic value, that the piece of art should mirror the childs “reality”, have an indisputable and understandable point, and not evoke too many negative feelings. The thesis is woven, in a esseyistic style, with hard-to-grasp memories of the authors childhood and the academic form.

The main purpose of this thesis is to discuss what exile writing is and who can be seen as an exile writer. If the word “exile” is related to forced dislocation, like Paul Tabori and Sopia A. McClennen describes it, who can be viewed as an exile writer? Is Anders Olsson’s definition of an exile writer acceptable or not? Could the The Escape, a future story about exiled Northern Europeans in Myanmar, be classified as exile literature? Another purpose with this text is to describe how a story about exile can be made realistic and tangible to a reader who has not experienced exile. How can the exile experience be shown in a text? The third major aim with this thesis is to discuss how an ethnographic study differs from a fictive novel about another culture. Is an academic text more close to reality than fiction and what is reality anyway? Is it possible to make a mix of an academic study and a fictive novel?

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This master thesis explores the image of Japan in the artistic creations during Japonism in Sweden. Japan and Sweden first started trading in 1868 and knowledge about Japan in Sweden were limited at best. With the emergence of the Western art movement known as Japonism, ranging from 1858 to 1914, fascination for the unknown country grew in Europe. As the art movement Japonism became the first era of interest of Japan in Sweden, the portrayal and subsequent image of the country that emerged during this time is of interest to examine, as to better understand how Japan was imagined by Sweden. Herein, this study aims to analyse the portrayal of Japan in artworks from Swedish artists during Japonism in order to examine what components and ideas composed the image of Japan conveyed during Japonism. A collection of visual artworks depicting Japanese elements, based on Japonism associated artists and creators, have been collected using digital archives and databases to assess what is depicted and how by the creators. Japanese elements, such as objects, clothes, people and landscapes were subsequently analysed using a visual analysis based on researcher Jules David Prown’s three-step method of analysing historical objects. Using the concept of the image, as defined by scholar Torsten Burgman, as the basis of the analysis the depictions of Japanese elements are examined and categorised into several larger and smaller components. The examination is conducted within a framework of ethnocentrism and orientalism to contextualise the image of Japan with the thought structures in 19th century Sweden, as the creators portrayed Japan from both a Swedish and Western Eurocentric colonial perspective. As the source material is artistic depictions, an additional aesthetic framework was applied to contextualise the image of Japan with its artistic medium. Four major image components were found in the material: Japan presented as a commodity; Japanese things as something feminine; Japan as something faraway and exotic, contrasting the West; and Japan as a reference or commentary on the ongoing Japonism movement. The image of Japan found in these depictions of Swedish Japonism was a Eurocentric and ethnocentric understanding of the country. Japan and Japanese things, were imagined as something exotic and beautiful, and usually conveyed as exotic commercial flair for Western women.

Today there are a big need for a system that delivers overview of all available units for different municipalities and shipping- and security companies due to the increasing requirements for efficiency. The purpose with this graduation thesis is to find out which systems that is suitable to use while developing cost-effective software for positioning and to produce a prototype for such solution. This assignment has been done at the request of PocketMobile Communications AB. PocketMobile is a company that are specialized on delivering modern mobile software solutions and systems to companies with their own vehicle fleet or mobile workers. This master thesis can be split into two separate parts, the theoretic- and the practical part. The theoretic part includes producing a number of functional requirements in cooperation with PocketMobile and comparing the available systems against the function requirements. The practical part deal with the development of a prototype that demonstrates the software recommended. The development tools that best matched the functionality requirements when the selection was made in May 2007 were Map24 and OpenLayers. The system that was selected to use while developing the prototype was Map24, because this product matches all of the requirements and it is also suited for professional usage regarding support, scalability and reliability. Map24 also have some advanced functions like ability to route plan for example. The prototype that has been developed is web based and the graphic design is similar to Google Maps.

Syftet med denna uppsats har varit att presentera och analysera argumentationen i debatten för och emot vargens rätt till existens i Värmland mellan åren 1965 och 1990. För att besvara forskningsfrågorna i uppsatsen har kvalitativ argumentationsanalytisk metod använts. Denna har applicerats på materialet som har utgjorts av ledare och insändare ifrån de värmländska lokaltidningarna Nya Wermlands-Tidningen och Värmlands Folkblad. Målet har i nästa steg också varit att belysa eventuella motsättningar mellan de som är i direktkontakt med vargen, den så kallade landsortsbefolkningen (periferi), och de som inte bor i områden där vargen uppehåller sig, den så kallade tätortsbefolkningen (centrum). Följande frågor har ställts för att uppnå syftet: (1) Vilka argument läggs fram i Nya Wermlands-Tidningen och Värmlands Folkblad i vargfrågan mellan åren 1965 och 1990? (2) Hur ser beviskraften i argumenten ut? (3) Hur speglar vargdebatten konflikten mellan landsorts- och tätortsbefolkningen i Värmland? Metoden argumentationsanalys går ut på att studera och analysera argumentationer i en text vilket i denna uppsats utgjorts av insändare och ledare. Med hjälp av argumentationsanalys har kritisk analys kunnat hjälpa till att illustrera en strukturerad och tydlig bild av textinnehållet. Argumenten har skisserats upp efter en delvis egen modell där varje arguments hållbarhet och relevans bedömts, i syfte att få fram en sammanlagd beviskraft. Jürgen Habermas idé och tankar om den borgerliga offentligheten har utgjort den teoretiska utgångspunkten. Denna har framförallt använts i ett diskursivt analytiskt ändamål. Den borgerliga offentligheten är det forum som allmänheten använder sig av för att debattera och uttrycka sina åsikter. Habermas ser att det moderna samhället förlorat mycket av den borgerliga offentlighetens beståndsdelar då den övertagits av kommersiella intressen. Denna uppsats har emellertid visat en god återupplivande för den borgerliga offentligheten, åtminstone i den studerade lokalpressen. Den högljudda debatten har gjorts möjlig tack vare en öppenhet från tidningsredaktionerna att presentera alla argument, för och emot, höga som låga, för att vargdebatten skall innefatta många dimensioner och synsätt. Bakgrunden i denna uppsats beskriver vargens historia i Sverige, framförallt i Värmland. Från att vargen varit talrik under 1600- till 1800-talet drevs den allt längre norrut för att mer eller mindre utrotas. Bakgrunden till dess utrotning har varit en kombination av sjukdomar, inavel men framförallt renägande samers avskjutning. Bakgrunden lyfter också fram de omdiskuterade Naturvårdsprojektet "Projekt Varg" som grundades i syfte att freda en svensk vargstam. Bakgrunden fungerar i denna uppsats som ett svar för de argument som läggs fram i resultatet. Med hjälp av solid bakgrundsfakta kan hållbarheten i argumenten lättare bedömas. 48 Den tidigare forskningen innefattar en rad skiljda forskningsarbeten. Först presenteras två undersökningar om inställningen till vargen. Dessa visar hur svenskar i allmänhet blivit allt mer positiva till vargen. Därefter presenteras bakgrunden till det så kallade "Varghatet" som i regel grundar sig på myter, sagor men också det faktum att vargen emellanåt angriper tamboskap. Efterföljande tema härrör konflikten mellan centrum och periferi där renägande samers och värmlänningars misstro till auktoriteter och myndigheter beskrivs. Därpå följer en presentation av tidigare forskning om vargen i massmedia. De uppsatser som där presenteras har i regel ett journalistiskt intresse och är skrivna utifrån medialt synsätt. Uppsatserna ger en god bild av vad som presenterats i massmedia om just vargen, men förklarar mycket lite om bakgrundsorsakerna till vad och varför vissa artiklar presenteras. Resultatet och analysen åskådliggör att argumenten skiljer sig mellan insändare och beroende på vilket syfte insändarskribenterna har haft. Emellertid skiljer sig inte argumenten särskilt mycket över tid. Vargdebatten kan summeras med att den präglats av argument kring fakta om vargen som biologisk och social varelse. Fakta som ibland underbyggs med både sanningar och osanningar, personliga påhopp, hotelser, tillskrivning av åsikter mellan parterna och hårda ordväxlingar mellan de som påstår sig känna vargen kontra de som "bara" vill ventilera åsikter i vargfrågan. Beviskraften i argumenten är mycket varierande. I regel täcker de texter som propagerar för vargen en högre beviskraft då relevansen i de argumenten är betydligt högre än i de texter som propagerar emot vargen. Denna uppsats har starkt kunnat belysa konflikten mellan centrum och periferi på ett tydligt sätt, detta främst med hjälp av den lättöverskådliga metoden. Detta är den största behållningen av uppsatsen. Vi kan se att vargfrågan ofta får stå tillbaka för en debatt om glesbygdsproblematik, oförmågan från myndigheter samt tätortsbor att förstå och uppmärksamma glesbygdens utsatta situation. De flesta insändare som vill bevara vargen har kommit ifrån människor där vargen inte förekommer och vice versa. / The purpose of this essay is to show and analyze the argumentation in the debate concerning the wolf’s claim for existence in the county of Värmland, between the years of 1965 to 1990. To answer the research questions, a method known as argumentation analysis are to be used and applied on leaders and letter to editors commencing the local papers Nya Wermlands-Tidningen and Värmlands Folkblad. The purpose in next step is to elucidate contradictions between the ones who are in direct contact with the wolf, the provincial habitants (the periphery) and the ones who live in districts where the wolf are not an element of the nearby area, the conurbation habitants (the center). The result has shown that the arguments differs depending on the period of time, between writers of the letters to the editor and depending on the purpose of the these texts. The debate of the wolf have contained arguments packed with facts about the wolf (both sociologically and biologically), pounces, threats, attributing the other part opinions, and coarse arguing between the ones who claims to recognize the wolf in opposition to the ones who simply confirm their own position in the debate. The evidential value also differs a lot. Accustomed writers such as journalists and the ones who demonstrate objective and sober arguments do have a higher value of evidence. Texts of those who are pro-wolf often illustrate further relevant arguments in appose to the anti-wolf part. This essay has in many ways illustrated the conflict between provincial habitants and authorities but most of all has this paper penetrated the conflict between provincial habitants and conurbation habitants. The conurbation habitants are often pro-wolf and lives in urban societies such as Karlstad while the provincial habitants place themselves as the anti-wolf part and regularly lives in sparsely populated area such as the surroundings of Torsby or Sysslebäck. The debate often puts the wolf aside and becomes a quarrel regarding to the provincial areas vulnerable situation. The wolf is sometime a substantially symbol for authority and the conurbation habitants way of overlook the sparsely populated areas of northern Värmland.

In 2020, the year the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the Swedish Covid-19 response differed radically from the general policy of total lockdown and strict enforcement of Covid-measures and regulations recommended by the WHO. Instead, Sweden strove early on to achieve herd immunity, with no mandatory measures to limit numbers in shopping malls, buses, and other public events, nor mask requirements. Hence, during the height of the pandemic, Swedish Covid-19 policy was a highly debated issue in the international media, within academia and the World Health Organization. The aim of this study is to examine the international media discourse on the Swedish Covid-19 strategy in the international print media. The focus has been on newspapers from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The research has been done by investigating how Sweden’s Covid-19 strategy is discursively constructed, through major themes and sub-themes that have emerged. Additionally, the differences in discourse between Dutch, English and American media have been explored. As well as the use of language, ideologies, and linguistic devices within the international discourse have been investigated. A total of 178 articles, published between the period of 1 January 2020 until 6 February 2022, have been collected and analyzed. This study uses Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) as main method and has been inspired by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). A coding frame has inductively been created, by having used a sample of 20 newspaper articles in a pilot study. The software of NVivo has been used for the coding process. The major themes that emerged from my analyses of media discourses are: Anders Tegnell, Strategy, Trust and Image of Sweden and Swedes. My study found that media discourses on the Swedish Covid-19 policy are not positive. Rather these tend to be negative or at best neutral. Images of Sweden tend to vary in tandem with increase or decreases of Covid-19 infections and/or deaths. As the Swedish strategy became more or less aligned with the ‘norm’ of the WHO, the coverage of Sweden in media declined and lost its newsworthiness.