This study aims to examine the norm-breaking body in Sara Stridsbergs literary fantasy Drömfakulteten (2006) or The Faculty of Dreams (English translation, 2019) which explores Valerie Solanas’ life. Solanas is known for the feminist text SCUM Manifesto (1968, Swedish translation, 2003) and for shooting the artist Andy Warhol.  Solanas has a very distinct separation between body and mind that is apparent in the novel. She ignores her body and whishes not to be aware of it. She only ever thinks about her manifesto, which becomes her mind. To explore the norm-breaking body, my essay is based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of the grotesque body. In this work, I also present different theories that have been inspired by the grotesque, for instance; the female grotesque and the gurlesque. While the grotesque focuses more on the body as a biological organism, the female grotesque and gurlesque focus more on how the female body and femininity is perceived in society and how they break the societal norms. The women are making a “spectacle of themselves”, in Mary Russo’s words. I want to apply these theories on the protagonist, Valerie Solanas, and analyze how the grotesque and norm-breaking body is portrayed in the novel. To further the exploration between body and mind I have the decided to analyze the meaning of the manifesto for Solanas, and also the narrator’s role in how her body is described to the reader.

There has always been some sort of power struggle between children and adults in children’s literature. My essay is an analysis of the German children’s fantasy novel The Neverending Story (swe. Den oändliga historien, ger. Die unendliche Geschichte) with focus on the child’s power and power related relationships between the child and adults. The power dynamics play a large part in the novel that is rarely, or never, talked about. I will use a close reading analysis regarding the main character Bastian’s relationship to different adult characters, his journey to power, how the novel fits Bachtin’s carnival theory and the true ruler of Bastian’s world as well as the world of Fantastica (swe. Fantásien, ger. Phantásien). The study shows among other things that while Bastian gains power throughout the novel, he is somewhat punished for using that power and ultimately loses it. He is subordinate to the adults around him; however, holds some sort of power over them at different points in the novel. His journey to power can be described with Clémentine Beauvais’ concepts of authority and might, where the mighty child gains authority in Fantastica. The journey can also be described as a carnival, though that can also be questioned regarding the fact that Bastian is punished for using his power. In my analysis, I also question who, or what, holds the mightiest position in Bastian’s world and Fantastica respectively. At the end of the day, Bastian is just a child with the potential of being mighty, but his age makes him subordinate to the adult world.

In this paper, I study the bodies in Mare Kandre’s two novels Bestiarium (1999) and Xavier (2002), with the help of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories of the grotesque. I examine the worldview that is portrayed in the novels – focusing on the attitude towards death – and seek answers to the following questions: how do the human bodies look and how do they relate to their surroundings? What does the way they are portrayed say about the world the novels portray? And what role does laughter play in the novels? I also examine the similarity between a grotesque body, and a gothic monster. As a result, I find that one body may exist both in life and death at the same time, that the bodies can merge together, and that the boundaries between body and world may be exceeded. I also find the grotesque abilities of the body not to be threatening, but filled with possibilities. Here, even monsters are not harmful. / I den här uppsatsen undersöker jag kropparna i Mare Kandres två romaner Bestiarium (1999) och Xavier (2002), med utgångspunkt i Michail Bachtins teorier om det groteska. Jag söker svar på hur hans begrepp kan öka förståelsen för den värld som målas upp i romanerna, med ett fokus på inställningen till döden. Jag ställer mig frågor om hur de mänskliga kropparna ser ut och hur de förhåller sig till resten av världen, vad sättet de gestaltas på säger om romanvärlden och vilken roll skrattet spelar i romanerna. Jag undersöker också likheten mellan groteska kroppar och gotiska monster. I min analys visar jag att kropparna i Mare Kandres romaner kan befinna sig både i livet och döden samtidigt, att de ständigt är i rörelse och kan uppgå i varandra. Dessutom kan gränsen mellan kropp och värld upplösas. Jag visar också på att den glädje som kännetecknade medeltidens grotesk bara kan förnimmas, men att de groteska kropparna trots det besitter positiva möjligheter. Inte ens monster måste här besegras, då de inte utgör något hot.

Bislang konzentrierten sich die Untersuchungen des westdeutschen Blicks auf Ostdeutschland auf den Zeitraum vor der Wende oder auf Rundfunk- und Fernseh-Medien. Die Gegenwartsliteratur stellt einen weißen Fleck in dieser Frage dar. Anhand des Chronotopos-Konzepts von Michail Bachtin werden in dieser Arbeit daher zeitliche und räumliche Tiefenstrukturen in der Darstellung Ostdeutschlands in den Werken Jan Böttchers und Andreas Maiers herausgearbeitet und mit ihrer Darstellung Westdeutschlands verglichen. Neben grundsätzlichen Unterschieden fallen dabei signifikante Übereinstimmungen auf.

This essay examines the grotesque in Samuel Becketts wellknown play Waiting for Godot. The play is primarily seen as an icon of absurdism, and it is such not appropriate to examine the play as if it belongs to the litterary genre of grotesque. The primary purpose of absurdism is to reveal the pointless- and emptiness of existence. In order to illustrate these points absurdism will often make use of the common characteristics of the grotesque. With this in mind I present, within this essay, an eximination of whether Samuel Becket makes use of these characteristics to assist his portayal of emptiness in Waiting for Godot. A prior understanding of absurdism is required and i have as such primarly used Martin Esslins famous studies. The studies of the grotesque are mainly represented by two theorists. Michail Bachtin's theory is based around the medieval carnival culture, whose archetype was the duality of the body expressed through the pregnant death. Bachtin seeks to highlight the grotesques close connection with laughter as a relief and covers it's use during the middle ages and the renneissance. Wolfgang Kayser studies the term as it is used during the romanticism and modernism. Kayser describes the grotesque as "cold" and alienating. He describes the word as an ”estranged world”. The analysis relies mostly on Bachtin's theories and examines the play from the viewpoint of the picture of the grotesque body, sense of time, the logic of the upside down world and the connection to the carnivals culture of laughter but also examines if Kayser's theories of the ”estranged world” are compatible. Finally, I reach the conclusion that even though Bachtins theory treats the grotesque in a time long before Beckett's, a reading of Waiting for Godot from the perspective of the carnival culture is interesting.  The laughter and the open, grotesque body, plays as expected a large role in the handling of the emptiness, the cyclic sense of time is found in the play and never ceases to repeat, the upside down world's logic and it's abolition of hierarchies is significant and the world in the play seems alien to itself.

Die Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Naumburger Westchor unter den kulturellen Prämissen von Zeit und Raum im Mittelalter. Dazu wird das literarische Analysekonzept des Chronotopos vom Michail M. Bachtin auf den Naumburger Westchor als religiös und liturgisch determinierten Raum übertragen - unter Berücksichtigung der mittelalterlichen theologisch-historischen Quellenlage.

Thesis Intertextuality in the work of Milan Kundera deals with intertextuality facets in his novels theoretically and practically. This work deals with the text and the relations between one and other - with intertextuality and with novel genre theories. I work with four important theorist, Michail Bachtin, Julia Kristeva, Gerard Genette and Roland Barthes. I examine their concepts of polyphony or Socratic dialogue and apply them on Kundera. Practical part explores Milan Kundera, intertextuality relation of his work his novelistic and theoretical approaches. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

The diploma thesis Milan Kundera and Intertextuality deals with aspects of relations between the texts in his novels. The first part outlines the intertextuality, theory of the novel and the approaches of some literary theorists towards this issue. The second half of the thesis analyzes the intertextuality in Kundera's works in various forms, mainly based on the themes of dreams and physicality. The greatest emphasis is placed on examining the legacy of Kafka in the context of Kundera's works, particularly in the novels The Joke and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Submitted thesis follows up clowning as phenomenon that can be approached in different ways and understood from different points of view. The perspective depends on a theoretical base and methodological tools, including a conceptual apparatus. Because the viewpoint of the phenomenon is the core of submitted theses, I have decided to use as a methodological tool discoursive analysis, particularly bakhtinian analysis. Theoretical background is provided by Mikhail Bakhtin's theories and concepts (dialogism, heteroglossia, speech genres) and Julia Kristeva's theory of intertextuality (that was inspired by bakhtinian thinking). One of key terms of this theses is the concept of transgression which relates to supposition that transgression is one of principal features of clowning. The theses submits confrontation of two different approaches to the phenomenon of clowning. First one is provided by structuralist model by Paul Bouissac. Bouissac describes clowning as an abstract system, relatively static and closed code, which is builded of stabilized signs. His conception presents clowning as a phenomenon firmly tied up with the circus structure. Although Bouissac defines transgression as a characteristic feature of clowning, from his point of view is this transgression limited by borders of circus. Crossing...

This essay consists of an inquiry into the concepts of “time” and “movement” in Hjalmar Söderberg’s second novel, Martin Bircks ungdom, as well as a discussion of what the consequences of this inquiry are with regards to genre. The analysis is based on close reading, an adaptation of Michail Bachtin’s concept of the “chronotope” and, to a lesser extent, the narratological work of Gérard Genette. Through the analysis an interpretation of the novel is formed. This interpretation is then related to genre theory, especially that of Bachtin and Tommy Olofsson. In the discussion of genre, the results of the textual analysis are found to corroborate the hypothesis that Bachtin’s “novel of experience” is the category and tradition that Martin Bircks ungdom should be placed into.