Martin Heidegger in 'The Origin of the Work of Art' seeks to approach the self-subsistent nature of art. The Greek Temple opens up a space within which our Being may dwell. It is the site of human civilization and religion, and of our capacity to dwell within abstractions like peace, justice, truth and representation. Art breaks open a new place and presents things in a fresh light. Language is the primary model for this activity. Paul Celan in his poetry offers a challenge to Heideggerian abstraction. Both poet and philosopher were intimately familiar with each other's work, yet there is no essay on Celan, or even a reference, in the entire Heideggerian corpus. Celan's poem 'The Straitening' conveys the breakdown of meaning that has occurred after the holocaust. In form and content it challenges any Heideggerian notion of the higher univocity achieved by great poetry. We will explore recent examples of how poets have examined the idea of cultural belonging exclusion. We present a distillation of this idea in the writings of Paul Celan, particularly his presentation of the moment of 'Shibboleth'. We explore the biblical origin of the term 'Shibboleth' in a conflict between the army of Jephtah and the Ephraimites. We look at a contemporary poem with 'shibboleth' as it theme. Seamus Heaney's 'Broagh'. A consistent theme of Maurice Blanchot's critical reflection from The Work of Fire in 1949 up to and including The Space of Literature in 1955, is the manner in which our being creatures unto death allows us to create art, and to think and write in the abstraction that is language. Life endures death and maintains itself in it. For Blanchot Rainer Maria Rilke is one of the most significant modern poets in the way in which he has presented and explored this theme. We challenge Blanchot's inadequate reading of Rilke in The Space of Literature as an instance of his own pre-conceived philosophical nihilism.

Wallace Stevens was profoundly affected by Nietzsche’s declaration of the death of God and his poetry reflects an ongoing struggle to understand what it means to be a poet in an age of disbelief. Although Steven’s early poetry suggests that this loss of belief created a sense of crisis in the poet, his later work indicates a full acceptance, even an embracing, of this loss, recognising it as the inspiration for poesis. The thesis considers Stevens alongside of such thinkers as Nietzsche and (the later) Heidegger and shows how the poet came to regard the shaking of the metaphysical foundations as a gift offering the possibility for poetry.

This essay aims to contribute to the field of criticism of religion and citizenship education by analyzing how two Swedish textbooks portray different forms of criticism of religion. Based on Stenmark´s definition of criticism of religion that contains internal, external, negative and constructive criticism of religion and content analysis, the occurrence of the various forms of criticism of religion is categorized and counted. Furthermore, the portrayal of criticism of religion is analyzed based on agent and existence in order to examine the type of citizen that the textbooks' portrayal can give rise to. The use of content analysis contributed to being able to identify and categorize different forms of criticism of religion. The second part of the analysis, which was based on agent and existence, contributed to creating a deeper understanding of what the depiction of criticism of religion can mean from a citizenship education perspective. The results showed that all forms of criticism of religion appeared in both textbooks, but to different extents. Furthermore, the results showed that the portrayal of criticism of religion in the textbooks probably affects citizenship education.

This essay intends to examine the atheists Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Michel Onfray's arguments against religion, based on the themes of religion, atheism and the perception.of their present worldview. In addition, the research aims to find out whether it is suitable to talk about a new atheism. And, if so, whether such newatheism correspond with the definition represented by the Christian critics. The essay intends to contribute to a very limited research on the so-called new atheism without applying pro-religious arguments. Previous research and theory highlight the problem of defining the terms atheism, religion and secularism a concern that is reflected by the five critics troughout their arguments. What really united the critics were the idea about religion taking too much place in society, and the opinion that atheistic morality is at least as good as religious morality. In addition, the authors agree that religion is not needed to maintain good morale, on the contrary, religion affect the morale negatively. They also assumed that religion restricts people and and that moderate religion more or less leads to, or is responsible for, fundamentalism. Also, the value of truth and contempt against relativism brought the authors together, although they were sometimes justified by very different arguments. Crucially, however, are the differences in their definitions of religion, both concerning their focus on substantive and functional definitions, the relationship between absolute, relative-, and private religion and their political focus. To regard these authors' arguments as a new atheism is thus hard to justify. The results conclude that both the Christian critics and the five critics of religion generalize their opponents view of atheism or religion, and also fail to define themselves in order to be able to unite as a group against the other.

This essay examines a movement practicing civic confirmation in Stockholm in the 1930s. Organizing the civic confirmations was The Committee for Civic Youth Education, led by civil- and human rights advocate Anna Lindhagen (1870–1941). The practice of civic confirmation is examined within the context of the early 20th century Swedish labour movement and the criticism of church and religion often expressed therein. Based on Janken Myrdal’s method of multiple sources, the essay utilizes several different kinds of sources, consisting of unpublished archival material as well as press and periodical journals, in order to examine the background, purpose and practice of civic confirmation. The origins of the civic confirmations are found within the critique of what was perceived as a too dogmatic and compulsory school education in the Christian faith, leading to a desire to politically reform the religious education of the public-school system. When this failed, Anna Lindhagen and her peers took matters into their own hands, organizing a course of lectures on religious and philosophic thinkers throughout history as well as on contemporary matters deemed important for adolescents. The purpose was to give youths a proper religious education, thus enabling them to become morally and spiritually sound members of society, and to eventually replace the practice of church confirmation. Courses were held throughout the 1930s, but the movement’s fate thereafter is unknown. The civic confirmations in Stockholm were similar to practices in southern Sweden as well as in Denmark and Norway. They were also in many ways typical of how the labour movement had organized its opposition to church practices in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This particular instance of civic confirmation in Stockholm may have had limited effect on society, but within a broader context of secularization in northern Europe, the early and mid-20th century civic confirmations could be understood as forerunners to similar movements organizing civic or humanist youth confirmations in the 21st century.