<p>This dissertation explores the philosophical, cultural, and political implications of the discourse on humanity and human subjectivity in the time of the Anthropocene that engages a wide geographic and temporal range. Specifically, I examine the ways in which three selected literary works of Daniel Defoe from England, Toni Morrison from America, and Arundhati Roy from India interact with the intricately contested notions of what it means to be a human being sharing the earth’s natural habitats with another entity traditionally defined as “other,” categorized around species, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, class, and even religion.</p><p>I argue that Defoe’s <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, the allegedly first modern novel, inaugurates the reigning understanding of human being as <i>homo sapiens</i> represented by Crusoe’s rationalized humanity, the essential feature of which has come to engender a threatening condition both for the nonhuman and non-European world; that Morrison’s <i>Paradise</i> and Roy’s <i>The God of Small Things</i> each in their own way not only problematize and challenge the overall tenet of Defoe’s metaphysical rationality in Euro-American and Anglophone cultures, but also investigate a more secular and thereby alternative idea of human subjectivity as <i>homo ecologicus</i>, so as to either (re)construct or restore a vibrant and sustainable community based on a notion of human not as hierarchically superior to “other” entities, but more horizontally and inclusively situated within one larger common habitat called the planet Earth.</p><p>Postulating the conviction that one cannot fully understand the aforementioned alternative conceptualization of human being as <i>homo ecologicus</i> within the confines of divisive identity politics based upon racial, ethnic, national, religious, gender, and sexual orientation categories, it is a pivotal concern of my thesis to bridge the ostensibly unquestioned bifurcation between human beings and Nature: that between the West and the East, that between male and female, that between reason and intuition, and that between knowledge and life. In performing these wider ecological inquiries into radical modes of human existence, I place the core value of nonfoundationalist thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche, Alfred North Whitehead, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, and Edward Said, among many others, in critical dialogue with the study of literature with a view to thematizing the broader question of how a literary narrative as a historical and cultural institution imaginatively reframes our self-consciousness of the precarious condition of the Anthropocene. In conclusion, I argue that the study of literature and other humanities that valorize a vital interconnectedness between humans, objects, and the environment offers the potential for an inexhaustible and enduring habitat in which <i>homo ecologicus</i> continues to, in the words of Nietzsche, “remain faithful to the earth,” embracing <i>homo sapiens</i>.</p>

This study explores how presidential candidates during the 2020 American election were tied to external others, taking the shape of China and Russia. The study argues that an identity perspective becomes fruitful for addressing the research problem, as it becomes a matter of who "we" as a nation are. In general, identity studies tend to focus on the external other, while this study aims to contribute with an understanding of how the internal and external other can be interconnected.  American exceptionalism - the notion that the US has a unique role to play on the world stage - is a prominent part of American political identity. Nonetheless, the concept of exceptionalism also implies that being an American is an act of choice and not exclusively a birthright, thus individuals and values can be labeled as "un-American". Drawing on and combining the theoretical insights from Michel Foucault, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and Ty Solomon, politics in itself becomes a narrative war to fill nodal points with a hegemonic substance based on a wish for identity-fulfillment. The study finds that the other candidate is separated from the idea of what constitutes the US by reference to foreign and threatening powers. The other candidate is framed as unfit to be president, and since he does not correspond with the identity of the nation itself, he can not lead and personify the US. Thus, the other candidate is narratively constructed as unable to grant the wish for national identity fulfillment. The substance of the nodal points also does not exhibit a value in themselves but has to be contrasted against something or someone - in this case, an Other.

This study focuses on an analysis of textbooks in religious studies for the upper secondary school in Sweden. In the Swedish curriculum Christianity has a special importance even though school should be non-confessional in Sweden. Since Sweden today does not have a central authority that reviews textbooks, it is instead up to the individual schools to analyze and review their teaching materials and the authors of textbooks need to base their textbooks on their own interpretation of the curriculum. The study aims to explain whether we can find a typical Swedish textbook discourse and if so how it relates to the curriculum's wording about Christianity’s special importance. Furthermore, what potential impact the author’s interpretation of this special importance could have on the equivalence in Swedish religious studies in upper secondary school and how it potentially could lead to a discourse of Christian exceptionalism. The analysis of the textbooks is based on Fairclough's critical discourse analysis both as a theory and as a method of analysis. The findings indicate that there is a Swedish textbook discourse that values western traditions over eastern traditions of Christianity and often equates Protestantism with the Church of Sweden.

Uppsatsens huvudsakliga syfte är att undersöka hur amerikansk nationell identitet förmedlas i populära filmer. Undersökningen sker genom att analysera tre av de populäraste karaktärerna i de fyra Avengers-filmerna. Karaktärerna som ska analyseras är Iron Man, Captain America och Thor. Benedict Andersons undersökning av hur nationell identitet och nationalism sprids med hjälp av litteratur är förutsättningen för uppsatsen. Utgångspunkten är att populärkultur påverkar tittaren och kan sprida idéer som har verkliga effekter i samhället. I analysen tar effekterna av terrorattacken mot World Trade Center en viktig plats och hur den påverkar uppfattningen av amerikansk nationell identitet i Marvel-filmer narrativt och visuellt. Innan 9/11 var amerikansk nationell identitet stark kopplad till triumfalism och exceptionalism. Trots att terrorattacken påverkar gestaltningen av amerikansk nationell identitet i popkultur så förblir Amerikansk triumfalism och exceptionalism en grundläggande del av amerikansk identitet. Samtidigt undersöks den paradoxala relationen mellan individualism och kollektivism. En gestaltning av gemenskap och individualism präglar filmerna där även regissörers påverkan kan spela roll i det hyperindustrialiserade Marvel-maskineriet.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

L’idée d’exceptionnalisme américain a fait l’objet d’une attention particulière depuis le début des années 1990. Souvent décriée, parfois louée mais généralement réifiée, elle est devenue un concept déterministe au service d’une lecture linéaire de l’histoire des États-Unis depuis l’indépendance. La nécessité de déconstruire cette invariance simplificatrice et d’étudier l’exceptionnalisme comme une production sociale évoluant dans le temps en fonction de son contexte national et international est à l’origine de ce travail. L’exception américaine ne peut, en effet, être pensée uniquement à partir du national tant elle répond à des représentations conjuguées de Soi et de l’Autre. À la charnière entre le national et l’international, la politique étrangère est donc un poste d’observation privilégié de la construction de ce trait identitaire américain. L’ambition de cette thèse est de confronter le concept d’exceptionnalisme aux sources afin de mieux comprendre ce qu’il signifie pour nos acteurs et de mesurer son impact sur la politique étrangère des États-Unis durant les années d’après Guerre froide. Face à l’évolution du système international, la puissance nordaméricaine redéfinit, en effet, son rôle et son engagement extérieur. Après un XXe siècle marqué par des affrontements idéologiques globaux, les États-Unis se posaient en champion d’un nouvel ordre international garant de l’universalisation des valeurs démocratiques et libérales. Profondément moral, ce positionnement justifiait alors l’engagement des États-Unis dans une nouvelle lutte entre la modernité et le fanatisme à la fin des années 1990 avant d’être discrédité par l’enlisement militaire en Afghanistan et en Irak. Le changement de paradigme de la seconde moitié des années 2000 minimisait alors l’impact de la représentation exceptionnelle du Soi américain sur la définition de la politique étrangère. / The idea of American exceptionalism has been the subject of many studies since the beginning of the 1990s. Usually criticized, sometimes praised but generally reified, it became a determinist concept creating a linear perspective of U.S. history since the Independence. Also, the necessity to question this simplistic invariance and to study exceptionalism as a social production evolving with its national and its international contexts is at the origin of this project. Also, this American exception cannot be considered only through a national prism since it mixes representations of the Self and the Other. Between domestic and global affairs, foreign policy, then, represents an excellent observation point of the construction of this American identity feature. The purpose of this dissertation is to question the concept of exceptionalism through the analyze of primary sources in order to have a better understanding of its meaning for the actors and to evaluate its impact on U.S. foreign policy during the post-Cold War years. Indeed, the North-American power had to redefine its international role and engagement whereas the international system knew a dramatic evolution. After a 20th century marked by global ideological conflicts, the United States championed a new world order standing for the universalization of liberal and democratic values. This deeply moral position, then, justified the U.S. engagement in a new fight between modernity and fanaticism at the end of the 1990s before its discredit in the wake of the military stalemates in Afghanistan and Iraq. The change of paradigm during the late 2000s also minimized the impact of the exceptional representation of the American Self on the making of U.S. foreign policy.

One year after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the administration of President George W. Bush introduced a revolutionary foreign policy strategy--the Bush Doctrine. Proponents of this strategy advocated the use of American 'hard power' as a tool to promote freedom and democracy, beginning with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Opponents of the doctrine saw it as dangerously nationalistic, with the potential to entangle the United States in a myriad of protracted international conflicts. This thesis will identify aspects of nationalism within post-9/11 American foreign policy and illuminate the incompatibility of nationalism and the fundamental tenets of conflict resolution. This study theorizes that nationalism played a significant role in the development of the Bush Doctrine. Although its advocates promote specific policies historically associated with nationalism, as a rule they have not acknowledged its influence. Conversely, opponents of the doctrine acknowledge this influence and warn of its destructive characteristics. The study presented herein identifies nationalism as a powerful force in American culture and politics--one that has a profound influence on American foreign policy and on the longevity of our foreign wars.

<p>Essay in Political Science, Advanced Course, by Christoffer Hagström</p><p>“The Bush Administration´s view on international cooperation and international</p><p>law and political-theoretical traditions influence on the administration´s foreign</p><p>policy”</p><p>Supervisor: Jan Olsson</p><p>The purpose of this paper is to analyze the American foreign policy, particularly with regard to</p><p>international cooperation and international law. The two following research-questions are used in</p><p>order to fulfil the purpose: (1) what is the Bush-administrations´s view of of the place for</p><p>international cooperation and international law in American foreign policy?, and (2) how does the</p><p>administration´s foreign policy correspond to dominant political-theoretical thought-traditions? The</p><p>traditions used are: liberalism, realism and neoconservatism. The sources of the study mostly</p><p>include literature and policy-documents. The author conducts qualitative and quantitative content</p><p>analysis of the Bush-administration´s policy document National Security Strategy of the United</p><p>States from March 2006. First the document is summarized based on different criteria followed by</p><p>categorizations of ideas connected with realism, liberalism and neoconservatism in the document. In</p><p>the quantative analysis value-words that are appropriate for the various traditions is chosen. The</p><p>frequency of those words can be seen as indications of the influence of the traditions in the thoughts</p><p>of the Bush-administration, but is mostly seen as a complement to the qualtative analysis. The main</p><p>conclusions of the paper are that the Bush-administration most often wish to act according to</p><p>international law and to cooperate with other actors internationally in the long run, it may even be</p><p>necessary. In the short run however, it may act outside the parameters of international organizations</p><p>and international law in order to accomplish foreign policy-goals. Matters related to the security of</p><p>the American state and people is considered much more important than international cooperation</p><p>and law. Liberalism seems to be the tradition that has most affected the Bush-administration´s</p><p>foreign policy. It is followed shortly thereafter by realism and neoconservatism seems to have had</p><p>the least influence on the the thought-traditions. All of the them has been active in the making of the</p><p>foreign policy.</p>