This essay examines the madness portrayed in Selma Lagerlöf’s The Emperor of Portugallia and Olivier Bourdeauts Waiting for Bojangles, in order to identify a conceptual apparatus describing its interaction with the social ordering of reality, using the theoretical concepts of utopia and heterotopia. The concept of utopia used for this essay is the definition formed by Paul Ricoeur and the concept of heterotopia created by Michel Foucault. The examination is carried out by comparing both of the fictive portraits of madness against first Ricoeurs three-legged utopia and secondly against Foucault’s definition of heterotopia. A conclusion is made that the fictive portrait of madness in these two texts generates heterotopias based on utopian fantasies the characters have for their respective existences.

Utifrån sex intervjuer med kolloledare, som uppsatsen baseras på, framkommer att en tydlig skiljelinje görs mellan kollo och livet utanför. Kollo beskrivs som en särskild och annorlunda värld. För intervjupersonerna innebär arbetet på kollo att separeras från sin vanliga kontext för att istället bli del av ett nytt och relativt slutet sammanhang. Genom att bland annat tillämpa Michel Foucaults idéer om heterotopier och antropologen Victor Turners tankar om liminalitet och communitas skapas förståelse för hur kollo som rum inverkar på ledarnas villkor, förutsättningar, handlingsmöjligheter, relationer, tankar, sinnesstämningar och kroppsuppfattningar. Uppsatsens övergripande intresseområde är rum, sammanhang och varande som erfars och konstrueras som något utöver det vanliga och vardagliga. / <p>Uppsatsventilering ägde rum den 13-01-2023 på Stockholms universitet. </p>

Uppsatsen undersöker konstverket Yolocaust som retoriskt projekt i formandet av det kollektiva minnet som omger Förintelsen. Det provokativa konstverket aktualiserar kulturella förhållningssätt till Förintelsemonumentet i Berlin och minnesplatser i allmänhet, exempelvis vilka beteenden som är gångbara och hur man framställer sig själv. Bland annat diskuteras ämnen som selfiekultur, självframställning och heliga minnen. Begrepp som används för att tolka konstverket är skammande, sakralisering, heterotopi, intertextualitet, parodi, remediering och hypermediacy.

In this thesis, I do a reparative reading of contemporary Swedish comics, that uses feminine signifiers, both in their imagery and writing. A crucial point of departure, in this thesis, is how literature can ”do” theory and be seen as a way of creating knowledge. I explore what the comics does to me, as a reader, and how. I experiment with the form and style of academic writing in order to clearly define my position and situate the production of knowledge. By focusing on the affects and nourishment, that the comics contain, I try to imagine a feminist other, with the help of my figuration: Nietzsche Minaj, and my imaginary utopian place: ”mitt flick(tionella) rum”. I conclude, that the comics both reproduce and transform feminine signifiers, while challenging the idea of dichotomies, in the spirit of gurlesque theory.

This essay seeks to analyse some of the places in Jessica Schiefauers novel Bärarna. The analysis takes the form of a journey by depicting the various places in prose similar to that of the novel’s own, while analysing symbolism, places’ relation to the concept of limits, and the novel’s relation to Michel Foucault’s theory of heterotopias. The main theoretic starting point for this essay is Foucault’s concept of heterotopia; that is, a certain type of place, which simultaneously mirrors and inverts society. The essay finds that a number of places in Bärarna can be defined as heterotopias, while others cannot. For example, the bathhouse is heterotopic because of its dismissal of sexual taboos, and the Bazaars have a number of heterotopic characteristics, such as their connection to time. On the other hand, Nikki’s apartment and the city of Irisburg have little heterotopic potential, but have other symbolic significance within the story. Lastly, the body is analysed from a spatial point of view. In Bärarna, bodies are often described as landscapes and rooms. This aspect is put forward alongside Foucault's “utopian body”, in which the body appears as a place with the ability to house other places inside of it – as is also sometimes the case with the heterotopia.

The purpose of this study is to explore different power dynamics in the spiritualist movement of fin-de-siècle Sweden. The source material for this exploration is the spiritualist magazine of Efteråt, which was the main spiritualist magazine in Sweden at the time, in print between 1891–1922. The main material for this study is specifically the texts that fall under the genre of ”fictionalized witness-accounts” of supernatural phenomena. These witness accounts yield reoccurring tropes that are either actors, arenas, or narratives. The process of finding these tropes is made through discourse analysis as constructed by Norman Fairclough complemented using grammar and props as presented by Mattias Fyhr. The theoretical tools utilized are the framework of Luce Irigaray and the relationship between the subject and the object, the concept of receptivity as coined by Ann Cvetkovich, and finally the concept of heterotopia as coined by Michel Foucault. The relationship between a masculine subject and a feminine object is generally maintained throughout the source material. However, this dynamic is open to destabilization. This is especially prominent in the arena of the séance room, where perceived feminine volatility is both a liability and a resource. This also rises interesting perspectives concerning male mediums. This destabilization in further deepened when the concept of receptivity is applied and the relationship between the spirit world and the material world is come into question: where is agency situated? The last result concerns the spiritualist movement and its relationship to hegemonic society. With the help of the concept of heterotopia the different spiritualist rooms show what is deemed lacking in society at large, as well as the perceived functions they have within the movement.

This dissertation deals with how science fiction reflects the shift in cultural paradigms that occurred in the Soviet Union between the 1960s and the 1970s. Interest was displaced from the rational to the irrational, from a scientific-technologically oriented optimism about the future to art, religion, philosophy and metaphysics. Concomitant with this shift in interests was a shift from the future to an elsewhere or, reformulated in exclusively spatial terms, from utopia to heterotopia. The dissertation consists of an analysis of three novels by the Strugatsky brothers (Arkady, 1925-1991 and Boris 1933-2012): Inspector Glebsky’s Puzzle (Otel’ U pogibšego al’pinista, 1970), The Kid (Malyš, 1971) and Roadside Picnic (Piknik na obočine, 1972) and two films Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel (Hukkunud alpinisti hotell/ Otel’ U pogibšego al’pinista, Kromanov, 1979) and Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1980).  The three novels, allegedly treatments of the theme of contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence, were intended to be published in one volume with the title Unexpected Encounters. The films are based on two of the novels. In the novels an earlier Marxist utopia has given way to a considerably more ambiguous heterotopia, largely envisioned as versions of the West. An indication of how the authors here seem to look back towards history rather than forward towards the future is to be found in the persistent strain of literary Gothic that runs through the novels. This particular trait resurfaces in the films as well.  The films reflect how tendencies only discernable in the novels have developed throughout the decade, such as the budding Soviet consumer culture and the religious sensibilities of the artistic community.

This bachelor’s thesis deals with how the spatiality of libraries can correlate with instances of disorderly user behaviors. The fact that public libraries are among the types that are most prone to disorder, while Kriminalvården’s (the Swedish correctional service’s) librarians rarely experience similar problematic behaviors, could be said to illustrate a balancing act between anarchy and a manic need for control; where the most ideal compromise is, is based both upon personal values and the situation at hand.   To compare different reasonings about the room and the users, public librarians’ perspectives on factors of architecture and design have been contrasted with how librarians within Kriminalvården view the matter. The study has mainly been carried out using qualitative semi-structured interviews as well as a supplementary questionnaire. Operationalized factors of spatial influence in the form of categorized opposites (accessible/inaccessible, comfortable/repellent, visible/obscured, enabling/forbidding), which were identified early on and have guided the investigation, are used both implicitly in the interview guides and the questionnaire as well as explicitly in reading for the thematic analysis.   The terms “ideal type”, “heterotopia”, and “panopticon/panopticism” are used theoretically to deepen the understanding of the essay’s collected data: their suitability emerges in the nuances of what libraries can/should be; what happens when you bring together multiple functions in one space; as well as how control through surveillance can be understood and applied in library spaces.   The results show several differences at the operational level, but also similarities in terms of the librarian’s approach and view on problematic factors. Public libraries often have many functions (that do not always interact harmoniously) and offer more freedom, which risks their orderliness, while Kriminalvårdens library operations (which consists almost exclusively of literature distribution) have more order – but at the expense of user´s freedom.    The study’s outcome can be used as a basis of knowledge for practical planning of library design, but also as a springboard for further research. The effect of spatiality on users can prove important for the orderliness, atmosphere, and security of a library: cultivating an awareness regarding these possibilities of influence can thus be considered of great interest. / Denna kandidatuppsats hanterar hur biblioteks spatiala utformning kan korrelera med förekomster av ”biblioteksstök”. Att folkbibliotek är bland de mest stök-utsatta typerna, medan Kriminalvårdens bibliotekarier sällan upplever liknande problembeteenden, skulle kunna sägas illustrera en balansakt mellan anarki och kontrollmani; var den mest idealiska kompromissen ligger bygger på personliga värderingar och vad situationen kräver.    För att jämföra olika resonemang kring rummet och användarna har folkbibliotekariers perspektiv på arkitektoniska och designmässiga faktorer satts i kontrast mot hur bibliotekarier inom Kriminalvården ser på saken. Studien har genomförts främst med hjälp av kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer samt en kompletterande enkät. Operationaliseringar av spatiala påverkansfaktorer i form av kategoriserade motpoler (tillgängligt/svårtillgängligt, komfortabelt/avvisande, överblickbart/skymt, tillåtande/hindrande), som i förtid identifierats och styrt undersökningen, har använts både implicit i intervjuguiderna samt enkäten och explicit i utläsningen för den tematiska analysen.  Begreppen ”idealtyp”, ”heterotopi”, och ”panoptikon/panopticism” används teoretiskt för att fördjupa förståelsen av uppsatsens empiri: deras lämplighet framkommer i nyanserandet av vad bibliotek kan/bör vara; effekten av att sammanföra flera användningsområden i samma utrymme; samt hur kontroll genom övervakning kan förstås och appliceras i biblioteksutrymmen.    Resultatet visar på flera skillnader på verksamhetsnivå men även likheter i fråga om bibliotekariernas förhållningssätt och syn på problematiska faktorer. Folkbibliotek har ofta många funktioner (som inte alltid samspelar harmoniskt) och erbjuder mer frihet vilket riskerar kosta ordning, medan Kriminalvårdens biblioteksverksamhet (som utgörs närmast uteslutande av litteraturförmedling) har mer ordning – men på bekostnad av användarnas frihet.   Studiens utfall kan användas som kunskapsgrund för praktisk planering av biblioteksutformning, men även som en språngbräda för vidare forskning. Det spatialas influens över användare kan ha betydelse för biblioteks ordning, atmosfär, och trygghet: att kultivera en medvetenhet kring dessa påverkansmöjligheter kan därmed anses vara av stort intresse.