Since the beginnings of recorded literature, authors have been most interested in the human situation, the relationships of mankind: man's struggle to accept himself and his life situation, to achieve harmony with his fellow man, to realize happiness with one of the opposite sex, and to seek answers to his relationship with his Creator. This thesis attempts to illustrate that Robert Frost was among those who found these the most significant themes for poetic expression.

<p>The following study of Alice Munro's collections of short stories, Who Do You Think You Are?, The Moons of Jupiter, and The Progress of Love, closely examines the feminine perception of human relationships and traces Munro's theme of lithe pain of human contact. Chapter I explores the changing perception of life and relationships as seen through the eyes of the central character of Who Do You Think You Are? and discusses the paradoxical view of life articulated by Munro, a view which asks that the abuse which characters inflict upon one another be seen as both savage and splendid, as perversely necessary in any relationship between her characters. This idea of a necessary pain is discussed in Chapter II in light of Munro's more intense fascination with it in The Moons of Jupiter. Her vision of the humiliating necessity of inflicting and enduring pain does not, however, culminate in a clearly-defined resolution to the paradoxes of experience; indeed, The Moons of Jupiter suggests Munro's growing hesitancy to solve the puzzles of human experience. Chapter II also examines Munro's experimentation with narrative time shifts and discusses this new interest in technique as it pertains to her preoccupation with the disparity between illusion and reality in the lives of her characters. The shifting back and forth between past and present is a technique which Munro continues to employ in her next work, The Progress of Love, which I examine in Chapter III. This most recent work, like Who Do You Think You Are? and The Moons of Jupiter, looks closely at the delicate moments of exposure in experience and at the necessary painfulness of those moments, but with a difference. In The Progress of Love Munro seems to allow her characters moments of serenity and moments of self-knowledge; the feminine perception of experience has altered to the degree that her characters appear able to move beyond disillusionment through to a kind of survival of those moments of exposure which in the Moons of Jupiter appear to overwhelm and almost paralyze the characters. </p> / Thesis / Bachelor of Arts (BA)

We live in a time marked by ecological precarity and crisis. Critical scholars of the Anthropocene have identified extractivism and its associated ideology of human exceptionalism as driving forces behind these crises. This thesis joins a call to develop naturalcultural theory – ways of conceptualizing the more-than-human world and our place in it as humans that do not rely on longstanding distinctions between “Nature” and “Culture.” Moreover, scholars and activists have clearly outlined the urgent need for us to change the way we live with nonhumans. As a step towards such new ways of living with nonhumans, in this project I study how foragers foster multispecies ethics through their encounters with nonhumans, using multispecies ethnography as my primary methodology. In this thesis, I develop a theoretical framework through which to understand forager-plant interactions, informed by my experiences in the field interviewing and observing foragers as they harvest plants and directly studying the plants that my participants frequently interacted with. I tentatively propose a distinction between extractive and non-extractive approaches to foraging. Overall, I suggest viewing plants and humans as living-persons who are tangled in a field of socioecological relations to one another. Through partial and intermittent encounters, they become contaminated and adopt new habits that affect their future interactions with other living-persons. This has important implications for how we conceive of ethics as only incorporating nonhumans as objects of ethical consideration rather than ethical subjects in their own right.

Using a matched-partner dataset of 660 midlife couples, this study examined dating relationships at midlife from the perspective of both male and female partners. It also explored ways various life course factors such as marital history, children, cohabitation, relationship length, and social approval related to partners' perceptions of one another and to subsequent relationship quality. Findings indicated heterogeneity in midlife dating experiences. Actor and partner effects of enhancement were most often linked with greater satisfaction and fewer problems for never-married couples, yet enhancement was not related to relationship stability for them. For couples where only one partner had been previously married, partner enhancement was linked to stability but not to other relationship outcomes. Life course factors played an important role in midlife dating relationships. Further research is needed to examine longitudinal trends.

Minnets bleka längtan är tänkt som en första bok i en serie om två, eventuellt tre böcker. Frank blir av med sitt hundspann under en snöstorm och tar skydd i en övergiven stuga. Där hittar han en väldigt nedkyld och medtagen kvinna som sitter fast med en handboja vid en fastgjuten stålstång.Han räddar till sist hennes liv genom att kapa av hennes ena hand. Frank brottas sedan med att få både sig själv och kvinnan att överleva, med de moraliska betänkligheterna som följer när han utvecklar känslor för kvinnan och även skuldkänslorna från handkapningen. Det är en kamp att få den medvetslösa okända kvinnan att klara av infektionen och nedkylningen, men till sist vaknar hon upp, dock utan minne av vad som har hänt henne eller vad hon heter. Kvinnan vet inte hur hon ska känna. Fast hon får starka känslor för Frank, så är hon inte säker på om han egentligen är personen som lämnat henne att dö där ute, eller om han verkligen är hennes räddare. Dessutom stryker det vilda djur runt stugan som spär på hennes rädsla. Är Frank verkligen den han säger? Vem har lämnat Mariam att dö i ödemarken? Kommer den eller de komma tillbaka och vad händer i så fall? Är det möjligt för dem att rädda sig själva? Hur ska de fortsätta tillsammans i så fall? Kommer Mariam någonsin återfå minnet och vad kommer då att hända?

Syftet med denna studie är att synliggöra lärares och andra aktörers syn på sex- och samlevnadsundervisningen för ungdomar. Frågeställningarna som arbetet syftar till att besvara är: Hur skapas en sex- och samlevnadsproblematik? Och vilka uppfattningar har lärare och andra samhällsaktörer (skolsköterska, barnmorska och folkhälsosamordnare) om ungdomars sex- och samlevnadsundervisning? Det är en kvalitativ studie med en fenomenologisk tolkningsram. Det har gjorts semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem lärare och sex andra aktörer.   I forskningsbakgrunden lyfts faktorer som man genom tidigare forskning sett som bidragande faktorer till en sex- och samlevnadsproblematik. Dessa faktorer är bland annat bristande utbildning, erfarenhet, tid och rum.   Resultatet är att problematiken i sex- och samlevnadsundervisningen består av brist på ämneskunskaper, tids- och rumsbrist, brist på samarbete och meningsskiljaktigheter i vem som bär ansvaret för sex- och samlevnadsundervisningen. I slutet av arbetet jämförs och diskuteras resultatet med tidigare forskning samt vad styrdokumenten säger. Slutsatsen för studien är att tids- och rumsbrist är en allmän problematik som återfinns i stora delar av skolvärlden, bristande ämneskunskaper har uppstått då en stor del av lärarutbildningarna ej undervisat studenterna i området och samarbetsproblematiken har skapats genom en bristande eller obefintlig övergripande plan för området. / The purpose of this study is to make visible teachers and other actors view on education in sex and human relationships for adolescents. The questions that the study aims to answer are: How is a sex and human relationships problematic created? And what are the perceptions of teachers and other social actors (school nurse, midwife and public health coordinator) about adolescent’s education in sex and human relationships? It is a qualitative study with a phenomenological interpretive framework. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with five teachers and six other actors. In the research background, factors that have been seen in previous research as contributing factors to a sex and human relationship problem are highlighted. These factors include lack of education, experience, time and space.   The result is that the problems in education in sex and human relationships consist of a lack of subject knowledge, lack of time, lack of cooperation and disagreements in who is responsible for education in sex and human relationships. At the end of the work, I compare and discuss the results with previous research and what the governing documents say. The conclusion of the study is that lack of time and space is a general problem that is found in large parts of the school world, lack of subject knowledge has arisen since a large part of teacher educations is not educating students in the subject and cooperation problems have been created by a lack of or non-existent overall plan for the subject.

Bakgrund: Humant Immunbrist Virus (HIV) är en infektionssjukdom som angriper kroppens immunförsvar vilket leder till att det stegvis försämras och slutligen helt avtar. Historiskt sett har patienter med HIV blivit diskriminerade i samhället och orättvist behandlade. Joyce Travelbee’s omvårdnadsteori tar avstånd från en generaliserande människosyn och förespråkar att se individens unika egenskaper, och sjukvårdspersonal ska enligt lag möta patienter med lika värde och lika vård oavsätt diagnos. Syftet är att beskriva erfarenheter som vuxna patienter med HIV har av möten med sjukvårdspersonal. Metod: En systematisk litteraturstudie. Arbetet utfördes genom en systematisk sökning  efter vetenskapliga artiklar i tre databaser där elva artiklar sedan kvalitetsbedömdes och analyserades. Resultat: Patienter med HIV hade övervägande positiva erfarenheter av mötet med sjukvårdspersonal, men negativa erfarenheter av till exempel obekväma blickar, överdrivna säkerhetsåtgärder, anklagelser och respektlöshet förekom i olika vårdsammanhang. Slutsats: Patienter med HIV ska aldrig behöva erfara diskriminerande möten med sjukvårdspersonal på grund av sin diagnos. Uppmärksammande av erfarenheter av möten med sjukvårdspersonal hos patienter med HIV kan öka medvetenheten angående stereotypa negativa beteenden och därmed förbättra deras vård och erfarenheter av mötet. Nyckelord: Patienter med HIV, sjukvårdspersonal, möten, mellanmänskliga relationer, erfarenheter. Keywords: Patients with HIV, healthcare personnell, interactions, human-to-human relationships, experience.

This work examines a relational ontology with the focus on our relationships with the more-than-human world. The aim is to investigate a subject that is more suitable to face the challenges of our times. Inspired by the posthumanistic project as presented by Rosi Braidotti I propose a non-anthropocentric reading of Martin Buber’s I and Thou. In the first section of the essay I present an overview of Buber’s understanding of the subject and I also answer the question whether we can consider the I-Thou relationship to include the non-human world. In part two I investigate the characteristics of such a relationship, covering as well the act of dialogue. This opens up for a new understanding of the subject as constituted by relationships including non-human others. As an example of how to protect living I-Thou relationships with non-human others through the I-It logic of law I present the case study of the river Wanganui in New Zealand and its newly acquired status as a subject by law. Finally I conclude by discussing a possible ethic where relational capacities are key.

Japan, destroyed by an ill-fought war and risen to world power and yet again recently broken by natural and man-made phenomena, a nation intensely recognized the world over yet misunderstood, victim of its own exceptionalism, today needs to ask an old question. Will Japan participate in the international community as a full active member? Japan's involvement with the world was narrowly defined and confined to that of a trader and its image sustained by a self-proclaimed unique culture and all these today are put to the test. The trader's fundamental reliance on strictly cultural values to achieve success may today be insufficient to sustain their survival in a globalized world. Thus, the Japanese as well as foreigners question the validity of hitherto successful cultural tools such as loyalty in the context of globalized commerce

The biology and the patterns of wild environments and their organisms have solutions to the many environmental, social and economical challenges that we are facing globally. As an emerging designer, I believe that the tendencies of the ecological environments can be analyzed, mimicked and implemented by designers into different socio-cultural systems. In my design process I have been exploring practices that promote food sovereignty as a right that every living being should have. The results of my exploration is a guide to help to learn about and from wild edibles to deepen our connection with nature. My design includes my own process and iteration as well as one designed for those who are interested in exploring foraging practices.This project recognizes the different spheres and complexities of sustainability. It analyzes how our cultural and social practices impact the ecological environment, while, at the same time, it brings practical examples to understand the effects that our economy has on the overall well-being of the ecology, and suggests that we all can be beneficial participants as and in nature.The title “We grow wild” refers to the plants, which grow wildly in parks, hedgerows, paths and forests, as well as it encourages to rediscover the wild nature that re-emerges in us through active participation in the ecological environment we inhabit.