Ever since Homer told the tales of magnificent men and called these men heroes, the siren song of heroic achievement has been impossible to resist. By consistently acting in a manner that is above the capacity of normal human beings, a hero becomes a model of emulation and inspiration for ordinary, lesser mortals. This thesis traces the development of normative models of heroic thought and action in the work of Homer, Plato and Rousseau. It argues that models of heroism have evolved according to changing conceptions of the political institutions that comprise a polis and, in turn, notions of citizenship. Homer establishes the heroic ideal and offers an image of Man as Hero. The Homeric hero is a man of transparent action who is never incapacitated because he acts upon his instincts. Unrestrained by doubt, he soars above humanity and performs deeds that assure him of everlasting fame and glory. The Homeric hero is a warrior-prince who lives in the absence of a polis. He rules his community as a patriarch who places his personal quest for glory above the dictates of the common good. The Homeric hero is consequently limited in his ability to act as a model of emulation for those who live in a polis. In an historical period that gave rise to the polis as a desirable and unavoidable aspect of human life, Plato remodels heroic ideals. Thus Plato's ideals of heroism could survive and prosper alongside political structures and institutions guided by the demands of the common good. The philosophical hero exalted in the Platonic dialogues gains true knowledge, which enables him to excel at all activities he undertakes. The philosopher is impelled to channel his vast superiority into the realm of political leadership. Plato recasts the Hero as Citizen, an elite citizen who rules for the benefit of all. Plato's model of heroism, like Homer's, is premised on an anti-egalitarian, hierarchical conception of human worth. In the Social Contract, Rousseau aims to reconcile modern ideals of human equality with Homeric and Platonic hierarchical notions of heroic excellence. The Social Contract attempts to make all citizens equally heroic by insisting that men can only excel when they all participate equally in political sovereignty. Failing to reconcile heroism and equality, however, Rousseau chooses heroism and reverts firstly to aristocratic political formulas before finally abandoning politics altogether as a positive force for humanity. His work nevertheless inspired both a lasting notion of human equality that shaped the modern political landscape and evoked the romantic modern notion of an isolated individual, as epitomised by Rousseau himself, heroically climbing the peaks of human achievement. Rousseau's model of individual heroism effectively completes the cycle and returns the notion of heroism to where it begun with Homer, Man as Hero. The concept of the heroism, traced through these theorists, shows it to be a changing terrain yet consistent in its allure. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of History and Politics, 2004.

Dans l'optique de faire de la coquille Saint-Jacques, Pecten maximus, un outil de reconstruction environnementale, une approche liant la biologie, l'écologie et la biogéochimie a été développée. Dans un premier temps, l'étude des anomalies de croissance coquillière de la coquille Saint Jacques nous a permis de révéler des dysfonctionnements de la production primaire. En effet, ces anomalies sont associées à des efflorescences de diatomées carencées en certains éléments nutritifs (acide orthosilicique et/ou phosphates), et dont les propriétés qualitatives sont modifiées (agrégation). La mesure du δ15N et du δ13C dans les tissus de P. maximus et l'application des facteurs de fractionnement moyens admis dans la littérature, montrent que le phytoplancton n'est pas une ressource trophique majoritaire. Deux hypothèses principales découlent de cette observation 1) le phytoplancton constitue une source minoritaire de nourriture 2) les facteurs de fractionnement utilisés ne sont pas valables. D'autre part, les variations saisonnières du δ15N et δ13C ont pu être mises en relation avec les différentes priorités d'allocation d'énergie de cet organisme. Ce résultat ouvre des perspectives quant à l'utilisation de ces rapports isotopiques en tant qu'outils écophysiologiques. Les variations de δ18Ocalcite permettent de tracer l'évolution saisonnière de la température à ± 0,7°C. Le δ13C de la calcite décroît au cours de l'année et au cours de la vie des individus, il semble être contrôlé par des processus biologiques. Le δ13C pourrait devenir un outil d'étude du métabolisme des coquilles Saint-Jacques. Enfin, le développement méthodologique du système LA-ICP-MS permet l'obtention de profils d'éléments traces à une échelle journalière (Mg/Ca, Mn/Ca, Ba/Ca, Sr/Ca et Pb/Ca). Ces rapports semblent cependant être influencés par plusieurs facteurs environnementaux et/ou métaboliques. Des études supplémentaires sont nécessaires pour calibrer ces proxy élémentaires.

<p>The following inquiry begins with one simple question: who is the margin? In other words, what is the referent of the term margin? Is it possible for language to capture connotations of an intended and supposed reality beyond its own limits? My supposition is that margin is a valuable concept to critical studies of the hegemonic order and dominant culture in various contexts. It is therefore necessary to expose the term itself to a critical analysis by attempting to trace its position in different discourses. The intention is to illustrate that the term margin is not merely an abstraction, confined within the framework of intricate theoretical rhetoric.</p><p>In a deconstructive analysis of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler and Can the Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, based on the work of Jacques Derrida, I study the significance of the term margin and explore how the use or non-use of concrete examples affects the reception of both the term margin and ultimately the text as a whole.</p><p>The study of these two texts reveals that some of the very same critique raised by Butler and Spivak is itself applicable to the authors’ own theory production. Consequently, the authority of Butler and Spivak is put to the test through deconstructive analysis by disclosing the discrepancies between concrete examples, the authors’ philosophical stance as well as statements and positions found in other examples of their intellectual work.</p>

<p>Dag Wellander: Meaning – memory: oblivion. A reading of Birgitta Trotzig’s The mud kings daughter. Master of Arts paper. Written in Swedish. 115 pp. Department of Literature and History of Ideas, Stockholm University, SE – 106 91 Stockholm</p><p>The purpose of the paper is to treat one question, including the consequences of it’s answer, the question if The mud kings daughter is a text that has meaning. The question is in a first series of steps being approached by the way of scrutinizing the meaning found in the text in accordance with the methodology applied by those four dissertations that are available on the subject, i.e. on The mud kings daughter. These examinations do not find that the alleged forms of meaning stated by the dissertations is being produced by the text. On the contrary striking similarities is being found between these alleged forms of meaning on the one hand, and on the other the unfounded, disambiguated meaning that, according to Shoshana Felman, Freudian and anti-Freudian critics alike, have said is to be found in Henry James’ short novel The Turn of the Screw. In a following series of steps – some of which are being taken on Jacques Derrida’s advice – the rhetorical functioning of the textual ambiguity is observed and often found to be enchanting, whereupon the rhetorical necessity of the textual ambiguity is found to be affliction.</p><p>This split between the rhetorical functioning of the textual ambiguity as rather enchanting, and the rhetorical necessity of the textual ambiguity being affliction, is then treated as something that hardly could be understood, and, accordingly, as something that might be understood as something that could not be understood. The idea is being put in that this split could be thought of as an inversion of oblivion into a living memory of a forgotten reading impression, an idea that is being inspired by the inversion of oblivion into a living memory in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.</p><p>Keywords: Birgitta Trotzig, Shoshana Felman, Jacques Derrida, Marcel Proust, meaning, ambiguity, memory, oblivion.</p>

<p>This essay examine the femme fatal and the head character in the play Lulu Eine Monstretra gödie by Frank Wedekind. I have studied Lulu, who would be classified as a femme fatal, in terms to see what kind of woman’s portrait a femme fatal is. I will show with the theories of Judith Butler, Jacques Lacan and Joan Riviere how the femme fatal can be seen as a construc-tion, a role done by men. As well as a strong self owned woman. I will also discuss other con-cepts like femme-inism. My aim with this analysis is not to show one, but many different ways of looking at the femme fatal.</p>

<p>This essay examines the love affair between the two main characters of Rut Hillarp’s novel Sindhia. It draws attention to the schism between the Surrealist version of love as an extatic-religious fusion of the sexes – that in a way marks the relationship – and the yet remarkable coolness between the two lovers.</p><p>With the theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, I will show how the man and the woman project their unrealistic individual fantasies on each other, thus rendering impossible the Surrealist Meeting, with its road to an absolute reality. The Surrealist "l’amour fou", I will argue, is trapped in the ritualized "l’amor interruptus"; a lacanian term for a certain kind of love that wishes to conceal the fact that desire will never find its object. It does so by pretending that the object would be found if only love had been consummated (thus the reason love is never consummated, since, as Lacan puts it, the object, or the Thing, is never to be found).</p><p>I will, in brief, argue that the love affair depicted in the novel in different ways tries to deal with the “lack-of-being” that marks the subject according to Lacan; the absolute distance to the desirable Thing.</p>

<p>Äktenskapsbegreppet har under 1990- och 2000-talet varit under het debatt. Debatten har gällt om äktenskapsbegreppet kan innefatta samkönade parrelationer eller inte. I debatten har argument framförts som verkar mena att äktenskapsbegreppet har en absolut bestämd innebörd och att äktenskapsbegreppet därför är någonting givet som människan kan upptäcka. I uppsatsen problematiseras idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp utifrån två inte helt åtskilda perspektiv, nämligen ett historiskt och ett filosofiskt dekonstruktivistiskt. Historien verkar vittna om att äktenskapsbegreppet har varit under förhandling förr. Att äktenskapsbegreppet faktiskt har varit under förhandling förr indikerar att ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp kanske aldrig har existerat.</p><p>Genom det filosofiskt dekonstruktivistiska perspektivet problematiseras idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp. Ur detta perspektiv verkar det som om äktenskapsbegreppet varken i sig själv kan vara fullständigt, ha en ursprunglig innebörd, eller vara evigt gällande. Dessutom verkar det inte som om människan kan få direkt tillgång till ett eventuellt absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp.</p><p>Ett alternativ till att äktenskapsbegreppet skulle vara någonting på förhand absolut bestämt presenteras under uppsatsens gång. Alternativet är att äktenskapsbegreppet är någonting av människan konstruerat, d.v.s. en mänsklig konstruktion. Innebörden i äktenskapsbegreppet är ur det perspektivet inte absolut bestämt utan istället provisoriskt bestämt.</p><p>Idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp och idén om att vissa människor skulle kunna få direkt tillgång till detta leder uppsatsen vidare till dess avslutande diskussion om fundamentalism. Idén om att det skulle existera absolut bestämda begrepp, som t.ex. ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp och att vissa människor skulle kunna ha direkt tillgång till dessa verkar nämligen ha ett fundamentalistiskt karaktärsdrag i sig. Detta kan vara en fara i ljuset av att människor faktiskt inte är överens.</p>

This essay examine the femme fatal and the head character in the play Lulu Eine Monstretra gödie by Frank Wedekind. I have studied Lulu, who would be classified as a femme fatal, in terms to see what kind of woman’s portrait a femme fatal is. I will show with the theories of Judith Butler, Jacques Lacan and Joan Riviere how the femme fatal can be seen as a construc-tion, a role done by men. As well as a strong self owned woman. I will also discuss other con-cepts like femme-inism. My aim with this analysis is not to show one, but many different ways of looking at the femme fatal.

The following inquiry begins with one simple question: who is the margin? In other words, what is the referent of the term margin? Is it possible for language to capture connotations of an intended and supposed reality beyond its own limits? My supposition is that margin is a valuable concept to critical studies of the hegemonic order and dominant culture in various contexts. It is therefore necessary to expose the term itself to a critical analysis by attempting to trace its position in different discourses. The intention is to illustrate that the term margin is not merely an abstraction, confined within the framework of intricate theoretical rhetoric. In a deconstructive analysis of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler and Can the Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, based on the work of Jacques Derrida, I study the significance of the term margin and explore how the use or non-use of concrete examples affects the reception of both the term margin and ultimately the text as a whole. The study of these two texts reveals that some of the very same critique raised by Butler and Spivak is itself applicable to the authors’ own theory production. Consequently, the authority of Butler and Spivak is put to the test through deconstructive analysis by disclosing the discrepancies between concrete examples, the authors’ philosophical stance as well as statements and positions found in other examples of their intellectual work.

Äktenskapsbegreppet har under 1990- och 2000-talet varit under het debatt. Debatten har gällt om äktenskapsbegreppet kan innefatta samkönade parrelationer eller inte. I debatten har argument framförts som verkar mena att äktenskapsbegreppet har en absolut bestämd innebörd och att äktenskapsbegreppet därför är någonting givet som människan kan upptäcka. I uppsatsen problematiseras idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp utifrån två inte helt åtskilda perspektiv, nämligen ett historiskt och ett filosofiskt dekonstruktivistiskt. Historien verkar vittna om att äktenskapsbegreppet har varit under förhandling förr. Att äktenskapsbegreppet faktiskt har varit under förhandling förr indikerar att ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp kanske aldrig har existerat. Genom det filosofiskt dekonstruktivistiska perspektivet problematiseras idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp. Ur detta perspektiv verkar det som om äktenskapsbegreppet varken i sig själv kan vara fullständigt, ha en ursprunglig innebörd, eller vara evigt gällande. Dessutom verkar det inte som om människan kan få direkt tillgång till ett eventuellt absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp. Ett alternativ till att äktenskapsbegreppet skulle vara någonting på förhand absolut bestämt presenteras under uppsatsens gång. Alternativet är att äktenskapsbegreppet är någonting av människan konstruerat, d.v.s. en mänsklig konstruktion. Innebörden i äktenskapsbegreppet är ur det perspektivet inte absolut bestämt utan istället provisoriskt bestämt. Idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp och idén om att vissa människor skulle kunna få direkt tillgång till detta leder uppsatsen vidare till dess avslutande diskussion om fundamentalism. Idén om att det skulle existera absolut bestämda begrepp, som t.ex. ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp och att vissa människor skulle kunna ha direkt tillgång till dessa verkar nämligen ha ett fundamentalistiskt karaktärsdrag i sig. Detta kan vara en fara i ljuset av att människor faktiskt inte är överens.