<p>The 19th century is often described as a period when sexual differences were strongly accentuated in medical interpretations. While this is not an inaccurate description, it is in need of greater nuance. For one thing, notions of the male are usually forgotten in the process. As the female body by the shift to the 18th hundreds, to a greater extent than before, became associated with reproduction and biological constraints of various kinds, representations of the male body also changed. According to medical texts published in Sweden in the 19th century, men’s blood, bones, breath and digestion bore witness to their "freedom" from a forced sexual body. Physically, the male constituted an abstract, cultivated and highly differentiated individual, focused on his own development and wellbeing. The male body was described as clearly fit for public and political life, which legitimized male claims to a monopoly on power as well as the doctrine of "the separate spheres" in 19th century bourgeois society. </p><p>But there is more to this story. A closer examination of more limited discussions in medical texts and advice literature reveal that representations of the male and female body were remarkably unstable and marked by tensions and contradictions. During the Romantic era of medicine in Sweden during the 1830’s and 40’s, the way sex and individuality in the body were valued were totally different from the description above. Reproduction and physical desires were characteristic, according to a number of medical men, of highly developed creatures, connected to God, society, and culture, whereas sexless species, immature children and "lower" peoples were seen as materialistic and focused only on their own individual development. Discussions regarding female puberty and single men further reveal the unstable polarization between sex and individuality as well as culturally constructed differences, not only between men and women, but also between classes, age groups, single and married persons, cultivated and non-cultivated peoples. Notions about nature/culture, tradition/progress, female/male, sex/individuality were not organized into stable dichotomies—rather they constituted an unstable body of representations. </p>

The 19th century is often described as a period when sexual differences were strongly accentuated in medical interpretations. While this is not an inaccurate description, it is in need of greater nuance. For one thing, notions of the male are usually forgotten in the process. As the female body by the shift to the 18th hundreds, to a greater extent than before, became associated with reproduction and biological constraints of various kinds, representations of the male body also changed. According to medical texts published in Sweden in the 19th century, men’s blood, bones, breath and digestion bore witness to their "freedom" from a forced sexual body. Physically, the male constituted an abstract, cultivated and highly differentiated individual, focused on his own development and wellbeing. The male body was described as clearly fit for public and political life, which legitimized male claims to a monopoly on power as well as the doctrine of "the separate spheres" in 19th century bourgeois society. But there is more to this story. A closer examination of more limited discussions in medical texts and advice literature reveal that representations of the male and female body were remarkably unstable and marked by tensions and contradictions. During the Romantic era of medicine in Sweden during the 1830’s and 40’s, the way sex and individuality in the body were valued were totally different from the description above. Reproduction and physical desires were characteristic, according to a number of medical men, of highly developed creatures, connected to God, society, and culture, whereas sexless species, immature children and "lower" peoples were seen as materialistic and focused only on their own individual development. Discussions regarding female puberty and single men further reveal the unstable polarization between sex and individuality as well as culturally constructed differences, not only between men and women, but also between classes, age groups, single and married persons, cultivated and non-cultivated peoples. Notions about nature/culture, tradition/progress, female/male, sex/individuality were not organized into stable dichotomies—rather they constituted an unstable body of representations.

<p>At the turn of the century 18/1900 Swedish law looked upon young people as being adults at about the age of 15. At 15, the young person had left school, had his first employment and provided for himself and also had been confirmed to full membership of the Swedish State Church. Thus he was to be considered an adult and responsible for his actions. Parents, society/school and Church had done what was expected of them and now it was up to the 15-years old to live according to the laws and to be punished if the laws were broken. Over the following hundred years, at the time of the millennium, Swedish society changed a lot. So the laws did not and still a young person of 15 is considered an adult in the eye of the Swedish law. This paper looks upon the ideas that the law was based on at the turn of the century 18/1900 and the ideas that are put forward by Swedish courts today. The law has not changed, but today Swedish young people leave school between the ages of 19-25, and find their first employment even later. The paper gives the historical background and looks at the underlying ideas of adulthood. How people think and what is considered being important in defining aduldthood has not changed much over those hundred years. In deciding if a person could pass as an adult, the Swedish law still use the same premisses today as it did a hundred years ago. As these premissies and ideas are the same, though society has changed, you can’t today be considered an adult until in your twenties.</p>

<p>This paper concerns the ideas on society, policies and economic thoughts on Ireland before the cataclysmal famine of the 1840s. Senior, classified as one of the classical economists, elaborated these in the period 1829 – 1836, thus during the period of Parliamentary reform. As a trusted counsellor of the Whig governments, Senior advocated measures opposite to the common notions of laissez-faire. His basic ideas are contrasted to those of Malthus concerning economics and, in particular, the population doctrine that Senior never believed in and in its crudest form refuted. Senior regarded Malthus’ doctrine as devastating to governmental policies. Senior wanted an efficient and strong government. Moreover, Senior evolved ideas, in fact a strategy, for raising Ireland out of her common destitution instead of institutionalizing poor laws. This strategy embraced Catholic emancipation, education, public investments in infrastructure and emigration. His ideas, and proposals akin to Senior’s, are related to the political discourse of the day, which took a more common view of laissez-faire during the period considered. Nevertheless, there is consistency in his ideas on government, public investments and laissez-faire. Senior cannot be described as anything other than an early liberal and a classical economist and, hence, an advocator of economic laissez-faire. This paper underlines the need for a clear distinction between economic laissez-faire as a concept and the concept of political laissez-faire, whereas the former concerns thoughts on economics and the latter is related to the notion of the impassivity of the period of today’s discourse.</p>

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This essay concerns the temperance movements Blue Ribbon and White Ribbon inNorrbotten, Sweden. Their ideas about alcohol, industrialisation, family, humanity andproductivity. The period examined is 1905-1985, which nearly covers the whole of themovements history. Swedish and international research on the subject reveals temperancemovements had a negative view on the industrial society during the late 19th and early 20thcentury. The perceived problems were alcoholism and predatory capitalism. The family wasvalued highly both in itself and through its importance for the future well-being of the nation.The same results applies to Blue Ribbon and White Ribbon in Norrbotten. In addition greedwas seen as problematic, as well as lost productivity due to alcohol consumption. Humanitywas seen as very important, both within and between countries.

Gay Power! A Study of Male Homosexuality and Identity Politics in the Swedish GayPress 1971–1986 In this essay, the author examines the sexual policy ideas behind the Swedish gaymagazine Revolt in order to describe one aspect of the history of ideas about male homosexuality in Sweden. In particular, the study emphasize the social and cultural creation of meaning, as well as constructions of a homosexual male subject. The author has here focused on the ideas and theories that governed and influenced the magazine in a certain direction during the examined period 1971–1986. The overall purpose has been to study the gay press's perception of homosexuality, and what values about same sex-sexuality that have emerged in the material. The author distinguishes between two kinds of directions of ideas who have affected the magazine. One was the ideology of sexual liberalism, where the ambition was to break the silence and stigma when talking about sex in general, especially homosexuality. Within the framework of sexual liberalism, the magazine has intended to depict the many facets of homosexuality in words and images. The other direction was more focused on conducting identity politics where the sexual practice was dimmed to instead give preference to issues that valued a creation of a homosexual identity. The construction of such an identity has primarily been about creating cohesion and continuity among gay men, in order to strengthen the homosexual community inwards. But the identity politics has also implied a normalization of homosexuality. Likewise, it has limited the scope for sexual variations in relation to the creation of a homosexual subjectivity. By the mid-1980s, the identity politics had become so strong that Revolt came to be a magazine for gay men specifically, and earlier liberal ideas of sexuality became almost alienated. The male homosexuality became here an object of moralizing where some sexual practices were problematized and even made incomprehensible in the light of social changes in the homosexual community and in the society in general.

Edward Westermarck, finlandssvensk sociolog och filosof, studeras med Lorraine Dastons och Peter Galisons (D&amp;G) metod för att analysera vetenskapshistoriska förändringar. Syftet är att testa ändamålsenligheten i D&amp;G:s analysmodell för att studera metodologiska och innehållsliga förändringar. Användningen av epistemic virtues prövas som ett sätt att identifiera interaktionen mellan dynamiska fält och övergångar mellan olika doktriner under decennierna kring sekelskiftet 1800/1900. Metoden tillämpas på Westermarck och hans samtida i sociologins grundargeneration. Westermarck och Durkheim betraktas som arketypiska företrädare för en sociologisk respektive en biologisk – evolutionistisk – funktionalism. Malinowski är en brygga mellan de två. Undersökningen analyserar kunskapsteoretiska och ideologiska skillnader och likheter mellan forskarna. Deras förhållande till vetenskaplighet som epistemic virtue analyseras. Dynamiska fält och förändringslaviner beskrivs för att belysa kontinuitet och diskontinuitet i doktrinutvecklingen. Studien visar att metoden kan tillämpas även på humaniora och beteendevetenskaperna. Westermarcks kritik av Freud och Oidipuskomplexet exemplifierar hur doktrinförändringar fångas upp i andra vetenskapsområden – sociobiologin. Undersökningen visar att interaktionen sker också mellan olika vetenskapsområden och hur förändringarna mellan dessa sker diakront.

Denna uppsats undersöker de tidiga etableringsprocesserna av metoder för att framställa narkos med hjälp av eter och kloroform vid operationer och förlossningar. Materialet består av artiklar, notiser och protokoll från Svenska Läkarsällskapets förhandlingar och deras tidskrift Hygiea från och med 1847, då eter först används i Sverige, fram till och med år 1880. Genom fokus läggs på metodernas förmåga att framkalla olika grader av medvetslöshet dras slutsatsen att svenska läkare ofta prioriterade målet att uppnå total bedövning både framför mildare bedövning och de risker som metoderna medförde. I jämförelsen mellan operationer och förlossningar konstateras att diskussioner kring smärta och medvetande var mer förekommande och de olika ståndpunkterna mer extrema vid förlossningar.

Denna uppsats analyserar och jämför tre historiska studier som skildrat och tolkat den fornnordiska undergångsmyten Ragnarök. De tre studierna är författade av nordiska akademiker mellan år 1849 och 1922. Genom jämförelser med historieskrivningens generella trender och dess förhållande till mytologiskt källmaterial kan undersökningen påvisa hur, varför, och på vilket sätt som respektive studies författare påverkats av sin samtid. Vidare kan uppsatsen peka på att den historiografiska kontextens betydelse med avseende till metodik och tolkning vida överväger forskarens disciplintillhörighet.