This study examines the theatrical representation of the stealing of children during the last dictatorships in Spain and in Argentina in Laila Ripoll's Los niños perdidos and Patricia Suárez's Astianacte: una máscara del amor under the lenses of the concepts of trauma, myth and memory. Following the theories suggested by Freud, Adorno, Whitehead, Reyes Mate and others, the first chapter discusses the representation of the psychological traumas left by the dictatorial practices left not only on the minds of individuals but also on both nations as whole entities. While Ripoll invites her audience to reflect upon the consequences of the Spanish Civil War and franquism, Patricia Suárez urges her spectators to doubt about their own identity if they were born during the last dictatorship in Argentina. In chapter two, the concepts advanced by Barthes, Reig Tapia and Moreno-Nuño help explore the ways in which the playwrights condemn the legitimizing myths that gave birth to these dictatorial regimes. Both authors subvert these fictional stories, mainly by the use of sarcasm and humor. By means of the concepts of memory supported by Benjamin, Todorov, Nora and Juliá, the third chapter examines the need to let the traditionally silenced voices tell their version of the historical events. Ripoll and Suárez warn their audiences that it is impossible to achieve one collective national memory because there are individual conflicting memories that stem from the personal experience of the traumatic events.

In the subject of history, a canon can be identified, which refers to the knowledge that is seen as desirable and immortal. This knowledge is what is perceived as general education and thus worth remembering. This means that the knowledge that falls outside of the canon is perceived as less important and therefore can be forgotten. The depiction of history that is often reproduced in textbooks and teaching can be called Western Eurocentric history telling or the Western canon. The Western canon in education has been identified and established previously by historians and can be identified in the central contents of both the fundamental courses in history offered in the Swedish upper secondary school. The aim of this study is to illustrate history teachers’ thoughts on planning work, with a special focus on how teachers relate to the Western canon in the subject of history. This is done through semi-structured interviews with five history teachers, all working in the same midsize city. Three of the five teachers work at the same public school, the other two teachers work at two different vocational schools in the city.  The results of the interviews are then analyzed through an analysis tool developed by the historian Laila Nielsen, composed of four strategies for teaching in a multicultural society. The strategies are based on different theories in previous research in the same scientific area. The meaning of each strategy has been adapted to the purpose of this study. The results of the interviews are presented based on three subheadings. The results are then analyzed through on the four strategies presented in the theoretical approach, integrated in the analysis are comparisons with results from previous studies. The four strategies for teaching in a multicultural society are expressed in different ways in the interviewed teachers' planning work and approach to the Western history canon. In addition, none of the five teachers is based solely on one strategy. A conclusion drawn from the results of the study is that it is not always desirable to problematize the Western canon, but that it can be a tool for teachers to ensure that the most important material is included in a course. In the finishing part of the essay, I reflect over results and give examples of further research.

Terror in the African Anglophone novels of Chinua Achebe, Doris Lessing, J.M. Coetzee and Laila Lalami originated as a consequence of a breakdown in the family structure. Traditionally, conventional patriarchy, in addition to securing the psychological and material needs of the family, has served as one of the building blocks of tribes and nations. Since the father figure within narrative is allegorized as a metonym of the state, the absence of patriarchal authority represents the disintegration of the link between individuals and national institutions. Consequently, characters may also turn to committing acts of terror as a rejection of the dominant national ideology. This dissertation aims to demonstrate how the breakdown of the family and the conventional gendering of roles may give rise to terrorist violence in the African setting. To recontextualize the persistence of the Conradian definition of terror as an Anglo-European phenomenon brought to Africa, I contrast the ways in which the breakdown of the family affects both indigenous and Anglo-European households in Africa across generations. I suggest that, under the reinvention of older gender norms, the unfulfilling Anglo-European patriarchy exposes Anglo-European women to indigenous violence. Moreover, I theorize that the absence of patriarchal authority leads indigenous families to seek substitutions in the form of alternative family institutions, such as religious and political organizations, that conflict with the national ideology. Furthermore, against the backdrop of globalized capitalism, commodity fetishism emerges as a substitute to compensate for the absent father figure. Therefore, this project demonstrates the indisputable relationship between the breakdown of the family structure and individual acts of terror that aim at the fulfillment of capitalist fetish or individual desire, and at the expense of national security. Finally, the rhetorical dimension of terror against family and women in Africa will be proven to be the allegorized norm of globalized terror in the twenty-first century.

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