Who tells the true story of the world? The western civilisation is highly influenced by the written word. The writings of ancient philosophers, poets and religious authorities still have a strong cultural impact. Myths and religion as well as philosophical and political systems effects our self-concept. These models are all unified by there ambition to explain mankind and tell the story of reality. This essay examines two published diaries in order to discuss their relation to the common story of the world. The objects of the study are Feberboken, by Stina Aronson (written in 1934) and Allt, by Martina Lowden (written in 2006). The diary is a place for the personal story, it gives the writer an opportunity to confront the surrounding world. The conventional conception of reality can be questioned. I will use Pierre Bourdieus theory about the biographic I to discuss the Self in the texts. Two definitions of mimesis will be treated. The traditional meaning of the term, given by Plato, and the postmodern point of view, represented by Gilles Deleuze. I aim to investigate how Feberboken and Allt are confronting the generic image of reality.

Niccolò Menghini’s marble sculpture of Santa Martina (ca. 1635) in the Church of Santi Luca e Martina in Rome belongs to the seventeenth-century genre of sculpture depicting saints as dead or dying. Until now, scholars have ignored the conceptual and formal concerns of the S. Martina, dismissing it as derivative of Stefano Maderno’s Santa Cecilia (1600). This thesis provides the first thorough examination of Menghini’s S. Martina, arguing that the sculpture is critically linked to the Post-Tridentine interest in the relics of early Christian martyrs. The disjunction between the sculpture’s severed head and seemingly living body reinforces the authority of Pietro da Cortona’s 1634 discovery of St. Martina’s relics beneath the old Church of SS. Luca e Martina. The detached and moveable head (rarely seen in early modern sculpture) evokes associations with cephalophory and inventively implies that St. Martina was somehow miraculously involved in the recovery of her own relics. / 2020-09-06

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Control de Gestión / El presente estudio propone la aplicación de un modelo de control de gestión para la organización Hacienda Santa Martina (en adelante Santa Martina, la Hacienda, o el Club). Una empresa familiar dedicada hace una década a ofrecer el propio local como punto de encuentro social y deportivo para las familias acomodadas de Santiago. El modelo propuesto revisa los elementos fundamentales en la dirección de una compañía como la Hacienda, proponiendo nuevos lineamientos que permiten desarrollar la estructura de un cuadro de mando integral aplicado a una compañía que busca consolidarse en el tiempo y mejorar su rentabilidad. Para ello, en una primera parte, el estudio aborda la formulación estratégica de una Unidad Estratégica de Negocios (en adelante UEN), donde se revisan y proponen nuevas declaraciones estratégicas para la misión, visión, las creencias y la propuesta de valor. En una segunda parte, se desarrolla y define una estrategia para la UEN, utilizando las herramientas de análisis como, formulación del modelo de negocio, mapa estratégico, tableros de gestión y cuadro de mando integral. En una tercera parte y final, se desarrollan esquemas de incentivos que buscan alinear los desempeños de todos los trabajadores de la Hacienda, especialmente aquellos que tienen contacto directo con los socios y donde es puesta a prueba la propuesta de valor de la compañía. Con la apliación de este modelo, se busca contribuir con metodología que permita fortalecer la relación de largo plazo con los socios aumentando su permanencia en la Hacienda e identificando las necesidades de crecimiento de las instalaciones. En tal sentido, se espera mejorar la rentabilidad de la empresa, aumentando la red de socios y sus referidos.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a philosophical basis for the biohacker movement. The paper discommends the dominating narrative of the movement, which portraits it as being exclusively motivated by scientific progress. In contrast, I argue that the biohacking phenomenon, besides scientific discoveries, has social, cultural and above all religious incentives. The hypothesis is that the concept of biohacking cannot be fully understood within the bounds of a modern scientific discourse.  The proposed narrative is put into practice via a comparison between the biohacking community and eighteenth-century mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. The comparison is established by this paper; Swedenborg is not recognized by biohackers at large. By associating Swedenborg with the phenomenon, I intend to present a tangible example that the questions raised by the biohackers outdates the scientific discoveries that is normally regarded as their primordial cause. By way of the parallel, the paper aims to highlight a structure of reasoning that would not be as protruding if the movement was to be examined on its own. The comparison centers around how Swedenborg and the biohacker community uses metaphors to depict new and presumably better ways of being human. Their usage of the figure puts the traditional Lakoffian understanding to question. With this paper I explore the possibility of the metaphor shaping not only their understanding of the world, but also their understanding of the human condition. By examining how the rhetorical device is used by both traditions respectively, I intend to bring to light how they dissolve the border between man and the concept of god.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to study how generational identities are conveyed in the reception of two debut novels, Jack by Ulf Lundell and Allt by Martina Lowden. Both novels have been considered literary and social expressions of their generations. The empirical material consists of 14 reviews in Swedish daily press from the time of publication of Jack and Allt, respectively. The thesis revolves around the following questions: How is the generational identity defined in terms of lifestyle practices, milieus and other social circumstances? To what extent are structured factors such as gender and class considered? How are the critics considering the reflexive project of the self? I base the theoretical framework on Anthony Giddens' theories about identity creation in the late modern society. Idea analysis is used in the classification and analysis of the textual material. The model of analysis is based on factors that by Giddens are considered to affect the identity process. The result of the analysis shows that the generational identities expressed in the two novels appear very different. In the reviews discussing Jack, the identity is based on destructive lifestyle practices and is closely related to the political environment. In the reviews of Allt the identity is connected to a literary main theme that is constructed in relation to mediated influences. The conclusion suggests an increased understanding of the individual identity as a result of a reflexive process. / Uppsatsnivå: D

<p>Examensarbetet har innefattat att utforma ett inredningsförslag till restaurangen Down Town i Eskilstuna. Förslaget har anpassats till den primära målgruppen studenter i åldersgruppen 18 – 35, på Mälardalens högskola i Eskilstuna. Vår uppdragsgivare har en vision om att restaurangen i framtiden ska bli en naturlig mötesplats, där studenter till förmånliga priser kan äta lunch och umgås. Utifrån en enkätundersökning, intervju med uppdragsgivaren, resultatet av rums analysen, inspirationsresan och litteraturstudier har vi arbetat fram ett helhetskoncept anpassat till målgruppen.</p>

This paper analyzes Allt, Martina Lowden's novel from 2006, from a media discursive perspective. The theoretical framework consists of Michel Foucault's discourse analysis, Friedrich Kittler's research on hermeneutic reading, and N. Katherine Hayles's studies of pattern–randomness controlled meaning production. Various examples on how communication technology influences the narrator’s act of writing illustrate the medial discourse surrounding the body of Allt. Initially the underlying archive that constitutes the narrators raw material for writing (lists, lexical representations and institutional bibliographies) will be identified. The archival background is, further on, essential for the understanding of how a hermeneutic act of reading (to compare with the product of the late 1800-century educational reform, described by Kittler in his essay "Authorship and Love") takes place throughout the novel. Confronted through a hermeneutic interaction, the literature surrounding the act of writing in Allt, becomes meaningful when put back into a distribution system; when red about and written again – in short, when mutated to fit on to new text consumers. This constant and instant meaning production is, as a final step in this paper, compared with the pattern-randomness network described in Hayles's book How We Became Posthuman.

Examensarbetet har innefattat att utforma ett inredningsförslag till restaurangen Down Town i Eskilstuna. Förslaget har anpassats till den primära målgruppen studenter i åldersgruppen 18 – 35, på Mälardalens högskola i Eskilstuna. Vår uppdragsgivare har en vision om att restaurangen i framtiden ska bli en naturlig mötesplats, där studenter till förmånliga priser kan äta lunch och umgås. Utifrån en enkätundersökning, intervju med uppdragsgivaren, resultatet av rums analysen, inspirationsresan och litteraturstudier har vi arbetat fram ett helhetskoncept anpassat till målgruppen.

Hur påverkar porträttmålaren Hans Holbein den yngre dagens porträttkonst? Det är nästan 500 år sedan han dog. Vad är det för speciellt med Hans Holbein och vilka egenskaper i hans målningar är det som fångas upp av Sveriges kanske två  främsta porträttmålare idag? Finns detta inflytande även utanför Sverige? Detta är utgångspunkten för denna C-uppsats. Min uppsats påvisar att det realistiska porträttmåleri som Holbein verkade inom med naturtroget återgivna detaljer, noggrant planerade målningar med koder som finns där för den betraktare som vet att tyda dem. Såväl Müntzing, Hamngren samt Kitaj använder denna realism på ett tydligt sätt. Symbolerna som togs med av Holbein under renässansen var symboler för vad som ansågs viktigast i livet då. Dessa har ersatts med andra symboler i vår samtid. Det är detta som är magin eller mystiken i "realismen" – och kopplingen till Holbeins tradition – att den har flera lager eller dimensioner och att den tar spjärn mot symboliken. Det Holbeinska arvet går alltså igen och konstnärerna ger fina och eleganta gester åt den initierade betraktaren. Från Holbeins dyrbara exklusiva föremål har vi idag symboler för solidaritet, vänskap, kärlek och familj som de viktigaste attributen i livet.

This diploma thesis is concerned with the use of symbolism in three selected novels by William Golding, Pincher Martin, The Spire and The Double Tongue. The theoretical part presents a brief biography of the writer and outlines theoretical background of literary symbolism, focusing especially on Northrop Frye's Theory of Symbols and the psychoanalytic perspective. It is concluded by listing sources of inspiration behind the selected Golding's works, taking his own experiences as well as literary influences into account. The practical part begins with characterization of Golding's use of symbols in general, including his methods, recurring topics and symbolic patterns. Its main part focuses individually on the three chosen books, in the order of their publication. Each section analyses symbolism of setting of the story and the protagonists' names, symbolic imagery, and it seeks for Christian and psychoanalytic symbols. In addition, it presents possible interpretations of other significant symbols occurring in the particular novel. The use of symbolism is put in context with outer influences to show the variety of topics and specificity of the author's style.