In this thesis – concerning didactics of literature – I perform a reading and theoretical analysis of two pivotal works within reader-response theory, more precisely: Literature as Exploration (1938) and The Reader, the Text, the Poem – The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work (1978), both written by Louise M. Rosenblatt. The object of this analysis is to examine whether Rosenblatts’ theory and methodology can be used to accomplish understanding for ”the other”, what Martha C. Nussbaum have called ”narrative imagination”. For a theoretical basis I use postcolonial theory, implicating a poststructuralistic och constructivistic understanding of language and linguistics. The reader-oriented theory and methodology of Rosenblatt – what she calls an aesthetic transaction, or a ”total situation” – has been discussed as problematic in relation to ”narrative imagination” mainly because reader has to be understood as centered, i.e. to be able to understand why a reader performs a specific reading Rosenblatt focus is fixed on the reader her-/himself, ignoring the linguistic, social and discursive context surrounding her/him. I have, with reference to postcolonial theory made the argument that teaching literature must be understood as a discursive practice in which context and discourse limits and influences the readers’ perception and appreciation, and thereby found Rosenblatts method restricted and unsatisfactory. Finally I have, in the light of the results above, proposed a postcolonial version of ”narrative imagination” in which ambitions to understand ”the other” is not formulated in terms of personal, empathic and cosmopolitic cultivation, but rather a reflective practice in which the limitations and principles of discourse is taken into account. A certain attitude or a certain reading must be recognized as a concretion of an institutional (social and linguistic) order of thought. This is a theoretical aspect that needs to be considered in future research, as well as in the classroom.

This work develops an opportunity for transgressive resistance to discursively formed structures of material and theoretical power and closure, based on a methodology of amateurism. The concept of amateurism draws heavily on the writing of Edward Said. This work synthesises Said with a broader corpus of postcolonial theory, following a theoretically postcolonial trajectory which applies the lessons from that referent to an engagement with traditional theoretical and cultural closure. The central thesis of the engagement follows a critique of strong ontology and vertical epistemology, or of expertise. Through an examination of health policy around birth, and sociological approaches to health, that critique is deployed to invigorate a new critical direction for the Left with a focus on subjectivity, social policy, social democracy and substantive citizenship. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2008

This work develops an opportunity for transgressive resistance to discursively formed structures of material and theoretical power and closure, based on a methodology of amateurism. The concept of amateurism draws heavily on the writing of Edward Said. This work synthesises Said with a broader corpus of postcolonial theory, following a theoretically postcolonial trajectory which applies the lessons from that referent to an engagement with traditional theoretical and cultural closure. The central thesis of the engagement follows a critique of strong ontology and vertical epistemology, or of expertise. Through an examination of health policy around birth, and sociological approaches to health, that critique is deployed to invigorate a new critical direction for the Left with a focus on subjectivity, social policy, social democracy and substantive citizenship. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2008

This thesis investigates the ways in which higher education in Africa has been construing its mission for Africa’s development and how such constructions are shaped by particular global regimes of knowledge on development. The thesis unpacks the ways in which such regimes are deployed using specific technologies: neo-liberal precepts on economic development. To that end, I pose a set of questions which can be summarized in these two: How has higher education in Africa discursively construed Africa’s experiences? Second, in which terms such constructions have helped responding to Africa’s problems of development? Taking Mozambican higher education as a unit of analysis, I used postcolonial theory to unsettle neo-liberal regimes of development and to show how contingent they are. Methodologically, a historical critique was carried out to historize neo-liberal globalization as a contingent process and to understand multiple possibilities of construing Africa’s experiences. My data consisted of texts discussing ways in which Africa is discursively understood by both, African and Western scholarship, higher education policy in Mozambique, interviews with senior administrators of some Mozambican higher education institutions and text materials from higher education institutions’ websites in Mozambique. The findings suggest that, on the one hand, constructions of Africa as being in crisis are not new. In fact, for centuries Africa has always been a subject of knowledge from which the West constructs its differences. It is from such differences that the West assumed a civilizing mission in order to integrate African peoples in the world order. On the other hand, African scholars’ responses to Western constructions of Africa’s experiences end up building another crisis at the theoretical level: the difficulties of thinking effectively on Africa so as to solve its problems. The second finding is that Mozambican higher education’s responses to the crisis have been marked by a development agenda within the broader context of Mozambique’s history from late the 1970s onwards: first, within the socialist model of central planning economy and, second, within the international agenda of global neo-liberal market economy. My analysis suggests that both development practices reflect, to some extent, continuities of colonial regimes of development which did not take into account the contextualities of the colonized. Finally, my investigation found that higher education institutions in Mozambique are responding to development challenges based on very technological conceptions of development following global trends. The thesis contends that an engagement with the ethics of knowledge and development would lead to a development model more preoccupied with the social contexts beyond market rationalities.

This thesis investigates the ways in which higher education in Africa has been construing its mission for Africa’s development and how such constructions are shaped by particular global regimes of knowledge on development. The thesis unpacks the ways in which such regimes are deployed using specific technologies: neo-liberal precepts on economic development. To that end, I pose a set of questions which can be summarized in these two: How has higher education in Africa discursively construed Africa’s experiences? Second, in which terms such constructions have helped responding to Africa’s problems of development? Taking Mozambican higher education as a unit of analysis, I used postcolonial theory to unsettle neo-liberal regimes of development and to show how contingent they are. Methodologically, a historical critique was carried out to historize neo-liberal globalization as a contingent process and to understand multiple possibilities of construing Africa’s experiences. My data consisted of texts discussing ways in which Africa is discursively understood by both, African and Western scholarship, higher education policy in Mozambique, interviews with senior administrators of some Mozambican higher education institutions and text materials from higher education institutions’ websites in Mozambique. The findings suggest that, on the one hand, constructions of Africa as being in crisis are not new. In fact, for centuries Africa has always been a subject of knowledge from which the West constructs its differences. It is from such differences that the West assumed a civilizing mission in order to integrate African peoples in the world order. On the other hand, African scholars’ responses to Western constructions of Africa’s experiences end up building another crisis at the theoretical level: the difficulties of thinking effectively on Africa so as to solve its problems. The second finding is that Mozambican higher education’s responses to the crisis have been marked by a development agenda within the broader context of Mozambique’s history from late the 1970s onwards: first, within the socialist model of central planning economy and, second, within the international agenda of global neo-liberal market economy. My analysis suggests that both development practices reflect, to some extent, continuities of colonial regimes of development which did not take into account the contextualities of the colonized. Finally, my investigation found that higher education institutions in Mozambique are responding to development challenges based on very technological conceptions of development following global trends. The thesis contends that an engagement with the ethics of knowledge and development would lead to a development model more preoccupied with the social contexts beyond market rationalities.

This thesis investigates the ways in which higher education in Africa has been construing its mission for Africa’s development and how such constructions are shaped by particular global regimes of knowledge on development. The thesis unpacks the ways in which such regimes are deployed using specific technologies: neo-liberal precepts on economic development. To that end, I pose a set of questions which can be summarized in these two: How has higher education in Africa discursively construed Africa’s experiences? Second, in which terms such constructions have helped responding to Africa’s problems of development? Taking Mozambican higher education as a unit of analysis, I used postcolonial theory to unsettle neo-liberal regimes of development and to show how contingent they are. Methodologically, a historical critique was carried out to historize neo-liberal globalization as a contingent process and to understand multiple possibilities of construing Africa’s experiences. My data consisted of texts discussing ways in which Africa is discursively understood by both, African and Western scholarship, higher education policy in Mozambique, interviews with senior administrators of some Mozambican higher education institutions and text materials from higher education institutions’ websites in Mozambique. The findings suggest that, on the one hand, constructions of Africa as being in crisis are not new. In fact, for centuries Africa has always been a subject of knowledge from which the West constructs its differences. It is from such differences that the West assumed a civilizing mission in order to integrate African peoples in the world order. On the other hand, African scholars’ responses to Western constructions of Africa’s experiences end up building another crisis at the theoretical level: the difficulties of thinking effectively on Africa so as to solve its problems. The second finding is that Mozambican higher education’s responses to the crisis have been marked by a development agenda within the broader context of Mozambique’s history from late the 1970s onwards: first, within the socialist model of central planning economy and, second, within the international agenda of global neo-liberal market economy. My analysis suggests that both development practices reflect, to some extent, continuities of colonial regimes of development which did not take into account the contextualities of the colonized. Finally, my investigation found that higher education institutions in Mozambique are responding to development challenges based on very technological conceptions of development following global trends. The thesis contends that an engagement with the ethics of knowledge and development would lead to a development model more preoccupied with the social contexts beyond market rationalities.

This thesis investigates the ways in which higher education in Africa has been construing its mission for Africa’s development and how such constructions are shaped by particular global regimes of knowledge on development. The thesis unpacks the ways in which such regimes are deployed using specific technologies: neo-liberal precepts on economic development. To that end, I pose a set of questions which can be summarized in these two: How has higher education in Africa discursively construed Africa’s experiences? Second, in which terms such constructions have helped responding to Africa’s problems of development? Taking Mozambican higher education as a unit of analysis, I used postcolonial theory to unsettle neo-liberal regimes of development and to show how contingent they are. Methodologically, a historical critique was carried out to historize neo-liberal globalization as a contingent process and to understand multiple possibilities of construing Africa’s experiences. My data consisted of texts discussing ways in which Africa is discursively understood by both, African and Western scholarship, higher education policy in Mozambique, interviews with senior administrators of some Mozambican higher education institutions and text materials from higher education institutions’ websites in Mozambique. The findings suggest that, on the one hand, constructions of Africa as being in crisis are not new. In fact, for centuries Africa has always been a subject of knowledge from which the West constructs its differences. It is from such differences that the West assumed a civilizing mission in order to integrate African peoples in the world order. On the other hand, African scholars’ responses to Western constructions of Africa’s experiences end up building another crisis at the theoretical level: the difficulties of thinking effectively on Africa so as to solve its problems. The second finding is that Mozambican higher education’s responses to the crisis have been marked by a development agenda within the broader context of Mozambique’s history from late the 1970s onwards: first, within the socialist model of central planning economy and, second, within the international agenda of global neo-liberal market economy. My analysis suggests that both development practices reflect, to some extent, continuities of colonial regimes of development which did not take into account the contextualities of the colonized. Finally, my investigation found that higher education institutions in Mozambique are responding to development challenges based on very technological conceptions of development following global trends. The thesis contends that an engagement with the ethics of knowledge and development would lead to a development model more preoccupied with the social contexts beyond market rationalities.

This study examined four different settings in Selma Lagerlof’s novel Jerusalem, part I and II. The aim of the study was to analyse the narrative perspective in the four selected scenes of the novel, and also to investigate whether the narrator’s tone in any of the passages could be said to express orientalism. The material consisted of four text passages describing the novel’s two main geographical locations (the district of Dalarna and the Holy Land). Literary theories used for the study were narratology and postcolonial theory. The applied method to analyse the passages was to use the selection of semantic and syntactic markers compiled by Staffan Hellberg (1985) for stylistic analysis of the narrator’s perspective in Swedish narrative texts. The results of the study show that the overall narrative perspective in the scenes are non-focalized, and that the most frequently featured stylistic markers consist of words and phrases expressing value. A summery of the most frequently used stylistic markers show that it is possible to divide the narrative tone into four categories, as the “presenting”, “sympathizing”, “demonstrating” and “educating” narrator. The results also indicate that orientalism is evident in the two analysed passages from Jerusalem, part II.

Author: Amanda Hedberg & Julia Rindhagen   Title: “If we come to Sweden ...Will they welcome us?” A qualitative studie of how the representation of refugees have changed over time in the genre reportage in the newspaper Aftonbladet. Location: Linnaeus University  Language: Swedish  Number of pages: 41 The aim of this study was to examine if there were any differences in how the swedish newspaper Aftonbladet represented refugees over time. The main question examined was: How do the newspaper Aftonbladet represent refugees in the genre reportage over time? We added three more questions in order to get a more precise result. The questions were: Which discourses were found in the years 1995, 2005 and 2015, were there any differences or similarities? Have the representations of the actors of the text changed?  How can the texts contribute to stereotypes of refugees in order of the postcolonial theory with focus of “us” and “them”?  We made a critical discourse analysis of 15 reportages over time. Five reportages of three different years; 1995, 2005 and 2015. The result showed that Aftonbladets representation of the refugees over time in the genre reportage had an up going curve in the focus area of “us” and “them”. Through all the examined years, the refugees were described as victims. In 2005 Aftonbladet started to represent the refugees as “the others” and in 2015 the refugees started to be described as “a threat”.

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