In his book, Robin Hood: An Historical Enquiry, John Bellamy asserts that the lack of a study of the relationship between Robin Hood and the sheriff stems from very little evidence in the ballads and external sources. However, the Robin Hood ballads originate in the fourteenth century when tales of justice and chivalry experienced widespread appeal alongside complaint literature addressing social upheaval bubbling to the surface of English life; why would an audience celebrate an outlaw during this time and long after Gawain and Arthur fade in popularity in the ensuing centuries? There must be more to the relationship between Robin Hood and the sheriff of Nottingham. In order to find a deeper relationship between the outlaw and lawman, the estates model should be used as a framework from which to begin the study of Robin Hood and his shrieval desires and not as a specific exercise of explication and application. By doing so, one can see that Robin Hood does assume the role of the sheriff in the early ballads by assuming his duties of managing the forests, collecting money from individuals within the community, albeit mostly from dishonest clergy, maintaining an army for defense, and settling disputes between various parties within the shire. By examining the shrieval position Robin attempts to fill as imagined through the estates model and the period’s accepted role of sheriff, Robin Hood appears as the idealized form of the sheriff in a real-world environment that could not support the ideal.

I denna uppsats tas McCloskeys argument mot handlingsutilitarismen upp. Handlingsutilitarismen innebär att en handling är rätt ifall den leder till mer totalt välbefinnande än någon annan alternativ handling. McCloskeys argument mot handlingsutilitarismen handlar om att utilitarismen leder till oacceptabla konsekvenser. Utilitarismen anser det vara rätt att mörda eller straffa oskyldiga i vissa situationer som McCloskey argumenterar emot och anser det vara oacceptabelt. McCloskeys argument handlar om en sheriff som bor i en stad, sheriffen står inför ett svårt val och det är att antigen sätta dit och avrätta en oskyldig man eller låta staden genomlida farliga upplopp som eventuellt kan ta fler liv. Detta argument använder McCloskeys för att visa att utilitarismen leder till motbjudande handlingar. Argument som kommer att framföras mot McCloskeys är att hans exempel är orealistiskt. Även att handlingar så som att döda eller likande oftast inte leder till maximering av det totala välbefinnandet. / In this essay, McCloskey's arguments against act utilitarianism will be discussed. Act utilitarianism states that an action is right if it produces more total well-being than any other alternative action. McCloskey's argument against act utilitarianism is that utilitarianism leads to unacceptable consequences. Utilitarianism considers it right to murder or punish innocent people in certain situations, which McCloskey argues against and considers unacceptable. McCloskey's argument involves a sheriff who lives in a town. The sheriff faces a difficult choice: either to convict and execute an innocent man or to let the town suffer through dangerous riots that could potentially take more lives. McCloskey uses this argument to show that utilitarianism leads to repugnant actions. Arguments that will be raised against McCloskey are that his example are unrealistic. Also, that actions such as killing often do not lead to the maximization of total well-being.

On its surface, Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men appears to be a thoroughly grim and even fatalistic novel, but read in conjunction with W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming"—a work with which the novel has a number of intertextual connection—it becomes clear that there is a distinct optimism at the heart of the novel. Approaching McCarthy's novel as an intertext with Yeats' poem illuminates an apparent critique of eschatological panic present in No Country for Old Men, provided mainly through Sheriff Bell's reflections on the state of society.

Memory and nostalgia work in complex, paradoxical ways in Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men and The Road, both haunting the main protagonists, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and the father, as well as bringing them to crucial realizations. These men give up the traditional hero role for the more meaningful and generative image of “carrying the fire,” which unites these two novels. Carrying the fire represents a memorial and nostalgic longing for home and family. Bell and the father attain this vision because of their obsession with the past, and because of their struggle with memory and nostalgia. Memory, for these characters, has both personal and collective dimensions. Nostalgia, likewise, has a dual function, following Svetlana Boym's definition of nostalgics as being capable of restorative and reflective longing for the past. Family, or Paul Ricœur’s theory of close relations, bridges the gap between the conflicts of memory and nostalgia, acting as the means by which they understand this vision of carrying the fire while also embodying it. Additionally, the duality of both memory and nostalgia drive Bell and the father to seek for a prophetic vision, for stability in the past to deal with the threats in the present, which appears in the narrative structures of each novel.

This thesis argues that the Australian military intervention in East Timor in 1999 was motivated primarily by the need to defend Australia’s own strategic interests. It was an act of Australian imperialism understood from a Marxist perspective, and was consistent with longstanding strategic policy in the region.¶ Australian policy makers have long been concerned about the security threat posed by a small and weak neighbouring state in the territory of East Timor. This led to the deployment of Australian troops to the territory in World War Two. In 1974 Australia supported Indonesia’s invasion of the territory in order to prevent it from becoming a strategic liability in the context of Cold War geopolitics. But, as an indirect result of the Asian financial crisis, by September 1999 the Indonesian government’s control over the territory had become untenable. Indonesia’s political upheaval also raised the spectre of the ‘Balkanisation’ of the Indonesian archipelago, and East Timor thus became the focal point for Australian fears about an ‘arc of instability’ that arose in this period.¶ Australia’s insertion of military forces into East Timor in 1999 served its own strategic priorities by ensuring an orderly transfer of sovereignty took place, avoiding a destabilising power vacuum as the country transitioned to independence. It also guaranteed that Australia’s economic and strategic interests in the new nation could not be ignored by the United Nations or the East Timorese themselves. There are therefore underlying consistencies in Australia’s policy on East Timor stretching back several decades. Despite changing contexts, and hence radically different policy responses, Australia acted throughout this time to prevent political and strategic instability in East Timor.¶ In addition, the intervention reinforced Australia’s standing as a major power in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. The 1999 deployment therefore helped facilitate a string of subsequent Australian interventions in Pacific island nations, both by providing a model for action and by building a public consensus in favour of the use of military intervention as a policy tool.¶ This interpretation of events challenges the consensus among existing academic accounts. Australia’s support of Indonesia’s invasion and occupation of East Timor from 1974 was frequently criticised as favouring realpolitik over ethical considerations. But the 1999 intervention, which ostensibly ended severe violence and secured national independence for the territory, drew widespread support, both from the public and academic commentators. It has generally been seen as a break with previous Australian policy, and as driven by political forces outside the normal foreign policy process. Moreover, it has been almost universally regarded as a triumph for moral conduct in international affairs, and even as a redemptive moment for the Australian national conscience. Viewing the intervention as part of the longstanding strategy of Australian imperialism casts doubt on such positive evaluations.