The Swedish artist Ulla Wiggen (b. 1942) started her artistic career in the early 1960s with detailed paintings of the insides of early electronic devices. In the early 2010s she turned to the interior of the body in the series Intra where organs and cells are fictionally combined. Here, she used a similar pictorial style as in the electronic paintings. This thesis seeks to analyze the relationships and tensions between body and machine that are found in Wiggen’s works. Questions are posed about the relationship between scientific and artistic imagery, as well as the role that fiction plays in knowledge-producing representation. This thesis looks to Wiggen’s use of the grid and connects it to historical and modernist images by showing its inherited paradoxical relation between rationality and spirituality. Through the anatomical picture, focusing on the Renaissance and Rationalism, this thesis explores the meanings of portraying bodies in cross-section. The role of the opened body has been oscillating between a body filled with spiritual meaning to a divided body, seen as an object for knowledge production. By using Donna Haraway’s figurations of the hybrid and the cyborg, the text proposes to re-think dualistic tensions between the human and the machine, science and fiction, realism and magic in Ulla Wiggen’s works. Through this perspective and post-humanist theory, it becomes clear that these boundaries have always been in flux. Instead of thinking either machines or bodies, the thesis suggests that we see the two series of Ulla Wiggen’s works as hybrid constructions that are both body-machines and machine-bodies.

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The general aim of this dissertation is to describe and analyse how public old-age care in Sweden has developed and changed during the last century. The study applies a provider perspective on how care has been planned and professionally carried out. A broader social policy perspective, studying old-age care at central/national as well as local/municipal level, is also developed. A special focus is directed at the large local variation in care and services for the elderly. The empirical base is comprised of official documents and other public sources, survey data from interviews with elderly recipients of public old-age care, and official statistics on publicly financed and controlled old-age care and services. Study I addresses the development of old-age care in Sweden during the twentieth century by studying an important occupation in this field – the supervisors and their professional roles, tasks and working conditions. Throughout, the roles of supervisors have followed the prevailing official policy on the proper way to provide care for elderly people in Sweden; from poor relief at the beginning of the 1900s, via a generous level of services in the 1960s and 1970s, to today’s restricted and economy-controlled mode of operation. Study II describes and compares two main forms of public old-age care in Sweden today, home help services and institutional care. The care-load found in home-based care was comparable to and sometimes even larger than in service-homes and other institutions, indicating that large care needs among elderly people in Sweden today can be met in their homes as well as in institutional settings. Studies III and IV analyse the local variation in public old-age care in Sweden. During the last decades there has been an overall decline in home help services. The coverage of home help for elderly people shows large differences between municipalities throughout this period, and the relative variation has increased. The local disparity seems to depend more on historical factors, e.g., previous coverage rates, than on the present municipal situation in levels of need or local economy and politics. In an introductory part the four papers are linked together by an outline of the demographic situation and the social policy model for old-age care in Sweden. Trends that have been apparent over time, e.g. professionalisation and market orientation, are traced and discussed. Conflicts between prevailing ideologies are analysed, in regards to for instance home-based and institution-based care, social and medical culture, and local and central levels of decision-making. ’Welfare municipality’, ‘path dependency’, and ‘decentralisation’ are suggested as a conceptual framework for describing the large and increasing local variations in old-age care. Finally, implications of the four studies with regard to old-age care policy and further research are discussed. / <p>Härtill 4 uppsatser</p>

In revolving around the construction of history, this study rethinks the historical narrative of Tuija Lindström’s professorship at Fotohögskolan in the 1990s. Through this, the aim is to widen the understanding of the role of both the school and the professor’s position within the Swedish photographic field in the postmodern era. The main material consists of archival documents from Fotohögskolan, such as syllabuses, schedules, and staff records. Other important sources include interviews with people connected to the school and articles from newspapers and photographic journals. In order to examine power structures, the theoretical framework is built upon Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the cultural field. To further understand this, critical discourse analysis is also used both as a method and theory. The study shows that the development of Fotohögskolan grew out of many events and endeavours traceable to broader structural struggles within the Swedish field of photography in the 1990s. The changes are shown to be connected to postmodern tendencies which influenced the whole field in a certain direction, and how the school became an important institution to manifest this. Further, the study shows that the professorship played an important role as a central figure for Swedish photography.

This essay examines the social relations between colored and white cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point during the late 19th century. Through letters we are able to take part of two microhistories that show the social structure from two different angles. Exclusionary rhetoric and practices made it possible for white cadets to shut out colored cadets from their social community. When the first African-American, James Webster Smith entered the Academy in 1870 a controversial question was raised about social relations between colored and none-colored cadets. By studying Smith ́s letters in tandem with those of a white cadet who attended West Point at the same time, Hugh Lenox Scott, this thesis aims to study how racism played out in everyday encounters and practices. In doing so it reveals a complex tension between exclusion and confrontation involving colored cadets, as a result of the structural racism at the Academy and in the American society at large in the post-Civil War era.

By conceptualizing repetition with the Swedish avantgarde aesthetics of the 1960s as a point of departure, this thesis argues that the repetition phenomena in the mature works of Per Olov Enquist (1934–2020) are indebted to the period. Hereby it brings together two major trends in the Enquist research that previously have been separate. In accordance with the main tendency of the period, the Enquistian repetitions reuse concrete constituents and are of technical and combinatory nature. According to the taxonomy introduced in the thesis, they are mainly internarrative, i.e., they transcend the limits of the individual stories. Thus, in Enquist, the superficial, anti-mimetic as well as anti-hermeneutical qualities pertaining to the period are a consequence of the specifically internarrative character of the repetitions, whereas the individual stories remain mimetically coherent. Furthermore, the thesis investigates a metapoetic discourse in the mature works; in part, it demonstrates a continuity between this discourse and the non-metapoetic notion of repetition in Enquist’s novels of the ‘60s. Altogether, the thesis proposes a way of historically situating the Enquist oeuvre as a whole; supposedly, it will contribute to further studies with similar aims.

This thesis addresses the theatrical establishment in Kristinehamn during the long 19th century, with notable focus between the years 1835-1902. The thesis seeks to identify an overall picture of the theatrical influence in the city through an understanding of theatrical occurrences during the chosen timeline. Through Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital, the thesis aims to uncover to whom the theatrical establishment was targeted. Finally, a comparative aspect can present itself by comparing the results with previously established theater-historical research. Thus, the thesis can add to the already existing understanding of the theatrical historical research from a local perspective.     The approach is divided amongst three different research questions, all of which has one or more methods applied to them. The methods consist of both qualitative and quantitative aspects. When comparing the local perspective with the broader, national one, an abductive method has been used to identify the similarities or differences between results. The source material has been gathered from three main sources: the collections of Linus Brodin, Kristinehamns’ image archive and theatre advertisements or reviews from local daily newspapers. Brodins’ archive consists of an assortment of different types of documents, such as plays, Bills of Sales, stock letters or posters. The advertisements have been found through computer-assisted analysis via the National Library of Sweden’s database for digitalized newspapers.     The study gave extensive results that give satisfying answers to the formed research questions. Kristinehamn constructed theatres during two different occurrences, once in 1835, which then burned to the ground during the great fire in 1893, and then later in the year 1902. The city closely follows the results of previous theatre historical research, especially when comparing the results to the nearby city of Karlstad. There are just a few exceptions when it comes to a lack of visits from certain popular directors or in how some theatre administrative boards were built up. There were plenty of traveling theatre companies that visited the city, which performed a minimum of 268 different plays throughout the research period. The most popular genre was by far different variations of comedy. There is backing evidence for the theory that Kristinehamn consisted of two different culture practicing groups, the Cultural Elite, and the Cultural Novice: though the distinctions between them from decennium to decennium are vague. The results do show a clear indication that the theatre as a medium for both entertainment and practicing got more and more accessible throughout the 19th century. / Denna uppsats behandlar Kristinehamns teaterverksamhet under det långa 1800-talet, med särskilt fokus mellan åren 1835–1902. Studiens syfte är att analysera historiska skeenden för att skapa en helhetsbild utav teaterlivet i Kristinehamn samt genom Pierre Bourdieus kapitalbegrepp undersöka hur tillgänglig teatern var för den bredare massan. Utöver detta ämnar undersökningen även föra en komparativ aspekt, där resultaten ställs mot tidigare teaterhistorisk forskning. Studien bidrar således till den teaterhistoriska forskningen utifrån ett lokalhistoriskt perspektiv.         Arbetssättet för genomförandet av undersökningen är uppdelad utefter tre forskningsfrågeställningar. Samtliga frågeställningar har applicerats en eller flera metoder. Dessa metoder består av både kvalitativ analys av källmaterialet samt kvantitativa framställningar. Ytterligare en metod som använts i undersökningen är den abduktiva forskningsmetoden som använts för att ställa undersökningsresultatet mot ett större sammanhang. Källmaterialet består av insamlat material från Linus Brodins samlingar i Föreningsarkivet i Värmland, från Kristinehamns bildarkiv samt från teaterannonser och recensioner i dagspress från Kristinehamn. Linus Brodins samlingar innehåller bland annat köpekontrakt, lottbrev, affischer och manus. Annonserna har framtagits genom att applicera ett kodschema för sökning i Kungliga bibliotekets databas för svenska dagstidningar.     Undersökningen gav ett mycket omfattande resultat som på gott vis besvarar samtliga tre forskningsfrågeställningar. Kristinehamn lät uppföra teaterhus vid två olika tillfällen, ett 1835 som brann ned i stadsbranden 1893, samt ett annat teaterhus år 1902. Staden följer tidigare teaterhistorisk forskning nära, särdeles med den närliggande staden Karlstad. Några få undantag gällande populära besökande direktörer eller sammansättning av teaterbolag existerar. De kringresande teatersällskapen var många och gav ett minimum på 268 olika pjäser genom undersökningsperioden. Den mest populära genren var komedin. Det finns underlag för att kategorisera Kristinehamnarnas kulturutövare i två fack, kultureliten respektive kulturnovisen; men kategoriseringen av dessa från decennium till decennium är diffus. Dock visar resultatet att teatern blev alltmer tillgänglig för fler och fler personer under 1800-talets gång.

In 13th century Europe, the German bishop and scholastic philosopher Albertus Magnus was one of the most influential writers on the natural world and theology. This thesis investigates the relationship between humans and animals in his Quaestiones super de animalibus and De animalibus. In writings on medieval history the theologically enforced boundary between humans and animals is both emphasized and treated as a given. This study nuances the picture presented by previous scholars by highlighting an alternative natural philosophical discourse on humans and animals. Using discourse analysis, I argue that the differences that Albertus used to differentiate humans from animals were based on an understanding of similarities rather than opposites. To Albertus, the human was one species in the animal kingdom, thus sharing many basic functions with other animals. His understandings entailed a theory of essential differences between species but also allowed for divisions based on gradation and relativity. This study sheds new light on the complex relationship between humans and animals in medieval Europe.

Denna uppsats avser att analysera representationen av barnet och barndomen i konsten under den europeiska kolonialiseringen och imperialismen genom historieskrivningen ur ett feministiskt postkolonialt perspektiv med en historiografisk metod. Syftet är att reflektera över hur kolonialismen har påverkat den visuella konsten föreställande barn och skapat föreställningarna om ras, klass och kön. Som en bakgrund presenteras först konceptet av barnet och barndomens framväxt fram från medeltiden till slutet av 1700-talet. Sedan sammanflätas det med studiens två huvuddelar som tar avstamp i slutet av 1700-talet fram till början av 1900-talet. Den första huvuddelen analyserar barnmotiven i relation med kolonialismen ur nyklassicistisk-, romantisk- och realistisk konst, medan den andra huvuddelen centrerar kring orientalismen. Barnmotiven kommer genomgående att analyseras med en kritisk syn på historieskrivningen och samhällsnormer ur en intersektionell lens. / This paper aims to analyze the representation of children and childhood in art during the European colonization and imperialization through history from a postcolonial feminist perspective historiographical method. The aim is to reflect on how colonialism has affected the visual representation of children and generated the concepts of race, class, and gender. As a background, the paper will first present the historical concept of the child and the emergence of childhood from the Middle ages to the end of the 18th century. This will then be intertwined with the two main parts of the study, which will analyze childhood from the late 18th until the beginning of the 20th century. The first main part analyzes pictures of children in relation to colonialism in the Neoclassical-, Romantic- and Realistic artforms, while the second main part will center around Orientalist art. Throughout the paper, the pictures will be analyzed with a critical perspective of history and societal norms from an intersectional viewpoint.

Syftet med denna studie var att jämföra litteraturundervisningen på högskoleförberedande program och yrkesprogram inom 2000-talets gymnasieskola. Utifrån detta formulerades frågeställningar som innefattade jämförelse av likheter och skillnader avseende litteraturundervisningen inom högskoleförberedande program och yrkesprogram. Mot bakgrund av svenskämnets historiska utveckling inom gymnasieskolan, litteraturteorier, forskning och teorier om svenskämnestraditioner samt de kommande förändringarna gällande grundläggande behörighet till vidare studier och ämnesbetygsreformen undersöktes vetenskaplig litteratur för att besvara syftet. Studien var en systematisk litteraturstudie där utvald vetenskaplig relevant litteratur analyserades med metoden innehållsanalys. Resultatet visade att 2000-talets litteraturundervisning i gymnasieskolan inom ramen för Lpf 94 och Gy 11 uppvisar flera likheter mellan yrkesprogram och högskoleförberedande program avseende innehåll och mål. De två svenskämnestraditionerna svenska som färdighetsämne och svenska som litteraturhistoriskt bildningsämne visades även vara framträdande inom båda programgruppernas litteraturundervisning. Resultatet visade också att svenskämnestraditionen svenska som erfarenhetspedagogiskt ämne kunde karaktäriseras som ett marginaliserat komplement i litteraturundervisningen för både högskoleförberedande program och yrkesprogram.