Thesis advisor: Nasser Behnegar / This study traces Nietzsche's understanding of the meaning of culture through his first three Untimely Observations. Its goal is to show that culture [Kultur] occupies a central place in these essays because Nietzsche thinks that the cultivation [Bildung] of humanity within enclosed and humanly created spiritual horizons can prevent the spiritual degeneration of mankind in modern times. The source of this degeneration lies in modern natural science and the scientific study of history. Taken together these two pillars of modern pedagogy erode human moral foundations and paralyze practical ambitions by teaching relativism in the form of what Nietzsche calls: "the doctrines of sovereign becoming, of the fluidity of all concepts, types, and species, [and] of the lack of any cardinal difference between human and animal." Since Nietzsche explicitly affirms the theoretical "truth" of these doctrines despite holding them to be "deadly" for mankind, the study focuses primarily on the cultural solution he proposes to the practical problem that relativism poses to the flourishing of a great people. Although this solution is a complex one which Nietzsche went on to refine and develop in almost all of his subsequent writings, its core consists of the cultivation, emergence, and activity of a rare type of individual he calls the "genius," the "true human being," and the "redeeming human being" in the Untimely Observations, and who is dubbed a "Caesarian breeder and cultural dynamo [Gewaltmenschen der Cultur]" in Beyond Good and Evil. This exceptional individual creates self-inspired works of philosophy and art that raise insulating walls around the collective mind of his people, restraining their longing for scientific and historical knowledge by satisfying or cultivating it [Bildung] with self-created metaphysical "truths" and "images [Bild]" of their past, future, and even of nature itself. When these truths and images are embraced by a people a spiritual horizon is established around them which they consider it bad taste to transcend, and inside this horizon lies a world of "creative morality [schöpferischen Moral]" and "metaphysical meaningfulness" that, under the best circumstances, cultivates healthy human life. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

<p> In this dissertation, I read several early modern plays - Shakespeare's Richard II, Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, and Marlowe's Dido, Queene of Carthage - alongside a variety of early modem historiographical works. I pair drama and historiography in order to negotiate the question of early modem untimely deaths. Rather than determining once and for all what it meant to die an untimely death in early modem England, I argue here that one answer to this question requires an understanding of the imagined relationship between individuals and the broader unfolding of history by which they were imagined to be shaped, which they were imagined to shape, or from which they imagined to be alienated. I assume here that drama - particularly historically-minded drama - is an ideal object to consider when approaching such vexed questions, and I also assume that the problematic of untimely deaths provides a framework in which to ask about the historico-culturally specific relationships that were imagined to obtain between subjects and history. While it is critically commonplace to assert that early modern drama often stages the so-called "modern" subject, I argue here that early modern visions of the subject are often closely linked to visions of that subject's place in the world, particularly in the world that is recorded by historiographers as a world within and of history. I argue that one can begin to make sense of deaths in terms of their timeliness or untimeliness only by recognizing historically specific senses of the narrativized subject and the imagined relationship between that subject and history. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The transition to the IFRS framework has contributed to changes in the handling of goodwill. The yearly impairment test has contributed with subjectivity in the measurements resulting in fewer but larger impairments. The purpose of the study is to investigate how postponement of goodwill impairment is conducted and if managers thereby contribute to a distortion of the underlying qualitative characteristics in financial reporting. Proxies for earnings management activities, through cash flow manipulation, are computed cross-sectionally by sector-year with at least ten observations. Suspect firms are then matched with control firms within the same sector and operating year to control for these effects. The study consists of quantitative secondary data collected from Thomson Reuters Eikon. The data consists of 1090 observations covering seven years of Swedish listed firms with goodwill in their balance sheet. The study concludes that suspect firms experience abnormal current free cash flows compared to control firms, which indicate managers manipulating cash flows in order to postpone goodwill impairment. Also, growth opportunities and analysts' coverage have a significant impact on earnings management activities.

Bakgrund: Sjuksköterskor möter ibland obotligt sjuka patienter som uttalar en önskan om att få avsluta sitt liv i förtid och detta är både ett komplext och kontroversiellt ämne som diskuteras flitigt runt om i världen. En uttalad önskan om att få avsluta sitt liv i förtid kan ha många olika betydelser och bör förstås utifrån varje unik patients egen sjukdomssituation, livshistoria och upplevelser. Syfte: Att undersöka hur sjuksköterskor upplever och hanterar mötet med terminalt sjuka patienter som uttalar en önskan om att få avsluta sitt liv i förtid. Metod: En litteraturöversikt har gjorts och baseras på åtta vetenskapliga artiklar publicerade mellan år 2001-2010. Analysen har skett genom en kategorisering av resultaten och Erikssons teori om lidande har utgjort den teoretiska utgångspunkten för diskussionen. Resultat: När patienter, på grund av vad de upplever som ett omänskligt lidande, uttalar en önskan om att få avsluta sitt liv i förtid kan sjuksköterskor uppleva maktlöshet, moralisk stress samt en önskan om kontroll. Sjuksköterskor hanterar detta genom god kommunikation och att dra personliga gränser. De uttrycker även ett behov av stöd och av att få samtala. Diskussion och slutsats: Många sjuksköterskor upplever en rädsla över att förlora kontrollen över situationen vilket kan leda till att de upplever osäkerhet och svårigheter när de vårdar terminalt sjuka patienter som önskar avsluta sitt liv i förtid. Sjuksköterskor kommer troligtvis alltid att möta dessa patienter och det finns därmed ett behov av stöd och riktlinjer. / Background: Nurses sometimes meet terminally ill patients who express a wish to end their life untimely and this is a complex and controversial issue that is discussed all around the world. An expressed wish to end life untimely can mean many things and must be understood based on the situation of the disease, life history and experiences of every unique patient. Aim: To explore how nurses experience and handle the meeting with terminally ill patients who express a wish to end their life untimely Methods: A literature review has been made and is based on eight scientific studies published between years 2001-2012. Categorizing the text of the articles has done the analysis and Eriksson ́s theory about suffering from illness is the theoretical framework that has been used. Result: When patients, because of what they perceive an inhumane suffering, state that they would like to end their life untimely nurses can experience powerlessness, moral distress and a wish to control the situation. Nurses handle this through good communication and by drawing their own personal line. They also express a need of support and to talk about this. Discussion and conclusion: Many nurses experience a fear of losing control over the situation which leads to feelings of insecurity and difficulties when they care for terminally ill patients who wish to end their life untimely. Nurses will probably always get in contact with those patients and therefore there is a need for support and guidelines.

<p>Through the notions of <em>the</em> <em>untimely</em> (l'intempestif) and <em>untimeliness</em> (intempestif) this paper seeks to gain a better understanding of the problematic surrounding and determining the concept of time in Deleuze. By tracing Deleuze's development of the concept of the untimely through Nietzsche and Kant, we are allowed to concretize the concept of time as pertaining to an experience of modernity (modern life), thus enabling us to better determine the place it holds within the philosophy of Deleuze itself - as a constitutive and productive problematic relating directly to the activity of thinking and being philosophically.</p>

Through the notions of the untimely (l'intempestif) and untimeliness (intempestif) this paper seeks to gain a better understanding of the problematic surrounding and determining the concept of time in Deleuze. By tracing Deleuze's development of the concept of the untimely through Nietzsche and Kant, we are allowed to concretize the concept of time as pertaining to an experience of modernity (modern life), thus enabling us to better determine the place it holds within the philosophy of Deleuze itself - as a constitutive and productive problematic relating directly to the activity of thinking and being philosophically.

This study creates and develops a concept called the untimely-image including two sub-concepts called contours of the new and the untimely-site. The untimely-image concerns the clearing for and the expression of figures of “potential” in thought in the form of moving-images. The aim of these concepts is to form a critical framework for evaluating and conceptualizing political film as expressive, not of the new itself but of its “untimely” contours. The untimely-image, and its many implications, is developed over the course of six chapters. Chapter 1 extensively defines “contours” and “new” as operative in this study, and also introduces a theme that runs through all the chapters: how to think the contours of the new in relation to the cult of the new in consumer culture and in relation to the larger mechanisms of advanced capitalism. Chapter 2 defines the parameters of the untimely-image as specifically regarding moving images, and continues the development of this concept. In Chapters 3 to 6, The Wire (David Simon, 2002-2008) serves the double function of complicating and giving specification to the elaboration of the untimely-image as well as a case in which the untimely-image is used as a critical framework. The Wire and the untimely-image relate in processes of juxtaposition, wherein they meet, cross over, separate, and reproblematize each other. An untimely-image is fully defined in relation to concrete political issues. The untimely-image is therefore advanced by articulating the components and characteristics that, independently of the concrete issue, remain in every case, as well as by putting the concept to work regarding two specific problems in The Wire: its expression of blackness and its mapping of advanced capitalism.