The contemporary angel-symbol is deeply rooted in our cultural history, with connotations and implications leading to that inner transitional space where all creative activity takes place. This essay investigates the history of the depiction of angels, visions of angels both ancient and modern, and includes psychological aspects of symbols as such. A closer look at surrounding symbols of angels will hopefully result in a greater understanding of the role of the angel-symbol within the context of visual culture, seen in the light of our own symbolic universe..

I uppsatsen analyseras hur Evert Taube skildrar Det Utomeuropeiska i sina sångtexter. Edward Saids Orientalism används som grundteori..

This thesis highlights starting points underlying the notions of two feminist utopians, Christine de Pizan and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In approaching their texts, it focuses on the notions central to understand their writings. These would be historical, social, and cultural contexts. Defining concepts as utopian in its varying forms and feminism has been of significance. A feministic approach grounded in Simone de Beauvoirs philosophical phenomenology in the study of feministic utopia's visibility, has contributed to the understanding of the power structures to which women are tethered. In order to understand the way women are presented, it has become obvious that The Book of the City of Ladies and Herland are literary works that are related not only by their authors? background and personality but by the society in which they lived. Through their engagement in the contemporary intellectual debate on all social planes, both authors contributed to shifting the focus of their own contemporary notions of a woman to the notion of a woman equal to men. Woman, in Christine de Pizans utopia, is given specific properties and through themes of issues given meaning. She is not free in the sense that Simone de Beauvoir says.  She has a broader repertoire than was historically assigned, but her freedom is not arbitrary, contingent, and temporary and judged by her actions.

The purpose of this study has been to investigate how frequently, and in witch ways, theories concerning the "late-modern" society are being used in the contemporary research of social work. My thesis is that theories concerning the late-modern society could be useful in social work research, foremost to shed light on, and broaden the understanding of, dilemmas and problems that are specific to the contemporary society. In the study I'm investigating all doctoral dissertations on social work written in Sweden between the years 2003 and 2006, and to execute the study I've applied a text analysis method in four steps. Simplified the four steps of the analysis can be said to investigate, if, how frequent, and in what way theories on the late modern society is being used in social work study. I'm also specifically investigating how problems exclusive to the late-modern society is being taken under consideration in the dissertations.In the analysis of my results I take a critical theory approach and I also discuss if theories on late-modernity is to be seen as a paradigm in the field of social work science.

In game development, performance is everything and the Playstation 3 provides a unique platform for utilizing parallelization of code to achieve extremely high performance. In this master?s thesis the issue of animation with smooth skinning is migrated from being a GPU process to becoming a parallelized and 358% faster process. This method is incorporated in an existing commercial game engine and integrated in a currently in development title for the Playstation 3. An in-depth study covers parallel processors, the CELL processor, used in the Playstation 3, and how contemporary industry leading game developers are utilizing the same unique architecture to increase their own games? performance..

This study departs from the observation that since the late 1980´s educational programmes for curators have been established and since then expanded greatly. The programmes are part of a process of institutionalization and professionalization of the role of the curator within the international contemporary art field where the role as such has gained much power. Even though many statements have been made about this relatively new phenomenon of curatorial studies, there is a lack of sufficient research. The intention of this study is therefore to examine the educational programmes as such. The selection of 15 programmes has been made with the purpose to include early as well as newly established and to cover a wide geographic area.

Abstract Contemporary cities find themselves today in a fierce competition against other cities over company establishment and in -migration. In this competition, the city?s main objective is to become an attractive site of capital accumulation.  As this happens, the pressure on the vulnerable groups in society increases, leading to a social geographic polarization. I have examined how the shift towards neoliberalism has affected a city on the fringe as Kalmar. How is the postindustrial urban space constructed? I found this important to analyze since it put two important questions in the light: For whom, and for which purpose do we build the city today? My questions have been:v  What are Kalmar municipality?s strategies to develop Kalmar?v  What are the results of this strategy in the urban space?v  What are the consequences of this strategy?The research has been a case study of the city of Kalmar with a qualitative deductive approach where David Harvey?s theories about the city in a capitalist system have been the underpinning structure.

This bachelors thesis examines how av new musicfestival in Umea is communicated on thefestivals website and how the communication is beeing percepted by people who have boughttickets to the festival and people who have chosen not to. The material is based on qualitativeinterviews with theese people and a discourse analysis of the website. The methods beeingused in this thesis are discourse analysis and qualitative interviews. The interviews focuses ontwo groups, people who have bought tickets to the festival and the ones who has not. Theresults of the analysis shows that the website uxufestival.se communicates the vision of aunique festival who brings people together.

The purpose of this work is to explore the artistic processes of an ensemble where a musician and one or more dancers play together, either by improvising or by interpreting music that is written for the ensemble. The main themes are about finding ways to work with written material and still keep the communication between the music and the dance alive. The author is also interested in finding ways of identifying himself in the medium of dance although he is a musician. The result of this work can be seen in this text and in the attached film material..

This project is about a transformation of an existing factory in Paraguay to a local sustainable refinery. The project aims to combine local knowledge and material and modern but low tech technology, this in combination with a contemporary form and new use of bricks in Paraguay..

Abstract ? What is an exhibition hall? ? How do you create tension between art and nature? ? Why should an exhibition hall be situated in the country side; would that add to the experience? ? What are the conditions of exhibiting contemporary art? These are some of the questions I first asked myself when I came to work with this project on an exhibition hall outside Kivik, Österlen. These questions brought me to new places, meetings and ideas. The team working actively to realize this project, calls it ?Art by the Sea?. The team has been working with the project since 2001 .

The aim of this thesis is to model my artistic practice on an adaptation of Joseph Campbells monomyth and, using this model, investigate challenges of performativity in art (in public spaces). The overall themes are personal, aesthetic and ethical sovereignty and an uncompromising search for a deepening of the artistic practice. More than anything else it is a map and a story of an artist?s expansion out into an artistic field that is little developed in Sweden. It is my hope that this thesis, by using a thoroughly subjective tone, will contribute to the milieu of performative arts in Sweden as well as widen the ?how? regarding the making of a written thesis..

The aim of this thesis is to assess the strategic importance of Central Asia as a whole and interests of great powers in the region in particular within the theoretical framework chosen. The work shows Central Asia as an area of the New Great Game, analogue of the original Great Game which was played out between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia in XIX century. The parallels between the original Great Game and the New Great Game are drawn in order to understand the scope and the true intentions of the players of the latter one. Also, the security issues in the contemporary Central Asia are explored and analyzed to provide with the background for future predictions. Furthermore, the indirect purpose of the thesis is to examine whether the international system has changed from that of two centuries ago by comparing the structure of the international systems at the time of two Games.

The Middle Ages in contemporary time ? Salve City; a reconstruction in the Between Land is an essay dealing with the reconstruction of medieval Kalmar. The Salve City is a melting pot of such diverse fields as archaeology, pedagogies, reconstruction, historical tourism, regional development policy et cetera. Together, these parts form a space for research and mediation, business and pleasure, a place where commercialism and historical tourism can function alongside with history enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. Both pros and cons of the use of a reconstructed part of medieval Kalmar are debated..

Den här uppsatsen skrevs för att belysa de hinder som kan uppstå när man som musiker tar sig an nutida musik, i detta fall japansk sådan. Den inriktning som arbetet tagit är hur man genom att förändra notbilden kan komma närmare musikens kärna, samt göra instuderingen så effektiv som möjligt under en relativt kort tid. För att nå de resultat jag gjort har jag använt mig av två informanter som arbetat med två stycken för solo flöjt av Kazuo Fukushima (1930), Mei (1962) och Shun?San (1969). Fallstudiens genomförande har tagit tre veckor där informanterna som är studenter har fått studera in båda verken och därefter notera om det ena av dem (Mei) för att se om de med denna metod kom närmare kärnan i musiken och kompositörens intention.