In this essay a conclusion about the way female characters are portrayed in fantasy novels will be attempted through an analysis of one selected female character from each selected novel. The works that have been chosen are; J.R.R. Tolkien?s The Lord of the Rings, Robert Jordan?s The Eye of the World and A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.The analysis will be done with the help of examples and theories from both feministic criticism and gender studies.

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to analyse and interpret artist Hans Hedberg?s monumental, ceramic reliefs in Sweden and France. Hedberg is internationally famous for his ceramic fruits and eggs in different glaces and formats. A mostly unknown side of his artistic production is that he produced about 50 ceramic reliefs during the 1950s and up to the 1970s in public buildings. Hedberg was one of very few foreign artists in France, who, during a long period of time, produced monumental, public reliefs for the French state.

The fact that we apprehend certain phenomena as more convenient than others generate questions about what constitute and decide what we think of as normal and appropriate. The aim of this thesis is to explore the immense conception of power and authority through a narrower approach that focuses on the EU.With this in mind I examine the penetration of the neo-liberal ideology in the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe to see if there are any implications for hegemony. This is achieved through a discourse analysis which is strengthened with empirical cases of EU policies.The result of the discourse analysis of selected parts of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe reveals that there are in fact tendencies which indicate that our society and reality is dominated by a neo-liberal hegemonic discourse. Subsequently the contemporary discourse broadly infiltrates the entire European Union, and therefore also its member states..

The purpose of this study is to find out why the EU has not yet implemented the EuropeanCivil Peace Corps (ECPC), which the EU Parliament took a resolution about in 1999. Themore specific questions posed are whether the concept of ECPC has been redefined, whetherthe issue of ECPC has been prevented from coming up for discussion and decision-making,and what this has meant for the non-implementation. Steven Lukes' theory about the threedimensions of power is used in combination with a discourse analysis method. The materialused is documents from the EU Parliament's decisions and debate about ECPC, and ECPCfeasibility studies. In the analysis I find one "law and order"-discourse and one "peaceknowledge"-discourse.

Syftet med förelagda undersökning var att karlägga de krav som ställs vid återvinning av han-delsfartyg i de nya regelverk som antagits av IMO och EU med målet att åstadkomma en miljövänlig fartygsåtervinningsindustri. Fokus har legat på de krav som de aktuella regel-verken ställer på fartygsägare och fartygsåtervinningsanläggningar, främst beträffande hantering och bortskaffning av de miljöfarliga material som finns ombord på fartyg. Med dessa krav som utgångspunkt har det redogjorts för hur ett återvinningsförfarande organiseras för att uppfylla de miljökrav som regelverken ställer.Resultatet av undersökningen pekar på att det med dagens teknik och kunskap i allra högsta grad är möjligt att åstadkomma miljövänlig återvinning av handelsfartyg. De problem och utmaningar som resultatet pekar på ligger på ett annat plan än det rent praktiska, bland annat lyfts den långsamma process som implementering av regelverk är fram som en utmaning för fartygsåtervinningsindustrin.Slutdiskussionen handlar till största delen om implementering av lagstiftningen, men också om hanteringen av fartyget och de material som finns ombord, samt om definitionsfrågor rörande ägendeskap. Vidare diskuteras rollen för andra aktörer inom sjöfartsnäringen och de åtgärder som dessa skulle kunna vidta för att åstadkomma en miljövänlig fartygsåtervinning innan de aktuella regelverken träder i kraft och blir bindande.

The intention of this essay is to put the light on and to discuss if there is a connection between a pre-Christian creation mythology and naked rocks on prehistoric sacred places in Scandinavia. Archaeological as well as historical materials are studied. The historical material is mostly from Snorre Sturlasons Asasagan with the explanation of the creation of the world. In this story the world was built from the body of a killed and deposited giant named Ymer. Almost the same myth is told in all Indo-European countries.

Under valen 2002 ? 2006 har Sverigedemokraterna i Sydsverige gått starkt framåt. Vad kan förklara denna starka framgång?Syftet med denna uppsats är att försöka specifiera om värderingskillnader mellanSydsverige och övriga Sverige föreligger genom att undersöka om det finns någotsamband mellan region och inställning till det kulturella samhället. Genom att användamaterial från den europeiska forskningsprojektet European Social Survey (ESS)undersöks hypotesen om det föreligger värderingsskillnader mellan Sydsverige ochövriga Sverige i inställning till det mångkulturella samhället som då kan ha en del i förklaringen varför Sverigedemokraterna är starka just i Sydsverige.

Conflict prevention is a term which has gained much influence during the last decades. To prevent conflicts from occuring have both humanitarian and economic incentives as the cost for war are much greater than the cost of acting preventive. To act in this matter has been regarded a priority for the United Nations during several years, and the European Union have also expressed a wish of playing a more active part. The essay compares the actions taken by the international organisations in Macedonia, a country which headed toward a violent conflict. The UN acted through the mission UNPREDEP and the EU through the mission of Concordia.

This study investigated how we can understand St. Francis as environmentally conscious. The study also presents where those elements can be found in St. Francis own documents and from documents that describe St. Francis.

Although research on gothic fiction has given limited attention to children?s fiction, the last two decades have witnessed an increasing interest. To date the focus has been mainly on English literature with a recurring tendency to define children?s gothic fiction as a text corpus separate from gothic fiction in general. As a result, children?s gothic fiction has become isolated and is not considered as part of the gothic genre, neither the literature nor its adaptations.The aim of this study is to view children?s gothic fiction as an integral part of the gothic genre.

The prospect of Turkish accession to the EU has sparked controversy in many of the member countries. It has highlighted the different ways in which European as well as Turkish identity is being defined in the debate, with some politicians seemingly trying to draw on old prejudices in order to make the case against membership. By utilising discourse analysis as advocated by Thomas Diez, this thesis seeks to explore the debates regarding the Turkish accession bid in the British House of Commons. Its purpose is to analyse how ?EU? and ?Turkey?, understood as contested concepts, gets described in different ways.

Uppsatsen är en jämförande kvantitativ pilotstudie om och hur Ungerns politiska kultur och postmaterialistiska värderingar har förändrats sedan staten blev medlem i EU.Syftet är att se om det har skett några förändringar i den politiska kulturen och om EU har varit en bidragande faktor för förändringen. Primärkällor jag har använt mig av är World Values Survey och European Social Survey, och sekundärkällor är sådana källor som har definierat politisk kultur, och förklarat hur EU fungerar. Resultatet jag har kommit fram till är att den politiska kulturen inte har förändrats i stor grad men det har skett förändringar i några värderingar som leder till postmodernismen. Medlemskapet i EU kan vara en faktor till att förändringarna har skett, men det är inte enbart det som har påverkat..

We live in a world where the resources are not equally divided and that is why charity work is needed. The United Nations Children?s Fund, UNICEF, is a global organization that works for children?s human rights around the world. But perhaps even charity work, which´s often glorified in the society, need to be looked at from different directions. Research about intercultural education, globalization and charity shows that even good deeds can end up reproducing the problem that was supposed to be solved in the first place.

Aid effectiveness is a reoccuring theme in the social sciences. Maybe rightfully so, as development is slow in many parts of the developing world. Core literature on the matter seems to suggest that aid effectiveness is contingent on recipients? level of corruption. Assuming this to be true, I examine the EU?s disbursements of Official Development Assistance over the past decade by running regressions: is there a relationship between the level of aid received, and a country?s level of corruption? As the EU is one of the largest donors of foreign aid globally, and has the power to shape the global foreign aid agenda, this question puts to the test whether the EU is leading the way, or rather is an obstacle in front.

This essay deals with the rationale and aims for doing cultural or aesthetic activities and projects in schools, and gives special focus to a specific group of students, attending schools provided at special residential homes for young people (sa?rskilda ungdomshem). These homes receive young people with psychosocial and substance misuse problems and who show tendencies towards criminal behavior. The essay investigates how working with a cultural project in schools at these residential homes is justified and also elucidates how this specific group of students and their problems are constructed in the documents surrounding the project. The essay will further ponder over possible educational and pedagogical consequences of these constructions.The investigation has its theoretical frame work in curriculum theory.