This study analyzes academic narratives about modernity and secularism in Turkey between 1980 and 2007 using the concepts historical orientation, narratives of modernity and landscape of modernity formulated by the German theoretician Jörn Rüsen and developed by Swedish historian Martin Wiklund..

A large number of genocides have taken place in our history. The purpose of this essay is to examine how genocide is treated in five high school history textbooks. I have studied a large number of issues. I have examined which genocides are discussed in the textbooks and which genocides the textbooks don?t discuss.

The main aim of the thesis is, first, to present a theoretical and methodological perspective for the study of postmodern theory in historiography; second, to discuss and evaluate earlier research on the subject; and third, to show that historians must be more self-reflexive about their explicit as well as implicit theoretical and philosphical premises. My theoretical and methodological inspiration comes mainly from three directions: first, the discourse analytic theory propagated by the political theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe; second, concepts from Lacanian psychoanalysis as propagated by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek; and, finally, the later Ludwig Wittgensteins theory of language.Using this perspective a minor case study is made based on five dissertations in history at Lund University from 1999 to 2006 as source material. This in order to indicate a strong influence of postmodern theory in Swedish historiography. It is further argued that it is legitimate to speak of one postmodernism, not in spite, but because of the fact that postmodernism is a semantically highly paradoxical, contradictory and unstable phenomenon. The main results of the analysis can be summarized as follows: (i) earlier research on the subject is simplified and unreflected and must be abandoned, because (ii) postmodernism seen as a discursive whole, i.e.

Studien handlar om förklaringar av förändring hos några av de forskare med historiematerialistiska inslag som hade en framträdande roll på 1970- och 1980-talen. Övergången från feodalism till kapitalism och industriarbetarens roll i arbetsprocessen var två fält som var på tapeten under denna period, som kan härledas ur den radikala 68-rörelsen. Med sociologen Piotr Sztompkas systemmodell som teoretisk ram undersöktes Christer Winbergs, Maths Isacsons, Anders Floréns, Lars Olssons och Lars Ekdahls avhandlingar samt ett verk av Alf Johansson. Syftet var att utforska de teoretiska utgångspunkterna och slutsatserna i alstren. Svar söktes på vilka drivkrafter författarna anger till förändringarna i sitt material; var i systemet på mikro-, meso- eller makronivå dessa förändringar inträffar; och vad förändringarna leder till.