The purpose of this Master Thesis is to compare two American novel suites for young women, Louisa May Alcott?s Little Women and Good Wives to Ann Brashares series of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The social status of women and children in the US during the 19th century is analyzed and compared historically and literary with the situation 130 years later.The main question is, what differences exist in the books and is there a connection between the changes in society and literature?The method of this Master Thesis is to make a comparative narratological analysis placed in a historical context.The result shows that the multiple character remains and enhances the identification process. Motherhood in the works of Alcott is prominent, whereas in the works of Brashares, sisterhood replaces motherhood.In Alcott?s US during the 19th century, Christian faith was in the foreground.

English abstractTitle: Islam and the limitations of the public will of choice.The purpose of this paper have been to investigate how three modern Islamic theorists view the limitations of the public free will of choice based upon their interpretation of the Islamic theology and doctrine.The paper focuses to highlight how all three chosen Islamic theorist interpret the Islamic doctrine based upon my elected theses and more specifically pinpoint were the free will of choice ends, and Islam as a religion starts to take hegemony. The paper?s aim is to further an understanding that in the modern world and as a effect of increased literacy, Islam has been somewhat inclined to split into several Islamisms, based upon the variety of fatwa?s on the Islamic doctrine that is available online. Therefore it remains to the modern day Muslim, to individually decide whether they choose to follow the message of the Holy revelation in the Quran or trust a mufti?s fatwa in their everyday life as a Muslim.The material used and analyzed in this paper is prime source material.

Holy war against the aberration and the newspaper terrorismHeligt krig mot förvillelsen och tidningsterrorismen This paper explores Bernhard von Beskow?s (1796-1868) conservative critique of the, for the early 19th century, new dominating voice in public matters namely the liberal press. There are competing narratives about the emerging liberal press and its critics. On the one hand the conservative critics were seen as hopeless reactionaries which acted against freedom of the press, themselves stripped of positive ideals and/or handled with little interest as footnotes in the great story of the liberal victory over its opponents. On the other hand this story has been questioned and an alternative has been presented of how to understand the conservatives and their critique of the press.

The study is aimed at investigating the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj ?i?eks theories ofthe ontology of the subject, the crisis of our modern society and his views on how theology,especially Christian theology, can provide the answer for the threats to our society.My main object is the article Descartes and the post-traumatic subject (2008)where ?i?ek elaborates thoughts about the subject and our capitalistic society. To be ableto grasp these thoughts in full I have undergone an investigation not only on the writingsof Slavoj ?i?ek, but also on the philosophers to whom he owe much of his theories,such as G.W.F. Hegel, Friedriech Schelling, Karl Marx and Jaques Lacan.In the study I have shown how the subject is, according to ?i?eks psychoanalytictheories, decentered.

English abstractTitle: Islam and the limitations of the public will of choice.The purpose of this paper have been to investigate how three modern Islamic theorists view the limitations of the public free will of choice based upon their interpretation of the Islamic theology and doctrine.The paper focuses to highlight how all three chosen Islamic theorist interpret the Islamic doctrine based upon my elected theses and more specifically pinpoint were the free will of choice ends, and Islam as a religion starts to take hegemony. The paper?s aim is to further an understanding that in the modern world and as a effect of increased literacy, Islam has been somewhat inclined to split into several Islamisms, based upon the variety of fatwa?s on the Islamic doctrine that is available online. Therefore it remains to the modern day Muslim, to individually decide whether they choose to follow the message of the Holy revelation in the Quran or trust a mufti?s fatwa in their everyday life as a Muslim.The material used and analyzed in this paper is prime source material.

The study is aimed at investigating the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj ?i?eks theories ofthe ontology of the subject, the crisis of our modern society and his views on how theology,especially Christian theology, can provide the answer for the threats to our society.My main object is the article Descartes and the post-traumatic subject (2008)where ?i?ek elaborates thoughts about the subject and our capitalistic society. To be ableto grasp these thoughts in full I have undergone an investigation not only on the writingsof Slavoj ?i?ek, but also on the philosophers to whom he owe much of his theories,such as G.W.F. Hegel, Friedriech Schelling, Karl Marx and Jaques Lacan.In the study I have shown how the subject is, according to ?i?eks psychoanalytictheories, decentered.

In this essay I examine how in seven different congregations that belong to the Church of Sweden the preparatory office is formulated in ways that differ from the form that is prescribed in the current service-book of the Church of Sweden. My purpose is to examine how and why the congregations have chosen these alternative preparatory offices. This I have tried to find out by reading the written instructions and/or homepages of the congregations, studying their orders of service and interviewing one pastor in each congregation.Before describing, comparing and commenting on the different ways these congregations have chosen to formulate their preparatory offices, I give a historical background to the preparatory office itself and how it is formulated/designed in the current service book of the Church of Sweden. I also describe the history and the introduction of the Kyrie.I then describe each congregation, trying to point out the main characteristics of it, then concentrating on the process that lies behind the urge to formulate an alternative preparatory office, the reasons for it and the results.One of the conclusions I draw is that in the congregations I have examined there is an ongoing discussion about and reflection on the advantages of including the Kyrie in the preparatory office. I also found that in the congregations there are different opinions about the words following the prayer of penitence - should they be words of direct absolution or words that speak about the promise of God's forgiveness? This discussion is closely connected to a discussion about what is the connection between the preparatory office and the holy communion/Eucharist.

In this paper I aimed to explore the bodily experiences and expressions that Christian charismatics interpret as religious.  The so-called presence of God and the so-called gifts of the spirit were in focus in the gathering of information. My purpose was to find out how the social community of the Christian charismatics affects the subjective bodily experiences that are interpreted as religious by the individual. The main questions were:1: How do Christian charismatics describe religious experiences and their effect on the body?2: What bodily expressions of religious experience can be observed in Christian charismatic contexts?3: Is there a common way of expressing the experience of God's presence (individually or in a group) and how, in this case, can any resemblance be explained?The methods used to answer these questions were qualitative interviews and participant observations, which then were analyzed by the anthropologist Thomas J. Csordas theory of embodiment.

This bachelor thesis engages in the question of silence in the writings of Fenno-Swedish modernists Mirjam Tuominen and Gunnar Björling, silence being understood as both a poetic theme and a question of literary form. Alongside this exposition runs a discussion about the possibilities and impossibilities of interpretation in the field of academic literary studies. This query is connected to the different ideological positions of the two writers, conjoined by ideas about anti-comprehensibility. Considering certain weaknesses of classical hermeneutics as well as the theory of deconstruction, especially in the case of reading poetry, this thesis tries to point out possible routs for a practice of a more dynamic interpretation, with special regard to understanding the trope of silence in the modernist poetry of Tuominen and Björling.The composition explicitly applies a ?method of wandering? inspired by Maurice Blanchot?s understanding of the priests of Dionysus in Hölderlin?s writings ? maundering in the holy night ? as a metaphor for a critique-in-the-creating.

This study aims to delineate the discourse of the canonical issue of the defectus natalium, the defect of birth, ascribed to medieval Catholic clergy of illegitimate birth, which prevented ordination to the Holy Orders or advancement to higher monastic offices. Using papal dispensations directed to Swedish clerics, monks and nuns during the period 1255-1372, the essay attempts to outline the official attitude of the papal authority towards illegitimate birth among its servants and how such a defect could be compensated by the individual. The study argues that various circumstances and personal qualities could be addressed to support the case of the supplicant. The main themes include an observance of clerical celibacy, scholarly learning, pilgrimage permeated by hardship, intervention of a third party, loyalty to the Church and overall practical circumstances that demanded a dispensation for the benefit of the ecclesiastical institutions. Drawing some inspiration from Michel Foucault?s conception of discourse, the essay argues that a polarizing discourse had by the 13th century been formed within the Catholic Church, which focused on a dichotomy of the legitimate and illegitimate cleric.

Today we live in an interconnected world. Through globalization and the development of information technology one can say that, today everyone is our neighbour. The result of our actions can easily spread and affect people on the other side of the world within seconds.Meanwhile, Third World countries are developing into stable economies and Western European corporations are expanding like never before and setting up their organizations in these new markets.This of course is not unproblematic, it creates new challenges for international organizations especially when it comes to communication. An example of that same problematic communication presented itself for Arla Foods in what came to be called the Cartoon Crisis.In late September of 2005 a number of cartoons depicting the holy prophet Muhammed were published in a Danish newspaper. This event sparked scores of protest ranging from Morocco to the Philippines.

The aim of this study is to make a comparative study between the grievances during the Dacke Warand the German Peasant´s War. These two conflicts may have occurred separately, regarding bothgeographical and chronological distances but also share common issues for this comparative study.Less than two decades separates these two conflicts and they were all by their own serious insurrectionsduring their time. While the German Peasant´s War was the greatest uprising in Europe up tothe French Revolution, the Dacke War was the biggest Peasant Rebellion in Scandinavian history.While the German Peasant War has been studied and researched by historians for a relative longtime, the Dacke War has been neglected in research history. If it were not for the Swedish professorLars-Olof Larsson?s studies during foremost in the 1960s, the Dacke War would have been a historicallyuncharted territory of research indeed.

The aim of this study is to make a comparative study between the grievances during the Dacke Warand the German Peasant´s War. These two conflicts may have occurred separately, regarding bothgeographical and chronological distances but also share common issues for this comparative study.Less than two decades separates these two conflicts and they were all by their own serious insurrectionsduring their time. While the German Peasant´s War was the greatest uprising in Europe up tothe French Revolution, the Dacke War was the biggest Peasant Rebellion in Scandinavian history.While the German Peasant War has been studied and researched by historians for a relative longtime, the Dacke War has been neglected in research history. If it were not for the Swedish professorLars-Olof Larsson?s studies during foremost in the 1960s, the Dacke War would have been a historicallyuncharted territory of research indeed.

Public confession and declaration of grace in the mass, following the book of worship of the Church of Sweden, is considered by many to be problematic, and hence the topic of frequent discussion. This is apparent already in the proposal for the existing book of worship, as well as in those official proposals that have been presented in recent years for a revised order of worship. This paper provides a summary account of the historical development of the public confession (and its attendant parts) from the early church into recent times, with a focus on the Church of Sweden, focusing on church regulation and official books of worship. This account shows that a public confession existed in early Christian celebration of service/mass, and that public confession and declaration of grace as we know it today (in the Church of Sweden) has developed from the practice of private confession with a relationship to Holy Communion. In Sweden, the ambitions of the Lutheran program of reformation with respect to public confession did not materialize fully.

Followers of three world religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are waiting for the Messiah. Muslims are even waiting for aspiritual leader al-Mahdi. Two different persons claimed the title of al-Mahdi, at the end of the nineteenth century. Theyappeared almost at the same time, at the totally different places of the earth, with a completely different message and underthe rule of the British colonial power. The aim of the study is to compare the both religious figures, Mirza Ghulam Ahmadfrom India and Muhammad Ahmad from Sudan regarding their different messages, to illustrate the social, political andreligious factors that lead to the entirely different profile and image of these two men and how their organizations havedeveloped after their death up till today.