The aim of this study is to study the construction of literary values. I have been looking at how literature awarded with sponsored literary prizes has been reviewed in four major English and American newspapers. I have been studying the reception of literature by Ian McEwan, Hilary Mantel, Colm Tóibín and Zadie Smith between 2000 and 2012. The prizes in focus are the Man Booker Prize, the Orange prize for fiction and the Costa Awards. There seems to be an increasing number of articles related to each author after they have been awarded a prize, however with little change in the content of the reviews.

The purpose of this text is to show how the mother motif is portrayed in four selected novels by Alfred Kämpe, but the thesis also serves the purpose of emphasizing the fact that the mother motif can be seen interacting with the class motif.This text will account for a new insight into the motifs in Alfred Kämpe?s Trälar. Known as one of the first authors to write in the genre of working-class literature in Sweden Kämpe?s texts provide motifs common for this genre such as class, identity and solidarity. As this thesis shows there is yet another motif that should be included among these typical Swedish working class literature motifs: the mother motive.

The aim of this essay is to see how various texts, both Swedish and foreign, have described the former Swedish colony of St. Bartholomew. The focus has been on the slaves on the colony, and here how they were treated and how the analyzed authors portray the slaves lives.The literature has been divided up into two different categories, based on when they were published. The distinction has been made by dividing them up into a contemporary cluster, that were published before the 1900?s, as opposed to the more recent literature, from after the 1900?s.

During the 21st century, Society has again begun to focus its attention on working class literature and on issues related to social class. In the media contemporary working class literature is often mentioned as a distinct phenomenon. I my view, the meaning of this phenomenon have not been adequately formulated. The aim of this Master?s Thesis is to reconstruct, using a discourse oriented text analysis, a picture of how the contemporary working class literature is described in today?s society.

Thavenius (2009:23-122) and Dahl (1999:49-82) explains that literary education in school has gone from, in the 1800s, barely existed on receiving the fairly central location it has today. Fredriksson (2010:2-3) points out that there are several threats to the ancient writers and writings in danger of being forgotten. The purpose with this essay was to examine how to work with literary history in school, and whether and how to work with regional literature history. To fulfill the purpose of this paper three high school teacher in Swedish were interviewed.The survey shows that respondents working in various ways with the history of literature, either in the eras, themes or projects. The perception of what literature and the authors to be affected varies between respondents, particularly the perception of the work about authors from Värmland.

The purpose of this study is to examine how teachers and pupils experience the use of fictional literature as a tool for language development in the teaching of English as a foreign language. Through surveys and interviews and with Vygotsky?s theory on development in a social environment as a theoretical base, I examine which methods are used to promote language development and also which functions pupils and teachers consider fictional literature to have in the teaching of English. Results show that teachers consider fiction to be among the top methods to get pupils to learn English. Teachers and pupils both favour the use of fun and stimulating reading activities as well as group activities where learning is social to go along with the reading of fiction.

This study explores the selection processes regarding fictional literature in English as asecond language education. The aim is to illustrate the relationship between the knowledgeteachers seek to pass on to their students and how the governing documents and the Westernliterary canon affect which literature that is chosen. The study uses qualitative interviews withsix teachers from different gymnasial schools in Northern Sweden. The results show thatteachers use literature as a tool for teaching grammar, lexicon, language structure and storytellingskills. In the more advanced English courses, the teachers prefer to exert more controlover which literature is read, mainly due to the fact that the governing documents specificallyrequire a presence of older, culturally established works.

In this exam paper, a text analysis has been conducted in the context of ethnicity, examining the most popular library books borrowed by children between the ages of 9-12 years old. The bookshave been selected at two different libraries, located in two different socioeconomic areas. The aim is to examine whether ethnicity plays a role in the choice and content of literature in the two areas. The analysis takes into account class, sex and gender, all of which combine in the context of ethnicity. The framework within which I have based my questions are; In the context of ethnicity, is there a difference in the content of the most borrowed children's books at the two libraries located in areas of diverse socioeconomic background, is the choice of literature affected by the area in which library visitors live and is the content of the most borrowed books specific to what children is each particular area can identify with ? Having analysed the most popular books at both libraries, it has been concluded that there are differences in the two areas when it comes to children's choice of literature.

In this essay I examine how identity is created in William S. Burroughs two early novels Junky andQueer. The theoretic starting points are Lacans psychoanlytic concepts ?ideal ego?, ?egoideal? and the ?superego? and also queertheory as presented by Tiina Rosenberg in her book Queerfeministisk agenda.The examination contains an analysis of how Burroughs creates identity in both Junky and Queer with main focus on the second novel. I look at how the desire in the maincharacter Lee is described and what the desire is aimed at.

This paper conducts a qualitative examination based on interviews with six childrens librarians. The purpose is to put a perspective on the librarians competence and focal knowledge within the area of reading promotion and reading stimulation aimed for children, and also to examine how this competence and knowledge is constructed. The work is based on the following questions: How do childrens librarians experience reading promotion and reading stimulation within their profession? Which competence and what knowledge do childrens librarians experience as most important in order to make their work with reading promotion and reading stimulation function? What can be concluded regarding the construction of their competence and knowledge? The analysis is carried out from theories about competence, tacit knowledge and reading promotion. Following primary conclusions are drawn from the study: The professional role is mainly experienced as promoting reading as pleasure, but also as an important factor for childrens language development.

The study is based on three Swedish novels published in 1945,1956 and 1964, and three Swedish novels published in 1998, 2008and 2009. The aim has been to investigate how librarians are portrayed in Swedish literature, as well as a comparison between the older and the newer literature. What librarian images are portrayed in the analyzed literature? Is the portrayal mostly positive, negative or neutral? Are there any clear differences in how librarians portrayed in newer and older Swedish fiction? If so, what are they? The method used has been qualitative content analysis where relevant paragraphs have been coded and divided them into categories of appearance, personality, and professional identity. The conclusion is that the librarian is often portrayed as an intellectual and somewhat high-strung bibliophile.

This text aims to examine how teaching in literature can contribute to the schools work with creating an antidiscriminating environment. When it comes to the Swedish schools antidiscrimination plans, this essay focuses especially on those sections that concerns pupils and student right to their own gender identity and expression.The main theories in this examination are Judith Butler?s theory on gender and performativity, queer theory defined by Fanny Ambjörnsson and theories concerning adolescent psychology with focus on the adolescent identity and it?s forming. Together with Mikhail Bakhtin?s carnival theory the text examines how Jessica Schiefauer?s novel Pojkarna (The Boys; 2012) describes a young adolescent girl?s journey to finding and forming her own gender and sexual identity.

This Master's thesis discusses the freedom of speech, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas in the context of public libraries in Sweden. The scope of this thesis is to examine the acquisition and maintenance of the literature about the killing of Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme 1986. This literature will serve as an instrument to measure the extent to which Swedish public libraries adhere to the rules set by the Swedish parliament, United Nations' universal declaration of human rights article 19, UNESCO's public library manifesto and the principles of the Federation of Library Associations and Institutions..

 This bachelor?s thesis purpose is to examine how library staff experiences the meeting with non-Swedish speaking users of public libraries, and how they solve different situations. Today there is not much research on this subject but we find these questions important to study because we think it is good to be aware of the situations that can arise and discuss how to solve any problems. To have a basis for this qualitative study we conducted group interviews with library staff, where they are asked about their experiences with non-Swedish speaking users. In the analysis the results of the interviews are compared to previous research and related to communication theory, which is the theoretical framework for this study.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate mindfulness as a New Age phenomenon in the modern western society. Since a religious phenomenon does not exist in a vacuum, but is dependent on its historical and cultural context, my aim is to give a broad depiction of mindfulness and New Age in its wider context, the historical background and the societal implications of common values, themes and concepts that are frequent in the literature, how mindfulness is presented by the authors of popular literature and also how it is presented in science. In order to bring forward a deeper understanding of New Age and mindfulness? role in the modern western society, my intention is to see how the authors of mindfulness claim validity of their doctrines in the discourse. Mindfulness attracts a wide range of perpetrators and is used in many areas in the society today.