The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine values expressed towards the Swedish literary award Augustpriset in a selection of articles from Swedish newspapers published between the years 2000-2007. The questions posed in the study are: What types of values concerning Augustpriset are expressed in a selection of cultural journalistic articles? How is the relationship between intellectual culture and commercial culture reflected in the articles? How are positive and negative standpoints justified? How can Augustpriset and the journalists be understood as parts of intraconversion on the literary field? The study?s qualitative textual analysis is theoretically based on Pierre Bourdieu?s theory of the literary field. The method used for analysing the articles is idea analysis using dimensions constructed from Bourdieu?s description of two polarities, the intellectual and the commercial, of the literary field.

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.

English title: Is a literary canon necessary? A comparative study based on seven senior high school teachers´ different approaches towards the place of canon in the education of Swedish. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how seven senior high school teachers relate to a literary canon in Swedish while teaching literature in senior high school, identifying similarities and differences among the teachers? view and opinions about an outspoken formal literary canon and a silent, informal canon.The earlier research opens the door slightly to the American debate and gives insight about the complexity of the concept of canon. The study continues with exploring possible relations to postcolonial theory and didactics.    The study reveals that the majority of the concerns against canon are that too much centrally governed education may decrease the motivation and commitment of the teacher. In addition, the dominant canon passivizes a certain variety of literature, thus various points of views. On the other hand, views on the equalizing effect of canon on the level of education and its benefits in increased knowledge of the history of the literature are salient. .

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate and describe the literary life of Madame de Staël, during the period of the French Revolution and the time shortly after. My intention is to do research on her impact and influence. I also want to examine her effect on Swedish literary society, with special references to Swedish authors. The method used is a qualitative one, where I have studied nonfiction and fiction connected with the field, for example Mme de Staëls own writings, which I make use of to illustrate the phenomena. During this period the society was dominated by patriarchical values and patterns of life.

This essay discusses the problem of literary history in the Swedish school system. The aim of the essay is to discuss whether the textbook, Den Levande litteraturen, in literary history for Swedish high school students measures up to the demands of the curriculum in terms of obtaining knowledge about international literature and the historical and cultural framework that surrounds it. The essay establishes a theoretical framework that is used to distinguish the discourse that permeates the textbook and how it affects the means of sustaining the curriculum and the problems it may create.The textbook is broken down chronologically and analyzed showing quotes that points towards national and orientalistic discourses which in turn are discussed put in relation to the curriculum and the effects that these discourses might have on education in Swedish and literary history.This is in turn problematized with the current theories regarding comparative literary history..

The aim of this two years master?s thesis in library and information science is to study how children and librarians recommend books through the website Barnens bibliotek. In the scope of this aim it also tries to answer the following questions: What qualities in books do children and librarians respectively emphasize when they write book recommendations? How do they formulate the recommendations? And finally, how do their respective recommendations differ?To examine these aspects a total of 50 book recommendations were chosen and analysed through an hermeneutic approach. Out of these 50, 30 were written by children and 20 were written by librarians.

In this essay I have described ecocriticism as a theory with several different subfields that are inspired by a cross-disciplinary approach, such as green culture studies, ecofeminism, and postcolonial ecocriticism. After a short summary of the background of ecocritical studies I analyze the various subfields, take a closer look at their contents and present various examples of ecocritical thinking. A presentation of the commonly used concepts within the discipline and some reflections on these is followed by my final discussion, where I state that even though ecocriticism is a relatively new theory and the concept doesn?t have a clear definition as yet, it is in my view a useful tool for analysis and can with time make valuable contributions to literary studies, not least by introducing a number of new perspectives..

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine how librarians work in a literary educational role with literary circles for adults and youth, in public libraries and at school. The study also examines whether participation in book discussion groups has any effect on participants and librarians regarding changes in reading habits and in personal development. Another aspect investigated was how participants experienced the atmosphere in the group. We have conducted qualitative interviews with five librarians who have lead different literary circles and with two participants from each literary circle. In all 13 interviews were conducted.

This essay is a study of explicit subjectivity and valuation in Swedish literary historiography from a power perspective. The methodology involves qualitative perusal of literary handbooks from 1915 to 1999. The author Fredrika Runeberg is taken as a window, in that I have examined if and how she is described in the selected handbooks. The main purpose has been to see if subjectivity in disparaging terms and condemnation of authorship have become more evident during the years under consideration. I have related the twelve selected handbooks to Hallberg's five methods for literary historiography.

The thesis of this essay is how literary texts are selected in the teaching of Swedish in upper secondary school, and how teachers reflect upon gender in these selections. To answer the thesis question three methods have been used. Firstly interviews were held with five teachers of Swedish, which have been the primary source for the essay. In addition to the interviews, I have examined two literary anthologies used as teaching aid in the teaching of Swedish and lastly I analyzed the literature and authors that the teachers explicitly express that they use in their tutoring. The secondary sources of this thesis contain research on selections of fictional texts, literary canon and students? re-production of gender.

This study has examined how teachers in Swedish upper secondary schools work to foster a critical perspective through the education in the subject of Swedish. The study is based on qualitative interviews conducted with three teachers, who have given their views on the role of source criticism and critical analysis of literature in the subject of Swedish. Furthermore, they have described how they incorporate these views into their own teaching.The study has shown that the teachers find that source criticism and literary analysis are interconnected, since both depend on a general critical approach, which they both help foster. The main question the study examined was how Swedish education could help foster a critical perspective. The interviewed teachers' ways of working point out a way: teacher C has integrated source criticism and referencing into most of their education, which makes them central to the education in Swedish.

This thesis presents a qualitative, comparative study of the violence in the adaptations of Hunger Games (Tony Ross, 2012) and Battle Royale (Kinji Fukusaku, 2000). By analyzing the function of violence in a single scene in each of the movies, and comparing it to the literary original, the study aims to explore if there are any differences in the representation of the violence in the two media. The study also briefly discusses whether the violence has any function in bringing the story forward in both the literary sources and in the films and what the motivation for the violence is. "The study also includes a brief analysis of the narratives in relation to the monomyth established by Jospeh Campbell. Specifically, I discuss the similarities between Hunger Games and Battle Royale, which are two stories that have been created in two different cultural traditions, and whether or not we can say that the stories derive from this monomyth." The result concludes that the monomyth can be found in both stories, but that the scenes which is analyzed has to be put into the context and furhter story of the film to be of any relvance to the theory.

This thesis endavours to examine whether differences between original and translation in literary translation are systematic and predictable by studying a Swedish detective novel and its Japanese translation. The domain of the novel chosen for analysis is the reported speech (i.e. dialog).Translation Studies suggests that knowledge of the literary norms of the Target Language of the translation and of the status of translations in the Target Language's literary system, enables one to predict if and what differences between original and translation will appear.A survey of the scholarly literature concerning literary norms in the Japanese system and the status of translation within said system was performed and the following hypotheses were postulated: 1. Given sufficient knowledge of the norms of the Target Language's literary system and the status of translations within said system, the nature of differences between original and translation can be predicted. 2.

The subject of this master thesis is to identify discourses regarding children?s literature in one of Sweden?s largest library magazines, Biblioteksbladet. The subject is furthermore to look at how the child is portrayed within these discourses and if the discourses change over time. The theoretical and methodological background is Norman Fairclough´s critical discourse analysis (CDA). A selection of 62 texts, published in Biblioteksbladet between the years of 1945-2009, was analyzed.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1813, was established in different literary orbits after the transformation to the television medium in 1995. I also want to find out what this adaptation meant for the popularity of Jane Austen, the circulation of her works and the rebirth of her authorship. It has furthermore been of interest to discuss the reasons why Jane Austen and her works became so popular. Questions posed in the study are: What has the 1995 production of Pride and Prejudice meant for the spreading of Jane Austens literary work and for the rebirth of her authorship? How has Pride and Prejudice moved between the literary orbits after it became a television-serial in 1995? Why did the circulation get the character it got in the 1990s? In order to find feasible answers to these questions I have used Hans Hertels model of the five literary orbits as theoretical starting point.