In printed text, sound is a somewhat forgotten aspect. The recitation of text is vital in areas like poetry and oratory, but still has no distinct technique of being communicated. Emphasis of a word might be expressed through italics, but no canonic character set or system for vocal delivery of texts exists. With this essay we are creating a foundation for a development of such a character set or system. By studying existing visualisations of sound and comparing these with semiotic and perception-based theories we obtain useful insights for a prospective system for visualisations of vocal sounds.We conclude that the aspects of sound one wants to visualise must be carefully defined since the viewer cannot process infinite amounts of information.

With a base in Ian Manners? theory about Normative Power Europe ? that the European Union is to be seen as a normative power instead of a civilian or military ? this paper seeks to contribute to the discussion about identity by examine the normative elements of the union?s policies towards Russia between 1997 and 2013. Which norms are most important and how does the diffusion look? The findings show that democracy, rule of law and respect of human rights are among the most diffused norms, and this is more than often done by using the Russian interest in economic progress. Over time the European Union has taken on a more critical approach against Russia, while still appreciating their prosperous relation when it comes to trade and energy.

Andrej Belyjs bok Petersburg är en av de viktigaste romanerna från den symbolistiska perioden i rysk litteratur. I denna uppsats utreds hur gränser behandlas i romanen. Även om romanen till en början tycks dra upp klara gränser, till exempel mellan öst och väst, så löses dessa upp och en osäkerhet skapas hos läsaren. Gränserna som undersöks i uppsatsen omfattar såväl gränser i själva berättandet (till exempel mellan berättare och karaktärer och mellan nutid och dåtid) som gränser i berättelsen; det senare indelat i rumsliga gränser och gränser för det levande. Slutsatsen blir att Belyj medvetet löser upp gränserna i romanen på flera plan..

This thesis analyzes contemporary Swedish discourse on Russia, i.e. the ways Russia and Russians are perceived in Sweden today. After a summary of historical Western and Swedish perceptions of Russia, and a discussion about the treatment of these tensions within modern research, contemporary Swedish discourse is reconstructed based upon analytical articles in three major newspapers during the period 1992-2007. It is argued that the prevailing image of Russia contains the reproduction of old stereotypes and prejudices. The five major representations of Russia in contemporary Swedish discourse are: non-Western, unreliable, authoritarian, threatening and eternal, with the last one being a meta-representation functioning both as a representation of its own and a mechanism for the reification of the others.

Humanitarian intervention is a concept that generates several problems in our time. The idea of humanitarian intervention concerns the modern norms of sovereignty and noninterventional principals. It also concerns the conventional norm, which declares that states are not allowed to interfere in other states? internal affairs. The use of military force to implement humanitarian intervention is restricted according to international law.

The transition from a planned economy to a market economy was initiated in Russia in the beginning of the 90s. The three components: privatization, liberalization and stabilization constitute the trinity of the transition theory. This thesis has its focus on the privatization, that also can be referred to as a piratization of Russia. The purpose of the thesis is to explain what went wrong with the privatization, and also why it went wrong. A few men, called oligarchs, got their hands on great wealth which has lead to an abuse of power.

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.

The purpose of this study is to show what melancholy and irony in my poems express and what techniques that are used to accomplish these effects. Many theorists, among them Sigmund Freud and Julia Kristeva, characterize melancholy as an experience of loss, and therefore one of my questions is what kind of losses appear in my poetry. In search for an answer I analyze the texts from both a psychoanalytic and a sociological point of view. In the latter perspective I discuss the postmodern society using concepts from contemporary thinkers like Zygmunt Bauman, Fredric Jameson and Jean Baudrillard. Finally, I also examine if melancholy has an influence on the form of the poems.

The similarity between the Russian and the Indian, in a Cold War context, may be ambiguous considering the ethnic-social variables and the period in time from where the Indians relate. However, by analyzing these, as well as other, characters in the exhibition of movies, we could learn something about the ideology of the time from which the movies derive.This study examines ideology and movies in the Cold War era and concludes that the Indian, for example, may be representing the values of the common public enemy, originating from the Cold War ideology. The movies examined, regardless of influence of distinct Cold War themes or lack of such themes, carry attributes that give evidence of typical Cold War ideology. The fear of communism and common enemies connected to a Cold War context, the thought of America as the land of the free ? with the horizon in the ending of the movies as metaphoric to freedom ? and the moral rhetoric that connects to the American thought of a duty as a global savior, are all signs of the Cold War ideology.Even though the messages are somewhat clearer and more distinct in the movies with Cold War motifs, the fact that ideology is projected through other movies as well should be considered essential for the continuing study of movies as cultural artefacts..

Gothic literature has a tradition of dealing with dark subjects, themes and motifs, as well as depicting fear in different shapes and forms. Dani Cavallaro describes dark fiction in terms of the "aesthetic of the unwelcome". The philosopher Edmund Burke separates the beautiful from the sublime and writes that everything that is capable of producing a terror of pain and death is a source of the sublime. In her essay "On the Supernatural in Poetry", Ann Radcliffe draws a clear line between the concepts of terror and horror and distinguished them as fundamentally different. In this essay, I define the terms horror and terror by following up the research surrounding Radcliffes statement.

The Baltic Sea is threatened by eutrophication that largely is due to nutrient leaching from farmland within the catchment area. To solve this problem the surrounding countries cooperate within various configurations such as HELCOM and the EU-financed project Baltic Compass. Poor manure management in Russia has been discussed frequently the last couple of years. A literature review of different types of reports and legal acts is the core of this degree project which has been performed in connection to two ongoing research projects financed by EU (Baltic Compass) and SIDA. It is supplemented with interviews with Swedish agricultural consultants and travel reports from two occasions when I had the opportunity to discuss with Russians active within the agricultural sector. Different hypotheses were investigated and discussed. The environmental debate in Russia is quiet and there is a widespread approach that economic profit always trumps environmental concern ? a Soviet heritage that influence the Russian agriculture considerably. The Russian legal acts on stable manure management focus mainly on sanitary questions and only secondary on nutrient leaching.

The names of railway stations and halts along the earliest railway lines on Lithuanian territory have been studied, i.e. along those railway lines built between 1861 and 1873. Especially, attention has been drawn to names that are not obvious regarding the geographical location of the station or halt. Some 50 percent of the names are showing some kind of irregularity in this respect. Most common (about 30 examples) are stations or halts that are serving a population centre situated at some distance from the station, but still bearing the name of that population centre.

This essay constitutes a qualitative case study about democratization theory and the middle class in Russia. This is a very important case to study, especially because of the geographic position of the country as well as the economic importance Russia has as a part of the G8. In the essay the author seeks to answer the question whether the lack of a significant middle class in Russia can be a part of the explanation to the absence of a well functioning democracy in the country. Several democratization theories are presented. The most important being Ruth Berins Collier's theories about ins and outs plus the elite- or working class as the initiator of democratization processes.

This Masters thesis is a historiographic study, which aim is to investigate how the Brezhnev administration 1964-82 describes the events taking place during the soviet cultural struggle 1917-32. The investigation is limited to how some of the literary groups, organisations and currents as well as a small number of Russian writers are viewed by the administration. The third and last edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, which is considered as equivalent with the soviet official view, is used as source. The analysis made in this thesis is divided in two parts; the text analysis of the writers biographies is compared with the result of a discourse analysis, whose target is some of the literary groups, organisations and currents during the topical period. The discourse analysis is a pre-analysis, but its conclusions also have a value in itself.

The topic of this essay is the strategic importance of the Golan Heights during the period 1967-1973, specifically targeting the following questions;-          Why were the heights strategically important?-          What are the gains of either of the states in controlling the Golan Heights?A theoretical framework based on Jerker Widén´s and Jan Ångström´s Militärteorins grunder (The fundamentals in Military Theory) and its chapter regarding the strategic context will be used as an analytical framework.The framework has been applied on the specific conditions of the Golan Heights during a given and limited period of time; stretching from 1967 to 1973, however, the study will not deal with the war of attrition in 1970 as the impact on the Golan Heights and the surrounding geographical strategically important area was limited if at all. The two wars waged during this particular time are used in an attempt to give a somewhat objective picture of the strategic importance of the area.The conclusions are that the importance of the Golan heights during the selected period was significant as the Golan Heights provided a ?strategic lock? both ways and provides a favourable area to deploy artillery, intelligence and surveillance sensors..