The essay deals with the idea of melancholia as an exclusively male feeling associated with geniality and eminence, as it is shown in the letters of three Romantic men. These letters were written by the philosopher Benjamin Höijer, the poet P.D.A Atterbom, and the musician Adolf Fredrik Lindblad to their female friends Henriette von Rosenstein, Euphrosyne, and Malla Silfverstolpe. Romantic masculinity is a neglected topic that is in need of further research. An essential characteristic of Romanticism is the appreciation of feeling. According to the traditional dualistic gender division though, women represented sensibility, while men instead were associated with reason.

The aim of this study was to examine if biological early maturing girls and girls that percieved that boys treated them as older than they actually where drank more alcohol, were more delinquent, had more Romantic relationships and sexual intercourse. Our data was collected from seven schools in Sweden. Significant relationships where found between early maturation and all four dependent variables. Significant relationships could also bee seen between how girls perceived that boys treated them and alcohol use, Romantic relationships and sexual intercourse. For two of our dependent measures we found week interaction effects, for girls biological maturation and there perception of how boys treated them according to there age.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze DVD covers for the genre Romantic comedy from the 2000s as a way to obtain patterns and codes provided by the genre. The theoretical framework consists of previous research that analyzed various posters, theories about semiotics, genre, and visual rhetoric.  These theories will help answer the main question and help with the analysis.The objects for observation are ten DVD covers from the genre Romantic comedy and a qualitative content analysis is used for this thesis. The movies are from the US and they are all high in Box Office. Box Office stands for how many tickets were sold and how much money a film has earned.

In this essay, I make a queer feminist analysis of four novels written by the Swedish author Sigge Stark. The novels are: Uggleboet, Manhatareklubben, Cirkus Demonio och Baskerflickan. Using Judith Butler's theories I examine the relations between sex/gender and sexuality in the four books and show how the construction of gender is performed and the heterosexual normativity is jeopardized. I also examine whether, and if so how, Sigge Stark uses the Romantic and the gothic genres to include transcending gender identities and sexualities in her work. The essay also includes a contextualisation of her prerequisities as an author and the necessity in performing a critical analysis of mass produced Romantic literature..

This essay is about how the aesir are used as an ideal image of the original Nordic aspects and as a symbol of heroism and pure strength. The main subject of this essay is to look at how this ideal of masculinity is represented in the art produced during the era of Romantic nationalism. The choice of focusing on this era in particular is made due to the fact that it was during this time that the modern images of the aesir and the Vikings were made. The purpose of this study is to examine how the ideal of masculinity reflects upon the artistic interpretations of the Norse mythology in a selected group of art work produced during the 1800?s.

ENGLISH SUMMARYTitle:The ambiguous scorePresenting Romantic piano pieces from simplified scoresIn this essay, I have investigated if different types of simplified scores ? scores whose musical structure are clearer compared to the original ? can stimulate a more artistic interpretation as well as a more linear understanding of the piece. My analysis also investigates what kind of impact these kinds of scores have on memorization.The music is derived from the Romantic piano repertoire and the subjects are six university-level music students. Half of them were placed in a reference group, and only received the original scores, while the others also received the altered versions. I used both reduced scores where notes were removed in order to emphasize the linear structure and scores where the pitch notation was the same as in the original , but the notes were grouped differently.The result indicates that those having access to multiple versions had a positive impact on the musical interpretation.

This thesis consists of a discourse and queer theoretical text and image analysis of school books in English used in the Swedish upper secondary school.  The whole content of two school books have been analysed from a norm critical perspective but one chapter in each of them has been analysed more thoroughly than the rest. These two chapters form the major part of the analysis.The thesis? problem formulation and objective derive from a personal experience of being a teacher student and part time teacher in Swedish schools. This experience shows the prevalence of a strong heteronormativity both in the schools? every day life and in the used school books.

This Masters thesis aims to study the reading habits of readers of Romantic fiction, especially focusing on gender issues. The main areas studied are the function of reading romances compared with reading other genres, and how the readers value Romantic and general literature. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with seven readers of romances, five women and two men. The theoretical background is based on reader response theory and gender theory. Before I started interview the readers I asked them to read two romances; Sidney Sheldons - The best Laid Plans, and Rosamunde Pilchers - The End of Summer, which we later discussed during the interviews.

This study focuses on Romantic friendship between women in three Swedish novels written between 1836 and 1857: Sophie von Knorring?s (1797?1848) Illusionerna (1836), Fredrika Bremer?s (1801?1865) En dagbok (1843) and Marie Sophie Schwartz? (1819?1894) En fåfäng mans hustru (1857). Also, the connection between women and passion as well as the interesting occurrence of step- and foster mothers is looked upon in the study.The Romantic friendship is freely expressed in these novels; love between women is neither presented as unnatural or unchaste. It both challenges the heterosexual matrix? claim on intelligibility and its rules for how desire should be expressed.

My project is based on a journey to India in thewinter of 2011-12. I knew that I wanted to dosome sort of travelouge based on my photos fromthe trip. I also knew I wanted to do some sort ofbook. How this, the story of my travels in India,would be told and what the theme was going to be,that was more elusive.I started out with the notion of a retelling of theold epic Ramayana and combining this with mytravels and the critical perspective of Edward W.Saids Orientalism. This proved to be an impossibleequation and I also had to rework my plan to fitthe tight timeframe I had.

The last years trends of increasing globalisation and the decreasing importance of the nationstate has led to rising flows of travellers and information throughout the globe. This has affected the competition between destinations; they are now competing in a global market. The importance of placemarketing and representing a place identity, is today essential to attract customers from around the world. The purpose of this essay was to examine how Iceland as a place is represented through the photographs in horse tourism. The research questions asked were: How is the Icelandic landscape represented in photographs? How is people and horses represented in the landscape? And how can the horse be analysed as a part of the Icelandic landscape? The method used for research was image-analysis, a qualitative approach where horse tourism-websites and photographs on these websites were strategically selected.

The aim of this study was to investigate how individuals perceive the process of sexual/Romantic attraction. A phenomenological approach was used, where the participants were asked to reflect as freely as possible upon a question formulated by the authors. 13 persons were selected through purposive sampling, eight men and five women, all between 20 and 30 years old were interviewed but only 8 were analyzed through phenomenological based software MCA-Minerva. The results showed that all participants talked about three steps; eye contact, closing the distance and conversation. In the latter step they differed regarding actions taken to attract.

Swedish films are often based on the genres romance and comedy. The films dealing with relations and comedy can almost be seen as a genre of its own. The composition of the complex relation between the audience and the genre is the primary research focus of this thesis. With the teoretical ground in intertextuality, sociology and romances the thesis examines three relations in three different films. The films english titles are, Adam & Eva, Making Babies, and Double Shift.

Several theoretical models of change exist concerning attachment, but an integrated view and knowledge of the role separate factors of change play for the individual is lacking. This phenomenon is hereby studied by semi-structured interviews of 20 persons. Change and factors of change are examined statistically with affectregulation as measure of attachment. The results show that these individuals´ changes are small and mostly towards secure attachment. Metacognition is related to greater change towards secure attachment.

Det här arbetet presenterar César Francks orgelverk Grande Pièce Symphonique på ett konkret och relevant sätt för en utövande musiker såväl som en aktiv åhörare. Den största delen av arbetet utgör min tematiska analys vilken är till stor hjälp vid förståelsen av styckets innehåll och kvalitéer. Arbetet tar också upp relevant information om kompositören, den franske orgelbyggaren Aristide Cavaillé-Coll och instrumentet i St. Clotilde för att förstå det klangliga material som stod till tjänst för kompositören. Slutligen har jag lagt konstnären, kompositören, instrumentet och den tidens musikaliska praxis till grund för min interpretation av César Francks orgelverk Grande Pièce Symphonique..