Despite the extensive research on slavery during the antebellum, few authors have investigated the connection between the Mississippi river and its importance and status as a symbol of freedom throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain. Therefore, this essay attempts to analyze just how much the river actually meant for Huck and Jim during their journey towards freedom. The methodology of this analysis is based on a qualitative content analysis where categories are created and put it in relation to the historical and political landscape the novel presents. By investigating how the river functioned as an optional escape route that would lead the slaves far away from the notoriously bad treatment on the cotton fields, as well as the dangerous riverside settings which involved several risks for both Huck and Jim, this essay concludes that the river does not only work as an escape route away from captivity and civilization, it also provided the characters with a comfortable and safe home which alone could symbolize liberty.

The article treats the place of the body in thecultural criticism of Viktor Rydberg, not only as a central theme but also as an image with the potential to figuratively describe societal and even cosmic relationships. Rydberg’s idealof the symmetrical and athletic body is seen inthe perspective of his dependence on German neo-humanism and the gymnastic movement.The ideal of bodily symmetry figures as an image of universal man who defies the division of labor, while the deformed body inversely figures as an image of the lack of wholeness in a stratified bourgeois society. This is further elucidated by an analysis of Rydberg’s view of Darwinism and his fear of degeneration .In the final section, special attention is given to Rydberg’s broodings on the “Future of theWhite Race”. In this text, the body is a figure of the collectivity (the body politic) and its diseases signify political and moral crisis, while the remedy for this state of affairs lies in recognizing the unity of the living, the deadand the unborn in the body of Christ.

This study looks at how “risky play” and children’s independence is portrayed in picture books aimed at children ages 3-6. The picture books are analyzed using narratological concepts, focusing on how power relations are portraited. Some of the key concepts dealt with in the analysis, in addition to risky play, are power, resistance and negotiation. Research shows that risky play in ECEC is important for children to develop not only physically, but also their cognitive development and ability to assess risks. Although it was concluded that risky play is portraited in different ways in the books analyzed, an overarching theme of the play portraited as joyful was identified. In some of the picture books analyzed, adults were absent throughout. When the adults were included in the stories, they generally had a negative view on the potential risk children face in risky play. By working pedagogically in ECEC with conversations and activities around literature that portrays risky play, representations could shift to better align with educational theory and children’s own experience. The conversations, with a focus on topics such as risky play, power and participation connected to the ECEC context, can enable adults and children to, through conversations, give the children the opportunity to influence their own situation in the ECEC settings.

Ursula K Le Guin wrote The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) because she wanted to explore the limitations of gender and sexuality in a way that reflected the ongoing epistemic changes in her society. She created the Gethenians, an ambisexual, androgynous species that live most of their life without an assigned sex, making their entire society lack the concept of gender. Le Guin writes in her essay “Is Gender Necessary? Redux” (1988) that she wanted to erase gender to find out what was left. This essay will examine how the themes of gender and sexuality are explored in the Left Hand of Darkness, questioning if gender was actually erased. It is Le Guin’s linguistic choices and assumption that androgyny is masculine that assigns male gender to the Gethenians, without them having a biological sex. This renders the female experience invisible, creating a severe imbalance between the male and female part of them. However, by using Genly Ai - one of the main narrators, a male character from Terra (Earth) - gender is still presented as something fluid and non-binary, even though the Gethenians are generally perceived as more masculine. Sexuality, on the other hand, is more fluid and open, presenting a completely different idea than the norm present in the world of the reader. On Gethen, sexuality is celebrated when it is controlled and separate from everyday life, contrary to the celebration of a constant, masculine and aggressive view on sex. In conclusion, The Left Hand of Darkness presents the reader with a safe and comfortable version of androgyny, ultimately leaving many readers wanting more from the thought experiment.

This essay focuses on exploring power structures within George Orwell's narratives 1984 andAnimal Farm, through the theoretical lens of Panopticism and the discourse of language andpower. By adding Steven Lukes' multidimensional view of power it digs deep into thecomplexity of power relations and further enriches our understanding of the subject. Whenreflecting on power as a phenomenon rooted in privileged access to social resources, theshaping of language use, and the exercise of power through language strategies Foucault'sPanopticism clarifies the layers of societal intricacies and offers a fresh perspective on thetimeless themes embedded in these literary works. 

This essay is working on exploring what it is that motivates the man and the boy to survive despite the harsh reality they live in. The purpose of the essay is to show four main factors for motivation: morality, religion, society and paternal love. The first factor is the fundamental inner voice of morality which tells them why they should do something. In order to be able to productively discuss the topic of moral motivation I will introduce W.D. Ross's theory of Pluralistic Deontology as a means to find a framework in which to discuss this aspect of the novel. The second factor discussed is religion, which somewhat functions in the same way as morality does but seems to be more of a driving force, primarily for the man. The third factor is society in the sense of how it motivates one to take certain actions. I will use Thomas Hobbes’s idea of the state of nature, but also make it clear how, specifically, a postapocalyptic scenario affects the protagonists. The fourth factor and also the overarching factor discussed is paternal love. This factor is inter-located throughout the whole essay. Probably the most significant phrase from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is “carrying the fire” (79). It is a central focal point in the man and the boy's overall interaction. The importance of the phrase cannot be stressed enough and does, without a doubt, carry a significant meaning for them both. However, we never really get an explanation to what the phrase really means, which inevitably invites the readers to draw their own conclusions as to what the phrase conveys. It remains ambiguous throughout the novel but in terms of motivation it has to do with surviving and/or the upholding of values remembered from the pre-apocalyptic society. As I address the phrase this meaning it also becomes possible to see that there are motivating factors for both the man and the boy that affect their morale to keep the fire going. This essay will investigate three possible motivating factors found in the novel, and, in addition to this, an overarching factor that can, arguably, function as connection between the other three factors.  

This essay focuses on the theme of the American Dream in relation to narcissism in Miller’s Death of a salesman. The purpose is to demonstrate that a close reading of the main protagonist, Willy Loman, suggests that his notion of success in relation to the American Dream can be regarded as narcissistic.  This essay will examine this by first observing how Willy´s notion of success is represented in the play, then look at how his understanding of it can be viewed from a narcissistic standpoint.  The results I have found in my analysis show that there is a connection between Willy’s understanding of success and his narcissistic behavior. He displays traits such as grandiosity, arrogance, need of specialness and denial of emotions. His relationship with other characters reveals his lack of empathy, manipulation and exploitation of others as well as his need of superiority and fear of inferiority.  The conclusion is that Willy and his notion of success could be considered as narcissistic.                 

The purpose of this essay is to present the reader an analysis of Harry Potter as high fantasy and how Rowling has expanded on high fantasy norms which can be seen as a contributing factor to why the saga became such a global phenomenon.  This essay will show the ways in which Harry Potter elaborates on the high-fantasy norms by analyzing its narrative elements (setting, narrative structure, characters, and language). The first part will be a brief introduction to high-fantasy and its norms while the second part will be an analysis of the novels in terms of these norms.

This essay examines the theme of conformity in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre. It highlights in particular the protagonist’s conflict with conformity as criticism of social inequality in terms of gender. The analysis builds on the patriarchal concept of the angel of the house, as described by Lois Tyson and Alastair Henry and Catharine Walker Bergström, which is a definition of the governing codes of behavior women of the nineteenth century were expected to follow within both the domestic and professional sphere. Specifically, these spheres are organized through significant Victorian institutions such as the household, the education and employment of women and the marriage. The behavior of Jane is discussed in relation to these institutions as a means to support the argument of the protagonist distancing herself from contemporary gender norms. The conclusion of the essay shows that Jane’s circumstances within these institutions leads to her deviation from behavioral norms as a deliberate action.

This essay reads and analyses the novel The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon through the lens of postcolonial theory. It examines the West Indian migrants who migrated to Britain in the 1950s, searching for a better life. They had been indoctrinated by the colonizers for decades of the prosperous life awaiting them in the Motherland. They arrived in Britain with high hopes and eager minds to find a possibility of abandoning the colonial oppression in exchange for alife in London. However, that did not become the reality for the migrants. The novel depicts the shattering of the sensation of self-worth and identity which they sacrificed in their attempts to adapt to and belong in English society. The migrants find themselves confused and ambivalentin this very harsh and cold British society. Further, this essay investigates the ways in whichmimicry and hybridity have been portrayed in the novel through analysing two of the main characters applying theories by Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Stuart Hall, and Edouard Glissant. 

This essay argues that The Awakening treats the 1890s “modern woman” that arose from feminist ideas and the women’s movement, challenging patriarchal society with an independent lifestyle. Following Ringe, this essay suggests that the novel has a purpose of showing the process and the development of the protagonist’s individual self. But rather than connect this theme to the transcendentalist notion of the self, as Ringe does, this essay looks at this theme in the light of the notion of the “modern woman”. By arguing that Edna develops into a modern woman during this process, the essay finds that she moves from the traditional position as a “patriarchal woman” towards the role of an “emancipated woman”. Further, the essay shows that Edna’s development and thereby her attempt to change her position fails as the process of self-discovery is conflicted, resulting in Edna’s suicide. Finally, by also arguing that the novel treats a woman’s self and the process of a development, the essay visualizes that the novel is built-up by seven steps that together constitute the process from “patriarchal woman” to “emancipated woman”. This process awakens a self-awareness and self-image within Edna that are strengthened with each of these step as she becomes a “modern woman”.

The present thesis investigates to what extent contemporary ELT textbooks include reading materials as well as what types of texts are being used and what reading strategies they seemingly promote. Additionally, the study analyzes whether there is a noticeable discrepancy in teaching materials designed for the vocational and university preparatory and considers whether the design of the current textbook is representative of the current view of reading as a teaching tool as reflected in official policy documents. Through the means of a content analysis of a total of six in use ELT textbooks, the study discovers that few ELT textbooks include a satisfactory amount of reading materials and that there is a significant discrepancy between teaching materials intended for the separate orientations of upper secondary school in Sweden. It is also discovered that the set of textbooks largely reflect the current view of language teaching. The study concludes that the current practice of language teaching is ill-suited to counter the development of declining reading literacy and suggests an alternative methodology in extensive reading. 

Artikeln diskuterar, med utgångspunkt i begreppet parrhesia, så som det beskrivs av Michel Foucault, sanningslidelsen hos Sven Delblanc och hos Voltaire. Ett säskilt fokus ligger på karaktären Rouet i Delblancs roman Speranza. Delblanc angav själv att denne var "kalkerad på Voltaire".

Genom hela sitt författarskap skildrar Sven Delblanc kärleken, medmänskligheten och kroppskontakten såsom livsviktiga, ja, såsom heliga existentiella värden som man inte får handskas slarvigt med. Delblancs romanvärld är mycket mörk. Mänsklig närhet framställs dock i romanvärlden som det blommande körsbärsträdet i den mörka skogen.

Det rådde under 1700-talet konsensus i västerlandet om att världsordningen är moralisk, så att det goda belönas och det onda straffas. Denna världsåskådning var den grund som kyrkan och samhället vilade på, och marken under 1700-talsmänniskornas fötter. Skulle man utmana och rucka på detta fundament skulle kaos hota att sippra in. Ändå gjorde Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht det i ett flertal dikter. Tidigare än någon annan i Sverige publicerade hon texter som ifrågasatte rådande doxa inom världsåskådningsdiskursen, och som utmanade det världsliga patriarkatet såväl som det himmelska. Med fokus på lidandets problem och det filosofiska teodicéproblemet visade hennes texter att föreställningen om en moralisk världsordning inte höll streck, och att en monistisk ontologi blir djupt problematisk, om man samtidigt vill hålla fast vid tron på en god Försyn. Hennes dikter argumenterar också med emfas för upplysning och emot dogmerna om att människan måste vänta tills hon når himlen med att få insikt i världsordningen. Nordenflycht är den första i vårt land som offentligt ger sig in i den världsbildsdiskussion som är centrum i upplysningsdiskursen och som i Europa drivs av skribenter som Bayle, Newton, Leibniz, King, Pope, von Haller, Voltaire och Hume.

Helene Blomqvist visar i denna bok hur Nordenflychts texter blir till blasfemiska mottexter mot det officiella ordet. De nyttjar grepp såsom ironi och parodi, bryter med genrekonventioner och introducerar nya textstrategier och kommunikationsmodeller, främmande för en klassicistisk estetik och ett retoriskt kommunikationssystem – subjektivism, intimitet, och inte minst emotionell laddning, av sorg och av indignation – och på detta vis kastar de skarpt kritiskt ljus över tidens brännande världsbildsfrågor. I den svenska sekulariseringsprocessen är Nordenflycht pionjären. Hennes dikter är de första litterära aktörerna i den myndiggörandeprocess som fört vårt land dit där det idag befinner sig.

This research aims to find out how a small sized school in western Sweden, where the experience regarding second language students is not very high, accept the challenge to find and use teaching methods adapted to the students. It will investigate what specific methods or theaching materials are used and why they have been chosen, all this with a focus on literacy learning.

The method applied is qualitive interviews. Four teachers have been interviewed from three different grades. In the result and discussion the empiricism according to the four issues about teaching materials and choice of methods is presented.

The results show that the teachers more or less use specific methods and materials. Among these are genre pedagogy and copying as methods for second language students learning swedish writing skills. The materials presented include something called ”ZickZack” and ” my words” and are used mainly during Swedish class.

Robin Hobb’s fantasy fiction has repeatedly been noted for its nuanced treatment of complex issues, such as colonialism (Young 2014), honour culture (Caroll 2007), queer identity (Prater 2016; Melville 2018), and sexual violence (Borowska-Szerszun 2019). In my paper, I will use concepts from social psychology to analyse Hobb’s short story “Words Like Coins” (2009), in which Hobb makes use of fairy lore to probe the workings of xenophobia.

             “Words Like Coins” relates the encounter of two young women with a tribe of fairy beings known as pecksies, an encounter which is fraught with prejudice, and which very nearly ends in disaster for all. By providing a detailed account of the ways in which the pecksies are dehumanized by the human protagonist and her friend, Hobb’s story lays bare the mechanisms through which acts such as lynching and genocide are made possible, furthermore dismantling the conventional fantasy dichotomy between Good and Evil by depicting evil acts as caused by fear rather than malice.

            Moreover, as my paper will show, the narrative is constructed in such a way as to invite the reader to be complicit in considering these heinous acts. Through narrative devices such as limited point of view, the use of stylistic features borrowed from horror writing, and oblique allusions to fairy folklore, the reader is made to share the protagonist’s uncertainty and fear until the very end of the story. By thus making the reader complicit, Hobb’s story not only tells of, but demonstrates, the mechanisms through which “good” people can be induced to consider atrocities.

In an article entitled “Where Have All the Fairies Gone?” (1997) Gwyneth Evans delineates two trends in modern depictions of fairies: the “neo-Victorian” fairy and the “ecological” fairy. The ecological fairy, which is the type discussed here, denotes a class of “supernatural beings who are associated with the natural environment of a particular place, and concerned with its preservation," and Evans’ examples include Tolkien’s ents as well as the tiny flower fairies of the children’s movie Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest. Apparently, she concludes, the fairies have “[g]one to Greenpeace, every one."

            In my paper, I will use Evans’ concept of the ecological fairy as a departure point for an ecocritical interrogation of Emma Bull’s urban fantasy classic War for the Oaks. “The link between the fairies and one beloved place,” Evans writes, “is an essential element in the tales of what I have termed ecological fairies." The fairies in War for the Oaks are certainly closely tied to “one beloved place”, the preservation of which is their ultimate goal—but the place which they inhabit and defend is not a pristine forest, a rugged hill or a blooming meadow, but the modern city of Minneapolis. Nevertheless, like Evans’ ecological fairies, Bull’s fairies, too, are closely associated with “natural” features. Cities, Stefan Ekman (2013) argues, are “among the most interesting, and certainly the most distinct, interfaces between nature and culture”; and Leo Mellor (2014) points out that “wilderness can be found in the overlooked cracks in city-life." In War for the Oaks, Bull uses her fairies to call attention to the presence of the natural within the urban, designating as their dominion “every natural thing in this place." Embracing a broad definition of nature—the natural/magical sites of the novel include a naturally occurring waterfall as well as a park greenhouse, and even a modernist fountain—War for the Oaks moreover denies any rigid division between culture and nature. Instead, it presents a portrait of Minneapolis, infused with nature and magic, in which the modern city almost becomes a living organism in itself.

Through a power analysis, this paper examines how the athletic quality of the ice hockey players versus their socio-economic conditions is made in Fredrik Backman's novel Björnstad. Based on Michel Foucault's theory of dynamic strength, an analysis is made of how power relationships occur between players of different sports quality and socioeconomic background. The analysis begins with a analysis of the rape in the story and then proceeds with a discussion about the different means used in the text to produce the players' quality and socioeconomic backgrounds. By then analyzing different sections of the story, I discuss how the dynamic power relationships occur between selected players and other characters associated with the ice hockey club. In the context of power relations, master suppression techniques are discussed that the characters use.

The aim with this essay is to cast a light upon the brainwashing carried out by the totalitarian Party in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, and induce a deeper understanding of its persuasive effect on Winston Smith, the main character. Winston passionately hates the Party and its leader Big Brother who govern the country Oceania in which he lives. However, after having undergone brainwashing that also includes torture, Winston surrenders to the ideology of the Party and at the end of the novel his hatred towards Big Brother has turned to love. In order to understand Winton’s conversion I carry out a close reading of the novel and apply the three rhetorical means of persuasion, ethos, logos and pathos, to the novel and demonstrate when and how these appeals are used on Winston. Against this rhetorical background the analysis shows that the Party’s usage of rhetorical appeals can explain why the brainwashing works successfully in its persuasive aim. This result also demonstrates that these three appeals play a prominent role over a course of several years in the Party’s indoctrination of Winston. Additionally, the presence of rhetoric proves that there is more than Winston being tortured to his conversion. Thus, Winston is not only tortured into repeating the principles of the party, he is also persuaded into actually believing in them and loving Big Brother by the Party’s strategic appeals to ethos, logos and pathos.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is greatly diverse in species, races, and ethnicities which is a fact that over the decades has engendered great scholarly discussions about hidden racism in the literary work. Therefore, an analysis of intercultural matters and encounters realized throughout the story is relevant for detecting a possible racist ideology. By applying the postcolonial concept “Othering,” which is an act of differentiation, this essay analyzes racist instances in the story, and the result of or opposition to those, in order to indicate the presence of an anti-Othering ideology in the trilogy. The analysis is conducted through discussion of Othering of other species/races/ethnicities caused by blind trust in one’s own group, Othering inside one’s own group, Othering of other species/races/ethnicities, and discussion about instances of multicultural acceptance. Considering Tolkien’s relationship to nature, this discussion also extends to Othering of nature. Consequently, this essay concludes how The Lord of the Rings trilogy arguably is against Othering since the story generally presents the act as negative to others, oneself, and/or one’s beloved as well as contains instances which simply convey a positive view of multiculturalism.

The Great Gatsby is a famous novel first published in 1926, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The novel frequently criticizes the American dream, a concept which has become strongly linked to capitalism. As such, the text lends itself very well to Marxist theory despite not mentioning Marxism in the novel.  This C-essay will focus on what motivates the characters of this novel. Since the novels main character Jay Gatsby has been analyzed in many articles and essays he will not be analyzed in this essay. Instead it will focus on the other prominent characters such as Daisy, Tom, Myrtle, George and Nick. When their motivations are analyzed through a Marxist analytical perspective it becomes very clear that these characters have realized that society is not fulfilling their needs, and that their commercialized society is the cause of their unhappiness.

The purpose of this essay is to study and compare how male and female are portrayed in four picture books from the 2010s and 1970s, with a focus on the parents. And see what weight the images have to create gender norms in the books. Research has shown that children are affected by the books' gender representation, which makes it interesting to look at whether gender norms are visible in today's picture books (the 2010 century) and how it looked just after focus had been put on gender representation in picture books (1970s). In addition, I believe that the parents are interesting characters to study because there have not been so many analysis regarding parents' gender representation.

By the method of literary analysis, based on Nikolajevas Bilderbokens pusselbitar certain conclusions could be drawn. Among other things, in the case of the four analyzed picture books, it was difficult to find equality in the relationship between the parents. In addition, at least one parent in each picture book tended to become stereotyped because that parent was more in the background than the other.

This thesis explores the themes of hope, empowerment, and belonging in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Using three different frameworks, I analyze the portrayal of interconnected senses of hope, empowerment, and belonging in the texts through the Baudelaire orphans, and their promotion of the same in the child reader. C.R. Snyder’s psychological hope theory is used to analyze how hope is created in the child protagonists and encouraged in the child reader, through finding pathways to their goals and the will to utilize them. Eliza T. Dresang’s Radical Change theory provides a framework for exploring how child empowerment functions in the texts, which is largely connected to the pursuit of knowledge and autodidacticism. Lastly, I use the role of literary orphanhood, changing concepts of family, and sociological frameworks for belonging to address how the Baudelaire orphans, and the child reader, find home and belonging outside of the idealized nuclear family—namely through shared social locations, social solidarities, and a symbolic reunification of the Baudelaire family. Moreover, I analyze the role of the Gothic and what MariaNikolajeva calls aetonormativity—adult normativity that Others children—in creating the hopeless and disempowering conditions that paradoxically make way for the development of hope, empowerment, and belonging.

This essay explores monstrosity in two contemporary horror stories: “The Whistlers” by Amity Argot, and “Whitefall” by C.K. Walker, focusing on how the humans in these texts are monstrously transformed. The monsters and monstrosity present in the texts are read against some of the cultural anxieties of postmodernity, and against various monstrous frameworks such as that of the zombie, the terrorist, and the monstrous space and nature. Both texts present monstrous spaces intent on perverting humans by eroding them physically until they reach a state of bare life that mimics zombification and may allegorize socioeconomic inequality, displacement, and the effects of capitalism; as well as by enticing them to commit atrocities against each other and transgress the very moral boundaries that defined them as human, up to and including cannibalism. In this way, these monsters reveal humans as their own annihilators, laying bare an innate human monstrosity that emerges from the traumatic conditions of postmodernity.

The aim of this study is to explore the different family constellations that exists in a selection of children’s picture books published between the years of 1989 and 2015. The representations of these family constellations have been compared by critically investigating norms that applies to families and they have been analyzed by these norms and the statistics that existed in society at the beginning of the 21th century.

The result shows that all of the four chosen picture-books goes against the norm on some point, but that the newest of the four books is the one that most resembles the picture of a nuclear family.

In this essay, Hanya Yanagihara’s main characters from the novel A Little Life (2015) are analyzed, with the basis of gender stereotypes and with the help of Raewyn Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity. It argues that the characters in question challenge the typical gender roles in the way that they are lacking in comparison to Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity and are portrayed with feminine attributes. Yanagihara’s portrayal of masculinity creates a depth to the characters in questions and a more complex view of masculinity.

Both Lovecraft and Stevenson have earned their respective fame as horror writers.However, it is interesting to compare their separate approaches to creating fear. The purposeof this essay is to show how there are different kinds of horror objects within the respectivestories of Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu and Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Throughclose analysis of passages from the text, the external and internal origins of the respectivehorror objects are displayed, analyzed and compared. In the novels, there are distinctidentifiable types of horror objects within the respective narratives of The Call of Cthulhu andDr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. However, despite the sources of horror being vastly different betweenthe narratives, the threats which they facilitate are similar. In addition to covering somegeneral traits which pertain to each type, a more specific comparison between Cthulhu and MrHyde is provided. In the end, it is clear that despite being different in execution, the differenttypes of horror objects are not meant to be viewed as restricting in what they can fulfill withina given narrative. Instead, they simply lend themselves to certain themes better but can stillachieve similar results.

Among the many unexplored areas of urban fantasy is its relation to crime fiction.This article explores how features of the crime story are used to emphasize, reinforce, or introduceurban fantasy’s social commentary. It looks at the genres’ relationship, analyzing three urbanfan tasies and their respective crime fiction elements.

London is one of the more popular settings for urban fantasy, standing out by offering both a great many famous locations and a history of two millennia. This essay argues that the city’s past is used to create a sense of “London-ness” by examining ten urban-fantasy versions of London. It identifies and analyzes the functions of four prominent aspects of history in these texts: the city’s origin and pre-origin, the Great Fire of 1666, the periods of building various subterranean tunnels, and the notion that London, at some point, has gone through an architectural Era of Uglification. Through these, London is portrayed as a literary place suitable to urban fantasy: it is a modern city but with a long history reaching back to a beginning where facts and legends mix. This long history gives rise to supernatural entities that hide in the underground tunnels constructed at various points in the city’s history.

In this essay, the author argues that analysing a fantasy novel that comes with a map without taking into account the dynamic between map and text would be to omit a vital part of the fictional world. By drawing on the Vitruvian triad of architectural theory, the construction of the world in China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station (2001) is analysed through some building-blocks of that world that emerge prominently on the novel’s map. After a brief discussion of world-building and fantasy maps, the map is taken as a starting point in order to demonstrate how the transport network in general and railways and skyrail in particular are given distinctive form. One function that these building-blocks have in the novel is to provide locations which the reader can use to link dynamically between text and map, thus relating locations to each other spatially and adding layers of meaning to them, turning them from spaces into places. Passages in the text are used to show how it is possible to move between map and text, and how such movement not only augments the spatiality of the world but that it also provides a way to discuss the city’s social and economic issues by juxtaposing different characters’ perspectives.

The force driving Anahit Behrooz’s Mapping Middle-earth is a desire todemonstrate that J. R. R. Tolkien’s work deserves to be taken (more) seriouslyin the field of literary studies. The author argues this case by relating maps,mapping, and cartography – within and outside the story world – to a handfulof critical perspectives that currently enjoy certain appeal both within themainstream and among fantasy scholars. And should the book fail to convincesome hobbitophobic critics out there, the fault does not seem to lie either withTolkien’s work or Behrooz discussions of it but with the fact that fantasy(including Tolkien) require more of its analytical tools than some mainstreamcritical perspectives offer when taken off the rack.

Urban fantasy, the genre of fantastic literature in which magic and monsters meet modern society, is fairly young but has old roots. Stefan Ekman’s book, Urban Fantasy: Exploring Modernity through Magic, examines the genre in depth, including its inherent social commentary, its historical development, and its interplay between modernity and the fantastic. The author draws on a wide range of urban fantasy texts from five decades, combining detailed analysis of dozens of novels and other media with broad discussions to provide a comprehensive understanding of the genre across three sections. The first section presents an overview of what the genre looks like today-both in terms of its common traits and its variety of settings-and how it has developed over time, including the history of urban fantasy scholarship. The second section examines urban fantasy’s core concern with the unseen, for example through a focus on unseen individuals overlooked by society or hiding within it, and on ignored urban spaces or labyrinthine undergrounds. The third section addresses how urban fantasy explores the relationship between the supernatural and modernity. Ekman offers readings of fiction by Ben Aaronovitch, Lauren Beukes, P. Djelí Clark, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Max Gladstone, Kim Harrison, N.K. Jemisin, and Megan Lindholm, among others. Urban Fantasy will appeal to teachers and students of the fantastic as well as to urban fantasy enthusiasts and literary scholars. Ekman illuminates the genre’s evolution and defining traits, inviting readers to rethink urban fantasy as a creative tool for using magic to explore modernity. 

A discussion Literature of the Unseen—Visions and (Re)visions of Urban Fantasy collects theoretical reflections upon the subgenres of urban fantasy and paranormal romance, along with a brief commentary on the body of text representative for both conventions. Participants include „Creatio Fantasti­ca” editors—Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun, Krzysztof M. Maj, and Barbara Szymczak-Maciejczyk—as well as renowned experts in the field of fantasy studies: Stefan Ekman, author of the first monograph of fantasy map-making, Here Be Dragons. Exploring Fantasy Maps & Settings (2013), and Audrey Taylor, author of Patricia A. McKillip and the Art of Fantasy World-building (2017).

Imaginary worlds and how they are constructed are central to fiction. The term world-building, however, has been applied so broadly in scholarship that it has become ambiguous and difficult to use in critical discussions. Aiming to contribute to greater clarity in the critical use of the term, this article introduces the concept of critical world-building. This is distinguished from other types of world-building, such as that performed by an author or reader, mainly by the fact that a critic analyses a world through a combination of their sequential presentation, as complete world, and with critical interpretation and theoretical filters in place, applying all three perspectives simultaneously. Two possible approaches to critical world-building are presented, based on the functions of a world’s building-blocks and how to interpret those functions. The first approach focuses on a world’s “architecture” – its structural and aesthetic system of places – and the form, function, and meaning of those places. The second emphasises the dynamic interplay between building-blocks and their interconnections in a web of explicit, implied, and interpreted information about the world. The authors base their discussion on textual, secondary fantasy worlds but invite applications of critical world-building to other genres and media.

The purpose of the study is to examine how gender roles are portrayed in fiveSwedish picture books. The picture books were to be set in the preschool'sactivities and aimed to ages 3–6. The used method is a qualitative literatureanalysis. The theoretical framework that permeates the study is Hirdman's(2007) and Butler's (2007) gender theories. The result showed that most of thepicture books challenged the stereotypical gender roles. In all picture books,there was also no male hierarchy as previous research has shown, but insteadit was the females who had dominant roles. As a preschool teacher, it isimportant to offer different types of literature, talk and raise awareness of thecontent of the picture books.

Abstract

Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel The Complete Maus comments on the heavy legacy imposed by World War II and the Holocaust upon heirs of survivors as it depicts the relationship between father and son, as well as the experiences of the Jewish father. Using narratology as a theoretical lens this essay analyzes the narrative workings in Maus. Specifically the focus is on pointing out and examining different types of narrative breaches that seem to create or enhance a sense of conflict within the narrative; these conflicts in turn affect reader sympathy. The analysis also raises questions about the portrayal of Holocaust survival and identity issues. While Maus clarifies certain aspects of the Holocaust experience, it complicates other aspects. Interaction between the past and the present is a central feature throughout the novel, both visually and textually. The narrative throws the reader back and forth between storylines, events and personal encounters as it elicits a constant interaction between the text and the reader. This interaction helps to build tension as reader sympathy shifts between characters, and possibly contributes to make readers more susceptible to themes and implied messages in Maus. 

In this study, it has been studied how students in year 3 are given the opportunity to develop their communication skills both verbally and in writing in the digital teaching materials, what cognitive level these communication tasks are at and in what way the digital part of the teaching materials contributes to the learning of communication skills in mathematics. In order to get answers to the research questions, a teaching material analysis has been conducted on three different digital teaching materials in mathematics. These teaching materials were selected because they claimed to be comprehensive and designed according to the syllabus. Still, the result showed that two of the teaching materials were deficient when it came to meeting the requirements for communication as well as the cognitive requirements, when examining what the digital part contributed to, the result was unanimous. The third digital learning material met most of the requirements, both in terms of communication tasks and their cognitive levels. When the survey was completed and the results of the three teaching materials were compiled, most of the communication form F7 was found where the student was given the opportunity to follow and understand mathematical communication. The cognitive levels of the communication tasks were reviewed and it was then discovered that almost two-thirds of the data in two teaching materials were in the lower levels. This was very remarkable because research showed that communication tasks in the higher cognitive levels favored communicative mathematics teaching. 

This essay focuses on J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, how the different races in the text are portrayed and how they interact with each other. The essay uses postcolonial theories, mainly “Orientalism” and “Otherness”, to prove traces of racism in the text. It focuses on the text and what can be found in the characters opinions of each other. The aim of this essay is to prove that in The Lord of the Rings there is an underlying story of racial issues between the different races of Middle-Earth and that these issues can be described as racism.  The colonial themes of the text can mostly be found in the geographical descriptions, the colour of skin and the stereotypical descriptions of different races within the text. The stereotypical descriptions are probably sprung from the fact that J.R.R Tolkien grew up towards the end of the big Imperialist era of 19^th century Europe and the similarities and descriptions of foreign cultures existing in the real world can be traced throughout the text.  The Lord of the Rings contains themes with racial issues and this can be described as racism, even though it is not possible to say that The Lord of the Rings is a racist text as whole.

The purpose of this essay is to conduct a character analysis on Eugene Achike from Chimamana Ngozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus, to see whether or not the character is used by Adichie as a portrayal of colonial Nigeria and its values. I have done this by looking at the themes of violence and hypocrisy in relation to Eugene’s language usage, religious attitude, and behaviour towards others, and comparing these aspects of his personality with the attitudes shown by colonialists in colonial Nigeria.

The more important issues that prove Eugene’s character is a portrayal of colonial Nigeria are: his utter disregard for his heritage and background, including the physical disregard of his father; his absolute control over his family members, both physically and mentally, which leads to violent outbursts if he is disobeyed; the fact that he is shown in the novel to be a direct product of the missionaries and colonial structure that was present in Nigeria when he grew up. These things, together with the subtle connections in Adichie’s writing that connect her novel to Things Fall Apart, firmly place Purple Hibiscus in the postcolonial category. Thus, I concluded that Eugene’s character is a portrayal of Colonial Nigeria.