Background: Eating disorders are a growing public health concern which requires more attention and research to increase the understanding and prevention of eating disorders. This paper focuses on eating disorders and its relation to the joy of food. It is very important to find joy for food when suffering from an eating disorder to achieve a healthier life and healthier thinking around food and the body. This paper has examined possible methods that can be used for treating people with eating disorders to enjoy food. The study was conducted at Capio Anorexia Center in Malmö, a daycare clinic for eating disorders, and the study was focused on how the staff works to help patients find joy for food during treatment, and how they work to express food in a positive way to their patients.

Methods: Literature studies were carried out before and after the study at Capio Anorexia Center. Qualitative half structured interviews were also carried out with two of the staff at Capio Anorexia Center, and with a dietitian and an anonymous person who has suffered from an eating disorder and received treatment. Three of the interviews were conducted with sound recording and the other one was conducted via email. Each interview lasted about 45 minutes. The interviews were compiled by first writing of the recorded interviews and then the answers for each interview were categorized to relevant fields. An analysis and comparison of these interviews to various literatures like books, reports, scientific papers and internet sources related to enjoying food and eating disorders were also carried out.

Results: Eleven methods were found that may be useful to find joy for food both in treatment and outside of treatment for those who need support: daring, educational meals, eating regularly, varied and plan meals, cook and serve appealing meals, mindfulness and mindfulness eating, eating environment and social importance when eating, nutritional therapy, the “sapere-method”, eating slow and relaxed, the use of vodcast during meals and to keep out myths, dieting and beauty ideals.

Conclusions: Eleven possible methods that may be useful to find joy for food have been found. This by preliminary studies with literature, a study at Capio Anorexia Center and interviews, and also by analyzing and comparing the interviews with literature related to eating disorders and enjoying food. The eleven methods described may be useful when regaining joy for food and a healthier thinking when it comes to food and meal situations. An important step in recovering from an eating disorder is to find pleasure when eating; therefore these methods can be possible tools to help people with eating disorders to find the joy for food. However, to reach a healthy life free from an eating disorder these methods described in this paper has to be combined with a variety of other therapies, because it is also important to work with self-esteem, self-confidence, and other symptoms and problems of the eating disorder.

The H295R in vitro cell line produces the majority of the steroidogenesis, for which reason it is commonly used as a screening tool for endocrine disrupting chemicals. Simultaneous determination of the precursor cholesterol and key steroid hormones could give a broad insight into the mechanistic disruption of the steroidogenesis. Steroid hormones have primarily been extracted from H295R incubation medium by means of liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and the obtained recoveries and matrix effects have typically not been stated or assessed. In the present study a solid-phase extraction (SPE) method was developed and validated for the simultaneous extraction of cholesterol and five key steroid hormones pregnenolone, 17-hydroxyprogesterone, testosterone, cortisol and aldosterone from H295R incubation medium, and finally detected by LC-MS/MS. Cholesterol was recovered at a level of 55.7%, while steroid hormone recoveries ranged from 98.2 to 109.4%. Matrix effects varied between -0.6% and 62.8%. Intra-day precision was deemed acceptable, but the inter-day precision for pregnenolone and aldosterone exceeded the precision limit of 15% RSD. Although LLE has been the most frequently used extraction method in H295R studies, however, our investigation has shown that SPE may relatively easily extract and recover steroid hormones, potentially replacing LLE.

Analytical methodologies based on liquid or gas chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry for the simultaneous determination of two or more endogenous steroid hormones in human and animal plasma and serum has received increased attention the last few years. Especially in the clinical setting steroid profiling is of major importance in disease diagnostics. This paper discusses recent findings in such multi-steroid hormone procedures published from 2001 to 2012. The aim was to elucidate possible relationships between chosen analytical technique and the obtained analyte sensitivity for endogenous steroid hormones. By evaluating the success, at which the currently applied techniques have been utilized, more general knowledge on the field is provided. Furthermore the evaluation provides directions in which future studies may be interesting to conduct.

This study demonstrates the addition of (14)C-cholesterol to the human cell line H295R will in-situ form radiolabeled steroid hormones allowing for new mechanistic and metabolic insights. The aim of the present study was to in-situ radiolabel steroid hormones from cell line-incorporated (14)C-cholesterol using the OECD guideline 456, H295R steroidogenesis in-vitro assay. Radiodetection of the steroid metabolites of the steroidogenic pathway allows for an improved understanding of the various enzymatic mechanisms involved without necessarily being dependent on quantification. Generated radiolabeled steroids were analyzed using HPLC hyphenated with a Flow Scintillation Analyzer (FSA). H295R cells were incubated with radiolabeled cholesterol and cell media were collected and prepared by solid phase extraction and analyzed with HPLC-FSA. For successful radiolabeling of the steroids in the steroidogenesis of H295R cells, radioactive cholesterol may potentially only need to be added just before the cells are incubated for 72h in well plates. Based on the obtained HPLC-FSA chromatograms, and confirmation of the observations by studies in the literature, a qualitative time profile for the production of steroid hormones was estimated. Multiple radiolabeled steroid hormones were identified by means of analytical standards and UV (ultraviolet) co-chromatography, though the elucidation of multiple metabolites remains unresolved. Although online radiodetection proved to suffer from suboptimal sensitivity, the concept of radiolabeling the steroidogenesis in H295R cells with (14)C-cholesterol and detecting the radiolabeled steroid hormones online was proved and may assist in further toxicological studies.

OBJECTIVE: to describe the qualitatively different ways in which midwives make sense of how to approach women smokers. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: a more person-centred national project 'Smoke-free pregnancy' has been in progress in Sweden since 1992. Using a phenomenographic approach, 24 midwives who have been regularly working in antenatal care were interviewed about addressing smoking during pregnancy. FINDINGS: four different story types of how the midwives made sense of their experiences in addressing smoking in pregnancy were identified: 'avoiding', 'informing', 'friend-making', 'co-operating'. KEY CONCLUSION: the midwives' story types about how they approached women who smoke illustrated the difficulties of changing from being an expert who gives information and advice to being an expert on how to enable a woman in finding out why she smoked and how to stop smoking. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: health education about smoking that is built on co-operation and dialogue was seen by the midwives as a productive way of working. The starting point should be the lay perspective of a woman, which means that her thoughts about smoking cessation are given the space to grow while she talks.

In general, most women are familiar with the need to stop smoking when they are pregnant. In spite of this, many women find it difficult to stop. Using a phenomenographic approach, this study explored Swedish pregnant and post-pregnant women's ways of making sense of smoking during pregnancy. A total of 17 women who either smoked throughout pregnancy or stopped smoking during pregnancy were interviewed. Five different story types of how they are making sense of smoking during pregnancy were identified: smoking can be justified; will stop later; my smoking might hurt the baby; smoking is just given up; smoking must be taken charge of. Based on the study it is argued that the approach used in health education in relation to smoking cessation in antenatal care needs to move from information transfer and advice-giving to the creation of a dialogue. The starting point should be the woman's knowledge, concerns, rationalizations and prejudices. A model is suggested in which a woman may move in a space on three axes depending on life encounters, dialogue and reflections on meaning. The goal in health education would be to encourage movement along three axes: 'increase of self-efficacy towards control', 'increase awareness by reflection on meaning of the smoking issue' and 'avoidance of defense of the smoking behavior'.

Syftet med den här studien är att beskriva vad pedagoger i förskolan samt på högstadiet har för upplevelse av specialpedagogens uppdrag. Den metod som är vald för studien är semistrukturerade intervjuer för att samla in data. I vår studie har vi intervjuat tio pedagoger, varav fem är verksamma inom förskolan samt fem verksamma på högstadiet. Samtliga pedagoger är verksamma i olika verksamheter i den kommunala barnomsorgen och skolan, de arbetar dock inom samma kommun. Den teoretiska utgångspunkt som vi använt oss av är det sociokulturella perspektivet. Den tidigare forskningen visar att specialpedagogen förväntas göra många olika arbetsuppgifter som inte ingår i deras uppdrag ute på arbetsplatserna. Handledning är något som många gånger hamnar i skymundan på grund av det. Många gånger används inte specialpedagogens kompetens fullt ut. Specialpedagogen har många gånger enskild undervisning eller undervisning i liten grupp med elever som är i behov av särskilt stöd. Den tidigare forskningen visar även att specialpedagogen och rektorns relation är avgörande för om specialpedagogen ska kunna genomföra sitt arbete så som det är tänkt. Resultatet av studien visar att det finns en osäkerhet kring specialpedagogens uppdrag, främst hos pedagogerna på högstadiet. Resultatet visar även att dem inom förskolan har kunskap om hur de söker den specialpedagogiska kompetensen. Det visade sig att elevhälsateamets arbete kom pedagogerna tillkännedom, trots det ansåg pedagogerna på högstadiet att elevhälsateamet var en stor del av det förebyggande arbetet. Slutsatsen vi drar är att specialpedagogens uppdrag är otydlig och det behöver vara en tydlig organisation kring den yrkesfunktionen så att den kommer alla till del.

Forskning har visat att oro, ångest, stress och dålig sömn är åkommor som blivit allt vanligare och symptomen sjunker allt lägre ned i åldrarna. Med detta som utgångspunkt har vi valt en surveyundersökning i form av enkäter för att se vilka eventuella samband som fanns mellan gymnasiekillars självupplevda hälsobesvär och deras skattade fysiska aktivitetsnivå. I undersökningen har 96 gymnasiekillars svar behandlats för att ta del av deras upplevda hälsa och skattade fysiska aktivitetsnivå. Enligt Lpf 94 är syftet med undervisningen i Idrott och hälsa bland annat att utveckla elevernas kunskap om hur olika faktorer kan påverka det fysiska, psykiska och sociala välbefinnandet. Regelbunden fysisk aktivitet kan motverka bland annat stress, oro och depression. Resultatet av undersökningen visade att det fanns samband mellan gymnasiekillars självupplevda hälsobesvär och deras skattade fysiska aktivitetsnivå. Slutsatsen med studien är att lärare i Idrott och hälsa med hjälp av resultatet kan ge sina elever en insikt i vilka positiva effekter fysisk aktivitet har på eventuella besvär med hälsan. Därmed kan de även motivera dem till en framtida regelbunden fysisk aktivitet. Studien ämnar väcka läsarens intresse för ämnet och ge en insikt i sambanden mellan självupplevda hälsobesvär och fysisk aktivitet.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur pedagoger uppfattar språkutveckling hos tvåspråkiga barn i förskolan samt i en förskoleklass. Med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer vill vi synliggöra och utifrån dessa intervjuer skapa en förståelse för pedagogers uppfattningar, gällande språkutveckling hos tvåspråkiga barn.

Den teoretiska bakgrunden vilar på fenomenografin i form av variationsteorin. Varför fenomenografin valdes som kvalitativ forskningsmetod är dels dess beskrivning av fenomen utifrån individers olika uppfattningar, samt metodens möjliggörande av en hypotetisk observation över mänsklig förståelse av diverse företeelser.

Resultatet, med hänsyn till pedagogernas uppfattningar, visar att det är föräldrarna som bär ansvaret av att lära samt stödja sina barn i deras modersmålutveckling. Detta är något som ska ske i hemmiljön. Detta i sin tur förblir en god grund i modersmålet, vilket gör det enklare att utveckla andra språk. Vidare  visade resultatet på att pedagogerna har varierande uppfattningar kring fenomenet tvåspråkighet, dock med en gemensam uppfattning av svenska språkets väsentliga betydelse i förskolan.

Den här undersökningen beskriver vad som karakteriserar bedömning som en grupp högstadieelever upplever som utvecklande, samt vilken betydelse lärares omsorg kan ha för detta förfarande. Enligt forskning är kommunikationen mellan elever och lärare viktig när det gäller bedömning. Stor vikt läggs idag vid formativ bedömning som betydande faktor för elevers lärande i skolan. Formativ bedömning kräver ett samarbete mellan eleven och läraren. I undersökningen intervjuades elva elever i årskurs 9. Undersökningen visar att tydlig kommunikation mellan elever och lärare är av stor betydelse för att bedömningen ska upplevas som utvecklande. En utvecklande bedömning upplevs när läraren tydligt visar på elevers styrkor och svagheter. I undersökning framkommer också att elever känner sig bekräftade och upplever bedömning som utvecklande när läraren tar sig tid till bedömningen. Resultatet analyserades utifrån Noddings omsorgsetiska teori. Omsorg från lärares sida visade sig då ha stor betydelse för att bedömningen ska upplevas som utvecklande; för att elever ska uppleva en vilja att lära sig. Det vi kallar ”omsorgsfull bedömning” riktas både mot vad eleven kan i nuläget och mot hur eleven kan ta ett steg framåt. Vidare riktas den såväl mot eleven som individ som mot elevens prestationer.

Vi har valt att undersöka grundsärskoleelevers skolplacering. Vårt syfte är att undersöka vad en skolgång i grundsärskolan idag, i praktiken kan innebära för eleven, med avseende på skolplacering, och vårt mer preciserade syfte är att undersöka elevers skolplacering i grundsärskolan, avseende kursplanstillhörighet, elevens fysiska placering och skolans organisation.

Vi har, för att undersöka grundsärskoleelevers skolplacering, riktat oss med en enkät till 46 kommuner i 3 län i Sverige. Vi har också genomfört intervjuer med två personer som först deltagit i enkätundersökningen. Det visar sig i vår undersökning att grundsärskolan i praktiken, för de elever som är mottagna inom skolformen, kan se mycket olika ut både inom och mellan de kommuner som varit föremål för vår undersökning. Det saknas till stor del forskning om var och hur elever i grundsärskolan är skolplacerade, de undersökningar som finns är främst gjorda inom skolmyndigheterna. I framtiden skulle det vara av vikt om ytterligare undersökningar gjordes beträffande var och hur våra grundsärskoleelever är skolplacerade, inte minst för att kunna jämföra exempelvis skolresultat och trivsel med fysisk skolplacering. Det är av vikt att vara medveten om olikheten inom skolformen, för yrkesutövande, men även för att t.ex. kunna delta i den diskussion kring grundsärskola som finns såväl inom forskningen, som i den mer allmänna samhällsdebatten.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att om möjligt bidra till en större kunskap och ett större intresse för det som kan utgöra en av grundbultarna i uttrycket ”livslångt lärande”, nämligen studier i vuxen ålder vid Komvux. Vidare är syftet att försöka framhäva betydelsen av att hela livet få möjlighet att både som person och som vetande människa växa och genom att få chansen till detta också vara en del av ett ständigt förändrande kunskaps- och informationssamhälle. Litteraturmässigt behandlas detta utifrån vad tidigare forskning lyft fram som karaktäristiskt för vuxenstuderande. Det tidigare forskning framhäver, ställs i undersökningen mot det som framkommit i denna studie. Undersökningen har utnyttjat en narrativ metod och analys, i form av insamlandet av narrativ (livsberättelser), där informanterna på ett ärligt och trovärdigt sätt delger sin bild av sina egna vuxenstudier. Teoretiskt används därför såväl hermeneutiken som narratologin, detta för att det är texter som behöver tolkas och detta gör själva berättandet i narrativen ytterst viktigt. Resultatet visar att till skillnad från vad tidigare forskning visat är målgrupperna för vuxenstudier idag något förskjuten och detta kan ha att göra med förändrade tider, såväl i samhället som utbildningsmässigt. Informanternas narrativ (livsberättelser) visar prov på att de som personer införlivat en helt ny syn på inte bara sig själva utan också på vad utbildning är, samt vad kunskap är och kan användas till. En större tro på det livslånga lärandet växer i narrativen (livsberättelserna) fram likt kunskapens träd.

Nyckelord: Aktantmodell, Hermeneutik, Komvux, livslångt lärande, målgrupp, narrativ.

Abstract

Kitty-böckerna har sedan 1950-talet lockat unga flickor att läsa och bli en del av en fiktiv spännande värld. Det var en ny typ av flickbok, som lyfte fram en ung, vacker och kompetent kvinnlig detektiv som radikalt skilde sig från tidigare traditionella böcker avsedda för flickor. Med en långseriebok som än idag är en del av unga flickors gränsliv mellan barndom och ungdom hjälper författarsyndikatet Carolyn Keene unga flickor att glömma verkligheten runt sig och iklä sig rollen som hjältinnan Kitty.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att visa vilka inslag som indikerar vilket årtionde boken för in läsaren i. Med hjälp av reader-response-teorin kommer också sådant läsaren själv i relation med texten skapar att lyftas fram. Läsning av Kitty-böckerna i vuxen ålder har också uppenbarat sådant som helt saknas, sådant som skulle kunna vara relevant i böcker skrivna ursprungligen i Amerika. Viktiga händelser som hänt varje årtionde i den verkliga världen är icke-existerande i den fiktiva världen, som trots allt ger sken av att utspela sig i det verkliga Amerika

Nyckelord: Kitty Drew, flickbok, långseriebok, reader-response-teorin, mottagarorienterad

År 1144 anlände abbot Robert, elva konverser och nio lekmän från cisterciensklostret i Citeaux till Herrevad, där ärkebiskop Eskil upplåtit mark till dem för att bygga upp ett cistercienserkloster på då dansk mark. I 400 år tronade klostret på heden och blev ett maktcentrum i regionen. Klostermedlemmarna som vigt sitt liv åt att hedra och tjäna Gud blev därmed ett inslag i bygden som satt spår långt in i vår tid. Hantverk som klosterorden tog med sig och sedermera utvecklade blev också en del av bygdens. En bygd som med sin placering gav mycket tillbaka till dem som brukade den, det var perfekta förhållanden att driva ett självhushållande kloster i.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att klargöra vilken denna klosterorden var för att på så vis kunna väcka ett nytt intresse för något som fallit i glömska inte bara på lokal nivå utan också som en del av Skånes historia. Fortsatt är intentionen med uppsatsen att peka på det som levt kvar i bygden och därmed blivit en del av dagens samhälle som vi kan tacka dessa medeltida munkar för.

Som historielärare finns olika nyckelbegrepp som är centrala för ämnet historia. Tre av dessa kommer studeras i denna uppsats där syftet är att studera historiemedvetande samt de genetiska och genealogiska perspektiven i relation till lärares verklighet och de båda läroplanerna Lpf94 och Gy11. Dessa tre begrepp är därmed uppsatsens teoretiska utgångspunkter. Kvalitativa intervjuer har utförts för att söka svar på uppsatsens frågeställningar och då texter och intervjusvaren varit i behov av tolkning har den hermeneutiska metoden använts.

Studien visar att begreppet historiemedvetande är mångtydigt och svårdefinierat, både för lärare, teoretiker och forskare. En annan slutsats som kunde dras av studien visar att historieundervisningen är präglad av den kronologiska traditionen, vilket även kan benämnas som det genetiska perspektivet. Vad gäller styrdokumenten är begreppet historiemedvetande svårdefinierat även där och den nuvarande Gy11 är mer inriktat på kronologi än den tidigare.

This paper analyzes James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man as a response to the call of the nineteenth-century slave narratives, arguing that in Johnson’s text we can discern a changing concept of African American subjectivity. The analysis proposes that this changing concept of self is linked to a changing form for the story of that self.

This article considers Julie Otsuka's representations of the World-War-II internment of Japanese Americans in When the Emperor Was Divine (2002) and The Buddha in the Attic (2011) from the perspective of collective remembrance, thus highlighting the interconnectedness of remembrance, forgetting, silence and race. Remembering and forgetting are understood as contingent on one another, and on the ideological currents and countercurrents that affect the construction of collective remembrance. The article argues that the content and form of Otsuka's novels mediate the cultural silence of the internment. In addition, they illustrate the changing nature of the narrativized remembrance of the internment as accounts of the lived experience of the Japanese Americans who went to camp are being replaced by trans-generationally transmitted, imaginatively recreated memories. The historical silence of the incarceration and its aftermath is sometimes explained in terms of "Japanese culture," but such a description risks reducing the impact of the racialization of Japanese Americans, and obscuring its effect on resistance. Finally, the analysis demonstrates that in Otsuka's texts, remembrance of the internment is characterized by a negotiation between repressive erasure and restorative forgetting.

In her two novels When the Emperor Was Divine (2002) and The Buddha in the Attic (2011), Julie Otsuka explores the experiences of Japanese immigrants in the US before and during World War II.  In this paper, her works are considered as narratives of cultural remembrance employing certain motifs that articulate the experience of ‘relocation,’ or internment, of Japanese Americans during the war. The paper argues that the tropes of disintegration, guilt, imprisonment and dislocation are critical to Otsuka’s representation of the internment.  Furthermore, these tropes are most significantly mediated through gender and narrative perspective. The collective point of view, used partly in When the Emperor was Divine and throughout The Buddha in the Attic, resonates with Otsuka’s conception of the Japanese as a “communal people” allowing her to “tell everyone’s story.” This notion forms part of my examination of how the collective voice underscores the themes of collective remembrance and social critique.    

Finally, the paper considers When the Emperor was Divine and The Buddha in the Attic in relation to Anne Whitehead’s observation (in Memory 2009:14) that “forgetting […] shapes and defines the very contours of what is recalled and preserved; what is transmitted as remembrance from one generation to the next.” Otsuka’s texts are regarded as memory work revolving around the tension between remembrance and forgetting. Silence and forgetting are a significant part of the practices of remembrance of the Japanese-American internment, suggesting the simultaneous resilience and vulnerability of the Japanese Americans.

Julie Otsuka’s novel  When the Emperor Was Divine (2002), which has reached a large international audience and is widely taught in American universities and colleges, is about a Japanese-American family sent to an internment camp during World War II. Her second novel, The Buddha in the Attic (2011) also addresses the internment, albeit more briefly. This paper argues that Julie Otsuka’s novels impact the collective remembrance of the internment, as they bring together Otsuka’s own family past and the national past. In her texts, collective remembrance is the outcome of a negotiation between different groups with the purpose of “maintaining social cohesion and identity” (Whitehead 2009: 152), in which relations of power play a significant part.  Focus is placed on the interaction between remembrance and forgetting, which figures alternately as “a necessary and adaptive reaction to the alternative of painful or destructive memory [and as] the tacit ally of oppression and silence” (Conway and Singer 2008:279). Otsuka’s texts embody this tension, which is analyzed with emphasis on the racialization of the Japanese Americans.  By way of conclusion, the paper queries the possibility of resistance to the internment in relation to the category of race.

This paper deals with images of Europe in African American fiction from the 1920’s. What are the implications for an African American author of including a European episode in her or his fiction? More specifically, I will look at how the European setting affects the representations of race and identity in African American women’s fiction from the inter war years. Special focus is placed on the works of Jessie Fauset’s There Is Confusion (1924) and Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (1928). In their different ways, these novels highlight many of the larger issues that are characteristic of the 1920’s, such as primitivism versus civilization, questions of cultural ‘belonging,’ the black artists’ relationship to modernity, and the establishment of an African American artistic tradition.

I argue that the representations of Europe are symbolic geographies, allowing for criticism of social and historical conditions in America. Through the fictional encounters with European life, Nella Larsen and Jessie Fauset provide us with a lens through which we can see what we call “Western civilization.” The travels in Europe become a way of interrogating the role of the African American in the construction of this civilization. Performance is hereby an important trope, which relates to the authors’ understandings of culture, race and historical agency.

This paper deals with the representation of Europe in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (1928). Furthermore, how does the European setting affect the representations of race and identity in the novel? I discuss how the spatial change affects the protagonist Helga Crane’s notion of “race” and self, as the encounter with the European setting highlights the dialectic process of identity construction. Leaving America Helga thinks she will find relief from limiting notions of “blackness,” but instead she only finds re-articulations of the concept of “race” in Europe. In compliance with her Danish family’s expectations of exotic primitivism, Helga emphasizes her difference and, I suggest, passes for “black” The performative aspect of passing is discussed in relation to Larsen’s understanding of culture, “race” and historical agency. In her complex ways of conceiving culture and “race,” Nella Larsen still speaks to the present moment, and the late twentieth century debates concerning difference and identity politics.

I read Larsen’s representations of Europe as symbolic geographies, allowing for criticism of social and historical conditions in America as well as Europe. Through the fictional encounters with European life, Nella Larsen provides us with a lens through which we can see what we call “Western civilization.” Helga’s travels in Europe, here told in a reversal of the conventions of the travel narratives of the white, European, male narrator, become a way of interrogating the role of the African American in the construction of this civilization.

This paper explores the notion of nostalgia in two recent Swedish narratives of transnational adoption: Christina Rickardsson’s Sluta aldrig gå, 2016, (published in English as Never Stop Walking in 2017), and Cilla Naumann’s Bära barnet hem (“Carrying the Child Home”, 2015). The two narratives deal with adoption from South America to Sweden, include autobiographical content, and enable a comparison between an adoptee memoir (Rickardsson) and a parent-authored text (Naumann). Both texts center on maternal images, but the analysis suggests that Rickardsson’s narrative echoes the borderland nostalgia characteristic of adoptee writing. The adoptee memoirs, being reflective in mode and restorative in purpose, occupy a borderland between the two forms of nostalgia described by Boym (2001), while interrogating the temporal, spatial and affiliative boundaries of transnational adoption. Naumann’s nostalgic enterprise incorporates the mirrors, doubles and ghosts of reflective nostalgia. These representations are a fruitful means to represent the “other” family, and the alternative lives that were left behind in the process of adoption. Ultimately, her text suggests the limitations of the autobiographical mode and illustrates the capacity of fiction to provide a symbolic register in which to articulate the unspeakable aspects of adoption.

This paper focuses on literary representations of the incarceration of about 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. After the attack Japanese Americans on the West coast of the U.S. were rounded up and “evacuated” (as the contemporary, euphemistic term was), or sent to prison camps. How does the memory of the internment help articulate a national identity in the early 21^st century? In seeking to answer this question, the paper considers the work of third generation Japanese-Americans, like Julie Otsuka and Kimi Cunningham Grant, who are uncovering their own family past in their narratives, in relation to the work of Sandra Dallas, as a representative of the current interest in internment fiction by non-Japanese authors.  What might be at stake when the internment is depicted by authors like Dallas who do not have the same kind of personal relationship to it that the Japanese American authors do?  The question of guilt and the potential of fiction to generate “imagined” or “prosthetic memories” are key issues examined in this analysis.

This paper deals with the Harlem Renaissance, but also with the present, in an attempt to explore how these two historical periods relate to each other and to the text of Edward Christopher Williams. It is thus centered on two related topics or lines of inquiry: the first is to introduce the book, When Washington Was In Vogue, which was originally published as a series of articles in the years 1925 and 26, and only published as a book in 2003. How does this “novel” differ from other, well-known Harlem Renaissance texts when it comes to the use of place, subject matter, and the kind of black life it represents? Second, how does it affect our understanding of the period? The paper suggests that When Washington Was In Vogue intervenes into the general understanding of Harlem Renaissance novels by presenting an example of a first-person epistolary novel which amount to an assertive affirmation of black subjectivity. The ‘I’ of Davy Carr’s fictional letters is a stable central consciousness with ample power to put his experiences into words. The confident and positive black voice we hear in this novel forms an example of how ongoing present research has an effect the description of the past: how the individual talent rewrites tradition. Davy’s perspective provides a vantage point that makes possible the assertion of a slightly different 1920s than we have been used to seeing in contemporary African-American fiction. The paper concludes by briefly considering the re-publication of Williams’s work in relation to the role of the literary critic and researcher—and of the literary marketplace.

This chapter explores the connection between writing and subjectivity in Jane Jeong Trenka’s two memoirs, The Language of Blood (2003) and Fugitive Visions (2009), suggesting that the two texts participate in a dialogue in which questions that were raised in the first work are revisited and reconsidered in the second. The result is a multilayered and at times conflicted life narrative, which offers no simple solutions to the complex questions of identity raised. While Trenka’s texts address the unspeakable aspects of adoption and the inability to recover parts of the past, they also address the materiality of adoption. Common adoption myths, such as the discourse of rescue, and the myth of color-blindness, are debunked. The chapter argues that there is a tension in the texts between the representation of adoption as trauma with individual as well as societal implications, and adoption as a productive site generating questions of identity and origin of universal relevance. Placing the form and act of narration in focus, the analysis suggests that the adoption narrative may function as an empowering imaginative space for the production of identity. In addition, the paper traces how sensory experiences are used to re-enact the past—or even instill new memories to replace the perceived gaps in the narrative of the past. The two texts suggest that an engagement with and translation of the non-verbal aspects of identity into text can provide acts of self-authorization that demonstrate the restorative potential of the transnational adoptee’s life narrative.

The appreciation of literature depends on the reader’s ability to understand the author’s use of words — how they are used individually to express explicit and indirect meaning, how they are used in partnership with others to make up set phrases, and how meaning can be distorted for literary purposes by changing a phrase or the order of words in a phrase, all within a specific cultural context. The educated first language reader, familiar with the context, is equipped to read between the lines and achieve a fuller understanding of the text in question. However, for second language readers, lacking that lexical and cultural knowledge, the situation is different and they are at a disadvantage in terms of being able to understand a work of literature. Teachers of English can help their pupils by drawing their attention to words — which words are used and how they are used. Support for this assertion can be found in the research into second language vocabulary acquisition. This tells us that readers need to know at least 95% of words in a text in order to understand that text, and that words must be encountered many times if they are to be learnt. The point of actively working with words over a period of time is twofold: firstly, to increase the reader’s lexical resource in terms of both number of words known and depth of knowledge about them, and secondly, by so doing, to increase the reader’s ability to understand, and therefore appreciate, literary texts. With reference to The Great Gatsby, I will illustrate how teachers of English to university students can extend their learners’ lexical knowledge and appreciation of literature.

It was interesting to see how much we actually learnt. This was one 15 year old’s reflection on the six-week project in which three classes of Swedish year 9 pupils had taken part. For two lessons of 60 minutes each week, the learners created and took on the roles of characters in a Storyline based on the young adult fantasy novel, Gone, by Michael Grant.

Overcoming the reluctance of teenage learners to speak in the language classroom is a challenge for many teachers. This article reports on a study in which 60 Swedish pupils, aged 15–16, took part in a Storyline project based on a young adult fantasy novel. In the Storyline approach, a fictive world is created when learners, taking on the roles of characters in a story, collaborate on tasks to develop the story. A key feature is that the learners work in the same small groups for much of the time. During the six-week period of this study, these learners used English in a variety of speaking and writing tasks. The project showed a number of benefits, the most important of which were an increase in their motivation to speak English and enhanced self-confidence through doing so.

The Storyline approach is little known in language teaching contexts although it has much in common with task-based education. Learners play the parts of characters in an unfolding narrative, collaborating on tasks in small groups, a method which combines the use of language skills with practical work. A word often used by participants in a Storyline topic is `fun′. This article reports on a study in which I attempted to identify the features that particularly appealed to a class of Swedish 11–13 year olds, and how working in this way impacted on their learning of English. The data show that learners were strongly motivated by particular tasks and that the experience of taking part in a Storyline brought specific language benefits.

What do you do when someone dumps rubbish in your street? How do you deal with anti-social neighbours? How do you organize a street party? These are some of the questions faced by a class of 11–13 year olds working on “Storyline, Our Sustainable Street”. For five weeks they took on the roles of families who had moved into a newly built street in the fictive English town of Danbury. Working on tasks linked to the syllabus for English, they developed their skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing – and had fun.

Developing communicative competence in English is of central importance in the Swedish curriculum Lgr11. This book presents the results of a study into the impact of the Storyline approach on the second language classroom. It also provides excellent guidance for teacher education students and teachers of both younger and older pupils (aged 9–16) in how to adapt this Storyline for their own classes.