This study aims at exploring the rhetorical processes underpinning condolences, as expressed by Saudi Arabian governmental authorities on social media, with a focus on Twitter. Taking its starting point in January of 2015, when the Charlie Hebdo shooting took place in Paris, this study looks comparatively at several acts of terror in order to answer whether these different attacks elicited different responses, and if so, what knowledge can be drawn from this conclusion. Furthermore, this study examines the role of social media in public diplomacy, and in the production and distribution of political discourse, especially as it relates to statements of condolences and expressions of solidarity mediated through twitter. In order to explore this, rhetorical criticism (Mral 2008; Foss 2004; Peirce 2003) is combined with pentadic criticism (Burke 1945) and performativity theory (Rosenberg 2018; Zivi 2016; Gregson and Rose 2014) to form the methodology. A key theoretical concept in this study is “grievability,” which aims at understanding why some deaths are grieved and others are not (Butler 2009; Butler 2004; Butler 2003). As this study shows, mourning itself can be understood as rhetoric, serving political and diplomatic functions rather than being an expression of actual, sincere solidarity or grief. This study also shows that tweets from official government sources can be seen as a performance of public diplomacy, and as performative of the official’s own position. Lastly, it is argued that offering condolences are a way to purchase “humanitarian capital,” which is becoming increasingly important in global politics.

This study utilizes ethnographic methods to inquire how ideas of masculinities are perceived by English-language media professionals and media audiences in Egypt. Using semi-structured interviews and a survey, the aim is to find common narratives on how masculinity is perceived on personal levels and what terms are used to describe men and masculinities, which in turn can be used as the basis for further analysis of Egyptian media content. The word “narrative” in itself is used to convey personal experience, and the telling of those experiences, rather than generalizable data applicable to the larger population. Found are several common themes, such as emphasized heterosexuality, and the expectation of men as providers and protectors, which is related, by the respondents, to the nation and the military. Protection and militarism relates to ideas of strength, honor, and courage. Men are almost exclusively seen as possessors of power. The ‘head of the household,’ and the head of state, both portrayed as iconized leaders, emerge as the quintessence of Egyptian masculine identity, whether that identity is contested or not.

The chapter provides a brief overview of the development of the broadcasting sector in Egypt, demonstrating the significance of this sector in promoting the ideologies and policies of Egypt’s successive regimes, beginning with Nasser’s through al-Sisi’s governments. Although the sector was subjected to liberalization, under Mubarak’s rule, state television still dominated the broadcasting sector and controlled the dissemination of public information and news. When private licenses were granted, the new private stations were barred from engaging in newsgathering, and those who overstepped this line quickly lost their licenses. The hope for political changes after the overthrow of Mubarak has largely dissipated, as media censorship has continued under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, and it has intensified under al-Sisi’s presidency.

Denna uppsats är en litteraranalys av romanen Tiššārī av Inaam Kachachi. Analysen undersöker begreppet identitet och vad som bidrar till stärkandet av det, beroende på erfarenheterna man har varit med om. Metoden för analysen av denna roman är narratologi där strukturen i texten studeras närmare med fokus på ordningen av händelser samt vem berättaren av romanen är. Resultatet som har uppnåtts är att det finns flera irakiska identiteter som presenteras i olika tidsepoker och ur olika karaktärers perspektiv. Denna analys visar även vikten av kollektiva minnen som huvudkaraktären återberättar för att bidra till bevarandet och vidarebyggandet av den irakiska identiteten.

This article presents an interpretation of conceptual artist Qiu Zhen’s photographic work Me and My Bride: Satan’s Wedding No. 5 (2008) within the theoretical framework of Homi K. Bhabha’s Third Space. Because of its hybrid status and the work’s subtle likeness to certain visual elements related with the story of Frankenstein the interpretation is closely connected to that narrative. More specifically, the article uses this particular literary-photographical and cross-cultural panorama to explore artistic creativity, individuality and freedom of expression as articulated in this conceptual and postmodern work that was produced in the wake of preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games. The article further explores how something foreign like Frankenstein may engage with ‘Chineseness’ and how ‘Chineseness’ may be emphasized through the usage of something foreign. Thus this article approaches the concept of ‘Chineseness’ as a wearer of a foreign coat, negotiating the hybrid as a highly performative but softly speaking political product on the Chinese art scene.

Föreläsningen handlar om hur fotografiet nådde Kina och hur mediet sedan starten influerats av västerländsk, inhemsk kinesisk kultur och japanska trender. Med utgångspunkt i porträtt och salongsfoto på 1840-talet följer föreläsnigen utvecklingen fram till dagens internationellt uppmärksammade iscensatta fotografi och diskuterar hur det kan tolkas och förstås.

I år har den femte upplagan av Örebros konstbiennal OpenART gått av stapeln. Den är sedan 2013 den största konstbiennalen i Skandinavien och brukar visa verk av ett sjuttiotal konstnärer från olika delar av världen i stadsrummet och på museer. I år bidrog inte mindre än 13 kinesiska konstnärer och var därmed efter Sverige den mest representerade nationen. De två kinesiska utställningarna "Möten" och "Utan hämningar" fanns att beskåda 14juni–6 september och visade konstverk av Ai Weiwei, Chen Zhiguang, Cheng Dapeng, Chi Peng, Fu Zhongwang, Hu Weiyi, Li Binyuan, Liao Yijun, Song Dong, Wang Rui, Xu Bing, Yang Mushi och Yin Xiuzhen. Svensk-kinesiska föreningen var på plats och höll en visning i början av augusti. Här recenseras OpenARTs stora satsning på kinesisk samtidskonst.

M+museet för visuell kultur i Hongkong öppnar portarna för kinesisk samtidskonst och visuell kultur i ett unikt museiprojekt i Asien. 2018 står byggnaden på 60 000 kvm på plats med Herzog & de Meuron som arkitekt. M+ är dock mycket mer än byggnaden. Lars Nittve berättar under ett samtal i Umeå 2014 om hur det är att skapa ett nytt slags museum enligt demokratisk modell som inte tidigare funnits i Hongkong.

M+ is the Museum of Art and Visual Culture in Hong Kong that is currently under construction. The new Hong Kong museum will open its doors to the world in 2019. The idea of placing a museum like M+ in the larger cultural infrastructure project of West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) came from a group of people that the Hong Kong Government put together in 2006. This group, known as the Museum Advisory Group, was to think through what kind of museum Hong Kong needed besides the already existing museums it already had. The initiative for this new museum thus initially came from the Hong Kong government. The funding comes from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the decision to move ahead came in 2008–but it took until 2010 until Lars Nittve, at the time director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, was contacted and asked to become its visionary leader. M+ is a distinct Hong Kong project, looked upon with scepticism from Beijing. This paper puts the project of M+ in the contexts of the rising international interest in contemporary Chinese art after the turn of the millenium, the rising prices on this art on the international market, the rising economic status of contemporary Chinese art on the mainland, adding the ambitious museum building boom on the mainland since around the Shanghai Expo in 2010. What are the main differences between the art museum projects on the mainland and the building of M+ in Hong Kong? How is it to work with this museum project in the Hong Kong SAR environment? What does the existence of a museum like M+ mean to China and the World?

In the last decade the Hong Kong government has shown an interest in promoting large scale cultural development projects including Art Basel Hong Kong, the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) as well as M+ The Museum of Arts and Visual Culture, all presenting Hong Kong as a cultural hub. The development of those projects can be seen as a way for the city to diversify its economy through creative industries (CI) and urban entrepreneurship (Raco and Gilliam, 2012), making the place more appealing for international workers and global tourism. However, ongoing grassroots political movements such as the 2014 Umbrella Movement suggest that the Beijing government is keen to intervene with Hong Kong’s affairs. As a result, its cultural identity is being challenged. In this paper we argue that the study of the yet conceptual M+ museum contribute with accruing capital of cultural identity when compared to likewise huge museum projects in mainland China. We will further argue that the Hong Kong museum will represent an original that other museums in the world may wish to copy.

Ibrāhīm al-Miṣrī (1900–79) was an Egyptian short-story writer, essayist, journalist, and dramaturge. His family, of Levantine origin, emigrated to Egypt before his birth. Al-Miṣrī was born in Cairo and grew up in modest circumstances. Obliged to abandon his studies and start working at an early age, he was a self-taught person who acquired wide knowledge from long hours of reading in libraries. He earned his living as a journalist until his death.

Cet article aborde quelques aspects et fonctions concernant le début d’un corpus de romans arabes du XXe siècle, constitué en fonction de leur diversité technique et thématique. L’analyse des débuts est basée sur une approche à la fois discursive et narrative et prend en compte les aspects suivants : les trois codes figuratifs (espace, temps, personnage), le rapport du début avec l’ensemble de la structure narrative du récit, la manière dont le début annonce les idéologies sous-jacentes, le lien éventuel entre le début et la fin du récit, enfin, les répercussions de l’évolution chronologique du roman arabe sur le début de celui-ci.

Dans ce roman qui propose une nouvelle approche de la violence sectaire en Irak, l’humour intervient en permanence pour contrebalancer le pessimisme de la réalité. Après une présentation des traces de la littérature classique dans le roman, l’analyse se focalise sur les thèmes et les procédés rhétoriques qui provoquent le rire. Elle montre que l’humour et son fonctionnement dans le récit sont employés dans une logique comparable à celle de ǧidd et hazl dans les ouvrages classiques d’adab.

The beginning of Arabic novels of the first half of the 20th century, including those belonging to the so called “realism” trend, are charatcerized by certain traits concerning, among other things, the way they insert the  three elements : space, time, character into the text, the reality effect  they create, and the presence of the narrator as an addressor. With  the introduction of new writing techiniques after the 60's, these  trends changed gradually. From, for example,  introducing the the (space, time character) as a block and describing them in length , creating a realistic setting for the story , and having a discrete presence of the addressor, they have evolved into more diverse models where the three elements are spred ; the realistic impression loses its importance ; and the interpolations of the addressor into the text are more frequent. The present article aims, firstly, to present the major teatures of that evolution, and secondly, to show through a detailed analysis of the beginning of Thatrthara fawq al-Nil, 1966 by N. Mahfuz that this work, written in a pivotal moment of the history of the Arabic novel, includes already the beginnings of that evolution.

The City of the Dead is a large area on the periphery of Cairo where people live in house-like tombs. This study focuses on two Egyptian novels Sakawa 1-misri l-fasih (1981-1985) by Yusuf al-Qaid and Madad (2014) by Mahmud al-Wirwari, in which living in the cemeteries is portrayed as a paradoxical reality where life and death overlap. Limits between the two are blurred, and this creates a confusing situation where kind marks are lost and moral values are subverted. Tins situation echoes the characters' personal dilemmas and the uncertain historical context in winch they live. Tins article sheds light on the representation of life in the cemeteries and the concrete and symbolic function of tins space. It also discusses tins representation within the portrayal of peripheries and marginal spaces in contemporary Egyptian fiction, and explores the way the two novels published several decades apart use tins ambivalent: space to relate their respective historical realities.

Cet ouvrage consiste en une étude détaillée des débuts d''un corpus de romans arabes du vingtième siècle, constitué en fonction de leur diversité technique et thématique. Il tente de répondre aux interrogations suivantes: Qu''est-ce qu''un début de roman? Quelles sont, sur le plan énonciatif, les "priorités" dans le début? Comment le début fonctionne-t-il par rapport à l''ensemble du récit? Les composantes principales de l''histoire y sont- elles annoncées et si oui, comment? Enfin, existe-t- il des aspects spécifiques aux débuts des romans arabes liés à la culture dont ils sont issus? L''auteur a, par ailleurs, adapté une approche à la fois discursive et narrative et pris en compte les aspects suivants: les trois codes figuratifs (espace, temps, personnage); le rapport du début avec l''ensemble de la structure narrative du récit; l''éventuel lien entre le début et la fin de celui- ci, enfin, la manière dont le début annonce les idéologies sous-jacentes. Cette démarche a, parallèlement, permis de dégager les convergences et les divergences entre les récits étudiés et d''y repérer une certaine évolution chronologique.

This article presents shortly the evolution of the concepts of Utopia and Dystopia in the Modern Arabic narrative literature. It focuses then on the Utopia/Dystopia related to the theme of immigration. The two short stories: Aknusu al-šams ʿan al-suṭūḥ (1994) by Ḥanān al-Šayḫ, and Bi-l-Ams Ḥalimtu Bika (1984) by Baha’ Tahir are chosen to underline several aspects of the Utopia/Dystopia of the immigrants life. Before leaving their homelands, they seem to have an Utopian image of the foreign country. After arriving there, this Utopian image disappears in the context of a negative reality: lonliness, racism, loss of landmarks.... At the same time, the Dystopia of the reality creates, itself, a new form of Utopia: the faraway homeland. Thus the process of immigration seems to start from the Utopian elsewhere and ends by the Utopian homeland.  

By shedding light on accounts from unaccompanied Afghan asylum-seeking minors in Sweden who were child soldiers in Syria, this thesis explores and examines their narratives and their involvement in the civil war in Syria. The research aims to create a deeper understanding of how these children themselves made sense of their participation in the war by answering the following questions: How were the children approached by the recruiters?

What kind of reasons for joining the war are put forward by the recruiters and what strategies do the children encounter: a) economic; b) identity formation; c) social deprivation; d) feeling of vulnerability; e) militarization; f) mental development; g) ideology/ religious-sectarian; or all together?

How do the children perceive these encounters and make sense of their recruitment to the Shiite Fatemiyoun Brigade? To which extent has the ideology of Shi’ism played an important role for them in joining the Syrian War? This is a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews which combines procedures from two approaches and techniques: an ethnographic approach and a narrative approach that explores the interviewees’ experiences in a period of time and also generates detailed insights.

Despite the fact that none of the respondents testified for being recruited at gunpoint or having been ill-treated, the respondents emphasized that they were forced to join due to the bad circumstances they were living in. In addition, many similarities with other cases regarding child soldiering in several countries have been explored in this thesis, for instance factors related to the socio- economic context and the experiences that are related to the children’s development processes.

Differences can be located in various details regarding ideologies and indoctrination since the respondents did not share the politico-religious purposes of the recruiters. 

The purpose of this essay is to examine how conflicting identities associated with exile or diaspora is depicted in modern Iraqi literature, in this case in the novel The American Granddaughter by Inaam Kachachi. The story of the novel takes place during the Iraq War 2003-2006, and the protagonist is the holder of two identities as an Iraqi-American woman who is participating in the war as an interpreter. The situation of war results in a hostility between these nationalities even though the nations Iraq and the USA are not each other’s adversaries. This hostility brings about a sharp tension that causes brutality to escalate and this affects the protagonist as an Iraqi-American as her identity is being questioned and she experiences that her dual identity is becoming a problem. The protagonist serves as a vessel of the essence of the conflict of identities. Based on Jonas Stier’s theoretical concepts of identity (Stier, 2019) I will explore how the protagonist’s dual identity is constructed and the way this duality changes due to her experiences in the war and the circumstances she is being exposed to. By using Gérard Genette’s narratological concepts I will examine how the identity issue is presented in the novel, what is it caused by and what the consequences are.

The paper examines the approaches to management and settlement of inter-state disputes and their implications for regional collaboration in the Southeast Asian Region. The focus of the paper is on approaches to management and settlement of border and territorial disputes between the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). First the paper provides an overview of achievements in management and settlement as well as of remaining challenges of unsettled disputes. Then the paper outlines the core elements of ASEAN’s framework of dispute settlement mechanisms. In assessing the implications for regional collaboration, the focal point of analysis is on the relationship between bilateral approaches and the regional framework for dispute settlement established through ASEAN. A key dimension is an assessment of whether bilateral approaches strengthen or weaken the ASEAN framework.

The paper explores the multifaceted challenges to human security in Vietnam. It takes into account the fact that Vietnam had to endure major armed conflicts in the 20^th century. The paper highlights one of the neglected human security tragedies in Vietnam namely the mass-exodus of ethnic Chinese in the late 1970s and its enduring legacy. It also addresses other more generally acknowledged challenges such as the continued impact of past-militarised conflicts in particular the effects of the extensive use of Agent Orange by the United States of America during the so-called Vietnam War. The paper also looks at the new challenges to human security that have emerged in Vietnam following the end of regional conflicts, the end of isolation by leading western powers and the deepening of renovation and reform, i.e. the period since the early 1990s. The challenges include growing income gap and disparity between different segment of the population and uneven economic development between different regions.

The paper examines dispute settlement in practice through an overview of developments in the South China Sea region. It first studies dispute settlement arrangements from the international legal perspectives by examining the Charter of the United Nations and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. As a case study, the South China Sea region is assessed in regard to progress made and challenges persisted in dispute settlement and conflict management. The progress made is outlined through an overview of settled and managed territorial disputes in the South China Sea and adjacent area, followed by an analysis of settlement and management approaches. The challenge of the unsettled disputes is analysed and assessed by highlighting both the nature of the disputes and the efforts in managing them. The paper is concluded by a broader assessment of the progress made in terms of dispute settlement as well as of the remaining challenges in the South China Sea region from the perspectives of dispute settlement, in light of the international legal mechanisms.

The paper investigates how maritime peace in East Asia can be enhanced through the Charter of the United Nations. This is done through an examination of two key norms of the Charter, the prohibition of the use of force in inter-state relations and the peaceful settlement of disputes. The empirical application of these principles and their possible impact on maritime peace in the East Asia region is studied through the foreign policy of China and through the principles governing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This is motivated by the fact that both China and ASEAN put strong emphasis on non-use of force in inter-state relations and peaceful settlement of inter-state disputes. The paper examines the possible impact of the policies of the major external actor, i.e. the United States of America (USA). The paper is concluded by a broader discussion on the linkage between non-use of force and peaceful settlement of disputes and the promotion of maritime peace in East Asia.

Although webtoons have become one of the largest consumed media in South Korea, and many webtoons have been adapted to both film and television, there has been a lack of research on webtoon to television adaptations. This thesis will investigate the specific characteristics of the webtoon that make it suitable for television adaptation using the webtoon I Sneak A Look At His Room Everyday by Yu Hyŏn Suk and the television series Flower Boy Next Door directed by Chŏng Chŏng Hwa.By using narrative structure and character analysis the two works will be compared and contrasted to discover the similarities and differences that enable a smooth media conversion.The second part of the thesis looks into what a webtoon is and how it has evolved during the years. To explore the characteristics for media conversion the webtoon and the television series were analysed both separately and compared to find the commonalities and the differences.The results indicate that using similar storytelling methods such as story-arcs play a large role in the success of webtoon to television adaptation. Both media needs to keep their viewers on their toes to make them want to read/watch further.

The Japanese role-playing games attract players worldwide. Though, this is not necessarily due to a fascination with Japanese culture. While considering recent research on video games in Japanese Studies, especially the monograph by Rachael Hutchinson, this thesis puts an emphasis on Game Studies, as represented by Espen Aarseth. Accordingly, it asks whether the attraction of Japanese video games is primarily due to their game ‘play’, or their stories and narrated themes. In Game Studies this issue is known as the controversy between ‘ludologists’ and ‘narratologists’. Taking Atelier Shallie (2014–2020) as its main example, this study studies the different experiences provided by the ludic (gameplay) and the scripted parts (cutscenes). Ultimately it arrives at the conclusion that the combined theory of Ludonarratology has the greatest potential to account for all narrative factors in a video game such as Atelier Shallie. This includes possibilities for future interdisciplinary research.

As violent conflicts become increasingly intra-state rather than inter-state, international migration has rendered them increasingly transnational, as protagonists from each side find themselves in new countries of residence. In spite of leaving their homeland, the grievances and grudges that existed between them are not forgotten and can be passed to the next generation.

This book explores the extension of homeland conflicts into transnational space amongst diaspora groups, with particular attention to the interactions between second-generation migrants. Comparative in approach, Diasporas and Homeland Conflicts focuses on the tensions that exist between Kurdish and Turkish populations in Sweden and Germany, examining the effects of hostland policies and politics on the construction, shaping or elimination of homeland conflicts.

Drawing on extensive interview material with members of diasporic communities, this book sheds fresh light on the influences exercised on conflict dynamics by state policies on migrant incorporation and multiculturalism, as well as structures of migrant organizations. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of sociology, political science and international studies with interests in migration and diaspora, integration and transnational conflict.

In present time, to be mobile, to be able to physically move from point A to point B is something taken for granted by a small minority of the world’s population, while the vast majority are caught within or between borders. How did we reach to this point? This study examines the lived experiences of (im)mobility in Jordan. It captures the experiences of Syrians who live in Jordan and who have been denied mobility because of their flight from their homeland. By means of an ethnographical approach this study challenges conventional conceptions of what it means to be displaced. Situating the understanding of displacement in relation to the modern nation state, territorial boundedness, national identity and geographical categorizations it ultimately lays the foundation for conceptualizing the relative human (im)mobility and its links to a historical past. Through travelling and living in Jordan periodically between 2017-2018, totalizing approximately 6 months, conducting semi-structured interviews and engaging in everyday social and contextual encounters, this study offers a more multifaceted understanding of what it means to be (im)mobile in present time, as additional to conventional scholarship. It ultimately demonstrates that displacement as we understand it today is inadequate and simplified, and as we reassess its components we are able to reconceptualize the understandings of relative human (im)mobility.

This study examines how the word ʾillā is treated in the Swedish Qur’ān translation from 1917 by Karl Vilhelm Zetterstéen. The analysis is based on Swedish and Arabic grammar and translation theory, and considers the fact that this Qur’ān translation is considered to be quite faithful to the source text. The study finds that the textual equivalent of ʾillā varies greatly in the target text, and further that it is not limited to exclusive conjunctions nor exceptives; rather, it often consists of a restrictive adverb in an affirmative clause, when ʾillā in the source text is in a negative clause. This points to a unique problematic of translation where ʾillā is concerned, which warrants further examination in future studies. 

This study aims to draw and discuss parallels between the humour of kyōgen that is depicted in the play The Delicious Poison, and theories about humour as a behavioural mechanism.  Using existing theories about humour and Japanese dramatic aesthetics as a foundation, the research commences from the following questions: Based on the text and the stage directions, what possibilities do kyōgen actors in the play The Delicious Poison have to use dramaturgic comic devices to cause a humorous reaction among the audience? What are these devices and why do they work the way they do, theoretically?

Based on a collection of qualitative data from both primary and secondary sources, the script of The Delicious Poison was translated and analysed using the theories presented. It was found that the most prominent humour devices used in the play were those of doxa (recognition or prior knowledge), exaggeration, and comprehension-elaboration (element of surprise), along with the escalating structural principle of jo-ha-kyū (introduction, development, climax).  Future research including analysis of kyōgen plays of other genres, is however needed to confirm the correct use of the theories and the findings.