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The leisure activity of digital gaming has seen an explosive increase in players worldwide, to the point that some scholars speak of a ludic society or a ludic century. Despite this, the sociological mechanisms regulating the gameplay preferences and practices of ludic citizens remain understudied. The aim of this study, thus, is to explore, understand and explain how the social reproduction of players of digital games occurs – by focusing on the individual biographies of players and identifying the differences in self-understanding of players within the game of gaming. Returning to Bourdieu’s original concepts of doxa, illusio and of capital as a transmutable resource functioning on a symbolic market, the article provides empirical examples of how differing capital volumes shape different gaming outcomes. Based on in-depth interviews with 36 Swedish players, and structured through an ideal-type analysis, the article presents an index of how different forms of capital function in determining the positions and dispositions of different players. The results suggest that players more invested in gaming are more materialistically inclined and, likewise, more socially active in their leisure activity, whereas players less invested in gaming are less prone to play with other players, but more invested in achieving self-fulfilment out-of-gaming.

This article proposes a widened view of fictional games by considering the game guidebook Vermis I –Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods (2023) by Plastiboo. Through a kaleidoscope of theoretical concepts hailing from playfulness, aesthetics, design, narratology, and literary reception, the authors engage with the issues of literary play and imaginary games. This con-clusion is drawn: Vermis exemplifies a fictional game existing both parallel to a secondary world and within its own secondary world created by afactual book. Its format invites a lit-erary play activity showcasing the playful power inherent in fictional games.

This article explores the field of contemporary gaming practices and preferences among players of various social backgrounds. From a Bourdieusian perspective based on the notion of different capital forms (economic, social, and cultural), the socialisation process of Swedish players of digital games (n=1019) is investigated through a multiple correspondence analysis on questionnaire data. The findings show that the contemporary Swedish gaming culture is clearly divided by gender and age, but not as visibly by social class, birthplace, or upbringing. The article concludes that the contemporary gaming culture restricts present dispositions and future trajectories among the agents of the gaming field.

The image of Northern Sweden has long been subjected to stereotyping, and the stereo­typed image of the Northerner is widely spread in various media contexts within Sweden. Historically, Norrland has been regarded as a wide wilderness, and the Norr­landic literature in turn has typically been studied in terms of the pastoral genre, the romanti­cism of the wilderness, or from an eco-critical perspective. The study of masculin­ity within modern Norrlandic literature, however, is largely overlooked, de­spite the undeniable stereotyping of Norrlandic males within other forms of media. This the­sis aims to solve this anomaly by providing insights into the creation processes of masculinity in three contemporary Norrlandic novels.

In the novels Smekmånader [Honeymoons, 2017] by Mikael Berglund, Solidärer [Solidarians, 2017] by Anna Jörgensdotter, and Silvervägen [The Silver Road, 2018] by Stina Jackson, the construct of Norrlandic masculinity is examined through close-reading. The questions of how Norrlandic masculinity is constructed is examined through a theoretical framework combining the hegemonic masculinity of R. W. Connell, the gender performativity and queer studies of Judith Butler, the frontstage and backstage perspective of Erving Goffman, and the creation of emotions of Sara Ahmed, in the reading of three contemporary novels following male protagonists—each seeing their identity challenged while on a journey far away from home.

Viktor of Honeymoons is constructed as a brave cry-baby or a highly sensitive person whose self is disintegrated in the absence of his wife Maija. He is furthermore constructed as a person offering emotional comfort, despite being deeply void of such comfort himself. Ingemar of Solidarians is constructed as a mummy’s boy or a dreamer who ends up as a martyr, who always requires the presence of a woman—his mother Eivor, Klara whom he is wooing, or Conxa whom he meets in the war in Spain—in order to advance from a mere lust to an actual event of action. His emotions are slightly supressed. Lelle of The Silver Road is constructed as an emotionally blunted vigilant or a nervous wreck, who readily succumbs to aggression and violence towards other men, in his lack of emotional cathexis to a physical person. He is struggling with his perceived failure in his role as a father, and is furthermore driven to action by his need of reconciling with his past. Nonetheless, none of the male protagonists exhibits a lasting hegemonic masculinity.

The study concludes that the analysed novels contribute to a new form of Norrlandic literature which challenges the traditional and stereotypical ideas of rural masculinity.

Syftet med examensarbetet Väst är väst och möter gärna sig självt är att granska innehållet i tre läroböcker avsedda för gymnasiekursen Svenska 2, för att synliggöra de diskurser kring internationella författarskap som skapas däri.

Läroplanen stipulerar att kursen Svenska 2 ska lyfta både svenska och ”internationella författarskap” och därtill avhandla relationen ”mellan skönlitteratur och samhällsutveckling”. Samtidigt ska den svenska skolan utveckla elevernas ”förmåga att leva med och inse de värden som ligger i en kulturell mångfald”, med anledning av det ”svenska samhällets international-isering och den växande rörligheten över nationsgränserna”. Detta examensarbete undersöker hur läroböckerna förhåller sig till värdegrunden i relation till sitt urval av internationella författarskap.

Studien nyttjar Norman Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys, och lutar sig mot postkoloni-alistiska och interkulturella teorier.

Studien konstaterar att läroböckerna på marknaden konstituerar en kulturell kanon, som reproducerar den västerländska litteraturhistorien samtidigt som den reducerar utomeuro-peiska författarskap till fotnoter eller trivia i sammanhanget.

The student thesis Nationalism and Norrientalism: A Discourse Analysis of the Norrlandic Independence Debate of Late Summer 2016 and Beyond aims to examine the style and content of the recent secession debate in the Swedish and Norrlandic printed press.

From the late summer of 2016 to the beginning of 2017 the question of Norrlandic sovereignty was a prioritized topic in the legacy media debate, as well as in social media. It commenced after the Swedish government enterprise Vattenfall planned to relocate forty employment opportunities from Jokkmokk, raising the question of Norrlandic independence based on a post-colonialist view of the region. This thesis examines how the framing of Northern Sweden as a colony has been established, re-established or refuted in the different discourses of the printed debate, through a faceted lens composed of various theories of Orientalism and nationalism.

Rooted in the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, merged with the critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough, and leaning against media theories of inoculation and framing, the study takes aim at the myths, metaphors, articulations and antagonisms which constituted the polemics in the printed press of the period.

The results conclude that the debate revolved around independence, resources, and the myth regarding Norrland—often described as a barren landscape, marked by vast distances and a lack of social services. The term colony was used to describe Norrland as marginalised and robbed of its natural resources, whereas the term was met by opposition from the objecting side, who emphasised the historic and present representation of Norrlanders in high politics. The colonial identity was constituted in the press through internal Orientalism by Stockholm writers and self-Orientalisation by Norrlandic ones. The most distinct patterns of difference between the objecting side and the advocating side of independence was the determination of the real economic loser of a Norrlandic secession from Sweden.