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Playground Sweden is a travel report through contemporary Swedish street art that refuses to follow conventional rules. Richly illustrated with unique pictorial material that will show you not only the finished product, but also the creative process of street art. ... Read more

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During the past fifty years immigrants from 160 nations have transformed Sweden from an ethnically relatively homogeneous society into an intensely multi-ethnic one. By the beginning of the 1990s more than one million out of a population of eight and a half million were immigrants or children of immigrants. By the early 1990s some ten percent of the Swedish population are foreign born. This change in Swedish life and culture results in considerable tension and misunderstandings. Perhaps, Mansson would contend, in no area is this more evident than in love relationships. In this book, he sets out to explore different aspects of the encounter between immigrant males and Swedish sexual and cohabitation culture, and to analyze this encounter in relation to the important elements in the cultural patterns and processes that have shaped and still shape immigrant males' gender-role specific socialization. ... Read more

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The twentieth century was characterized by an obsession with the impulse to be "modern." New times demanded new ideologies and models of social organization that in turn stimulated new forms of art, architecture, photography, film, and design. This beautiful book examines how modernity was expressed in Sweden during the twentieth century. More than two hundred illustrations document the work of artists, photographers, industrialists, designers, and architects whose ideas and practices, rooted within modernism and the modern movement, became a part of the vital heritage for which Sweden is still renowned.The contributors to the volume discuss the impulses behind modernism, the concepts attached to it, and its expression in a variety of media. They consider the work of those artists who at the beginning of the century ventured out to the great European centers, Paris and Berlin, as well as those who stayed at home to depict a society in transition. They also look closely at the work of architects who shaped Swedish functionalism, of designers who created new consumer goods, industrial designs, and unique objects, and of photographers who added their own unique perspectives to the changes in the modern world ... Read more

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This book covers the whole of Bergman's production, but concentrates in particular on close analyses of five of his major films: Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, The Silence, Persona, and Cries and Whispers. In addition to bringing post-modernist theoretical strategies to bear on the films, it offers a clear, current, pluralist feminist perspective. ... Read more

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Across the traditional welfare states of Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada there has been an increasing emphasis in recent years on 'activation' by the unemployed as a tool for fighting unemployment. The core idea of activation programmes is the integration and empowerment of jobseekers through active work-related measures rather than passive income support. The active society is defined as one that ensures people can work, and enables them to do so by strengthening their skills and competences, and avoiding the pitfalls of creating a permanent underclass of welfare recipients. However, the empirical evidence of the efficacy of activation programmes is far from conclusive and there have been no systematic studies of the effects of activation programmes on the lives of the unemployed people who come into contact with them. This book is based on a detailed ethnographic study of the highly praised Swedish rehabilitation organization Samhall, which the author augments with archival research on activation programmes in Sweden and extensive interviews with both welfare agencies and jobseekers.Samhall today is one of Scandinavia's largest corporations, employing 22,000 previously unemployed individuals. It is also highly embedded into the Swedish welfare system and often regarded as a model welfare state. Based on his empirical findings Holmqvist analyses how the concrete practices that aim to enact the active society can produce passive and incapacitated citizens. By individualising the reasons for their unemployment, activation programmes tend to stigmatize the behaviour of their participants, effectively casting them as responsible for their own unemployment. By 'disabling' people, thereby accommodating them in activation programmes, there is the potential for societies to 'solve' pressing social issues such as unemployment, particularly in regions where there is a weak labor market, concomitant with a form of state-sanctioned provision of inexpensive labor. ... Read more

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How is the United States different from other states? Why is it different? The Roots of American Exceptionalism draws on societies' unique histories, distinctive paths of institutional development and contrasting cultures to explain why they adopt different policies for common problems. It compares the United States with Sweden on tax policy, Canada on financing medical care, France on abortion policy, and Japan on immigration. The book shows that American public policies across these four areas fit a pattern of embodying the fundamental beliefs and value priorities of a particular culture: individualism. And while American public policies are rational from this cultural perspective, this culturally-constrained rationality is contrasted with alternative culturally-constrained rationalities, that are more egalitarian and/or hierarchical, prevailing in Sweden, Canada, France and Japan.
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Poised between the commercialism of mass consumption and a questioning of prevailing social norms, youth cultures offer a fascinating insight into the social and cultural state of Western societies. This book provides a lively exploration of such cultures, with all their implicit ironies and contradictions, at the end of the twentieth century. The contributors highlight current forms of expression - music, style, fashion, entertainment - and the richness of youth cultures' historical and contemporary variety. Key issues analyzed include: why are young people seen as at risk from popular culture? How does late modernity affect changing shifts in gender relations? How do young people relate to texts, from the literary to the transgressive? How do the young construct alternative social spheres and symbolic forms?At the same time the book outlines the range of approaches to understanding youth culture and subculture and their relations to or differences from, popular and high culture. This innovative collection will be essential reading for students of cultural studies and communications, and for all those across the humanities and social sciences interested in the nature, formation and dynamics of youth cultures. ... Read more

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On the demand side, exporters and strategic planners focusing on prepared culture media for the development of micro-organisms in Sweden face a number of questions. Which countries are supplying prepared culture media for the development of micro-organisms to Sweden? How important is Sweden compared to others in terms of the entire global and regional market? How much do the imports of prepared culture media for the development of micro-organisms vary from one country of origin to another in Sweden? On the supply side, Sweden also exports prepared culture media for the development of micro-organisms. Which countries receive the most exports from Sweden? How are these exports concentrated across buyers? What is the value of these exports and which countries are the largest buyers?

This report was created for strategic planners, international marketing executives and import/export managers who are concerned with the market for prepared culture media for the development of micro-organisms in Sweden. With the globalization of this market, managers can no longer be contented with a local view. Nor can managers be contented with out-of-date statistics which appear several years after the fact. I have developed a methodology, based on macroeconomic and trade models, to estimate the market for prepared culture media for the development of micro-organisms for those countries serving Sweden via exports, or supplying from Sweden via imports. It does so for the current year based on a variety of key historical indicators and econometric models.

In what follows, Chapter 2 begins by summarizing where Sweden fits into the world market for imported and exported prepared culture media for the development of micro-organisms. The total level of imports and exports on a worldwide basis, and those for Sweden in particular, is estimated using a model which aggregates across over 150 key country markets and projects these to the current year. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland (born Stockholm, 14 July 1977) is the heiress-apparent to the Swedish throne. If she ascends to the throne as expected, she will be Sweden's fourth queen regnant (after Margaret, Christina, and Ulrika Eleonora). Victoria is the eldest child of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, and belongs to the Royal House of Bernadotte. Born as a Princess of Sweden, she was designated Crown Princess in 1979 (SFS 1979:932) ahead of her younger brother. Her first place in succession formally went into effect on 1 January 1980 with the parliamentary change to the Act of Succession that introduced equal primogeniture. Victoria is the only female heir-apparent in the world currently (though there are several females who are heiresses-apparent of an heir-apparent) and is usually styled HRH The Crown Princess. ... Read more

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Although Ingmar Bergman (b. 1918) holds an undisputed place in the pantheon of major filmmakers, mention of his name unjustly evokes images of monolithic gloom and despair. All of his pictures, including his comedies, deal seriously with faith, morality, and mortality, but audiences and critics too often neglect the extraordinary wit and vitality that can be found in Wild Strawberries, Scenes from a Marriage, Fanny and Alexander, and many others.

In Ingmar Bergman: Interviews, the director discusses various stages of his career and the many facets of his work. The man and his films are revealed to be funny, full of life, and surprising as well as thoughtful, complex, and profound. In interviews with important writers, critics, and filmmakers, including James Baldwin, Michiko Kakutani, John Simon, and Vilgot Sjoman, Bergman describes a grand vision that justifies his affinity with Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Dostoyevsky. The volume begins with a 1957 piece, conducted just as he completed his early masterpiece The Seventh Seal, and ends in 2002, as he was preparing to direct Saraband, his latest film. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Opening up the roof
Toward the end of his 1971 conversation with Richard Meryman, easily the best interview in this collection, Bergman says that "to make a film is to try to open up the roof--so we can breathe" (p. 112).This is as good a one-line characterization of Bergman's project as I know.Bergman's films defy easy analysis, sometimes because they're poorly conceived, as Bergman himself admits (he thinks, for example, that "Through a Glass Darkly" is a prime example), sometimes because even Bergman in retrospect isn't quite sure what he was trying to do, but sometimes because there's simply a great deal of depth to them.How, for example, to collapse the message of loneliness, despair, human nature, and hope conveyed in "The Silence" into a couple of sentences?But what Bergman at his best does succeed in doing is expanding us, opening up the roofs of our worldviews, inviting us--sometimes forcing us--to breathe in an atmosphere that's crisp and thin and heady.

Readers who pick up Raphael Shargel's collection of Bergman interviews in the hope that the master will explain what his films are about will be disappointed.Bergman tells us that he wants to elicit emotional experiences first and cerebral ones second in his films; that dreams have influenced his scripts and his director's eye; that he works best when his days are rigorously scheduled; that he thinks a film is "selected reality" (p. 106), which reminds me of Tarkovksy's beautiful characterization of film-making as "sculpting time"; that he thinks a certain "childishness"--a naivete, an openness to experience--is essential for good art.But what Bergman doesn't do, appropriately enough, is tell us how to interpret his films.So in many ways, his intervews are as mysterious as his artworks.

The interviews collected by Shargel vary in quality.As I've mentioned, Richard Meryman's is the best of the lot, closely followed by A. Alvarez's.The "Playboy" interview conducted by Cynthia Grenier is worse than worthless, and seems intent on focusing on little else than sex in "The Silence" (the interview was conducted shortly after the film's American debut).There are numerous typos in the text."Feeling" is consistently spelled "felling," for example, and at one point Bergman is referred to as the "15 year old creator of 'The Silence'"!The only other book I've read by the University of Mississippi Press was also poorly proofed.Strange that an academic press is so careless in its copyediting.

Shargel's collection is a decent starting point for readers new to Bergman, but better ones include Bergman's memoirs, The Magic Lantern (2007) and Images (1995).Jesse Kalin's The Films of Ingmar Bergman (2003) is highly recommended for serious students.

Provides me with a valuable tool for lecturing.
This collection of interviews with Ingmar Bergman gives the reader almost a definitive view of not only the great director's vision, but of his constantly evolving artistry.As a teacher, I found the discussions of individual films invaluable.

Incredibly valuable
No film critic could have approached Bergman with such passionate understanding and insight as Raphael Shargel.Following his film reviews in The New Leader for years, I am not surprised by his far reaching ability to grasp a life's work as he does his movies, always interested in their impact on society and us as individuals as well as the history that produced them in our time.When you get to it, your understanding of Bergman and appreciation for the value ofinterviews across a lifetime will be as rich as this book's index.

Great book!Highly informative!
I'm a big fan of Bergman, and I was thrilled to see these interviews come back into print. They tell you so much about Bergman's life, films, and his personal opinions. Organized chronologically, this book reveals a development of Bergman both as an artist and as a person. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about Bergman's genius or film in general.The introduction offers terrific insight into the mind of an artist. ... Read more

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This book is the first comprehensive introduction and guide to Sweden’s most spectacular Stone Age monuments: the dolmens and passage graves, which began to be constructed over 5000 years ago.The introduction provides a detailed social interpretation of these monuments outlining how and why they were built and the ways in which they related to economy and landscape, politics, ceremony, symbolism and belief. This is followed by a systematic regional guide to all the major monuments in Skåne, Halland, Västergotland, Öland and Bohuslän, illustrated by numerous photographs, plans and maps. ... Read more

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Nordic National Cinemas explores the film histories and cultures of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The authors examine each country's domestic film production, social and political context and domestic audiences from the beginning of this century to the twentieth century.
The authors not only explore the work of internationally renowned figures such as Mauritz Stiller, Victor Sjostrom, Carl Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman, directors of such classics as Vampyr, Ordet, Wild Strawberries and Cries and Whispers, but also nationally important film makers such as August Blom, Bodil Ipsen, Lau Lauritzen and Nils Malmros, they also discuss contemporary film makers including Gabriel Axel, director of Babette's Feast, the Kaurismaki brothers, directors of The Match Factory Girl and The Leningrad Cowboys and the recently acclaimed Lars von Trier, director of Breaking the Waves. ... Read more

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On the demand side, exporters and strategic planners focusing on human blood, prepared animal blood, toxins, cultures of micro-organisms, and similar products excluding yeasts in Sweden face a number of questions. Which countries are supplying human blood, prepared animal blood, toxins, cultures of micro-organisms, and similar products excluding yeasts to Sweden? How important is Sweden compared to others in terms of the entire global and regional market? How much do the imports of human blood, prepared animal blood, toxins, cultures of micro-organisms, and similar products excluding yeasts vary from one country of origin to another in Sweden? On the supply side, Sweden also exports human blood, prepared animal blood, toxins, cultures of micro-organisms, and similar products excluding yeasts. Which countries receive the most exports from Sweden? How are these exports concentrated across buyers? What is the value of these exports and which countries are the largest buyers?

This report was created for strategic planners, international marketing executives and import/export managers who are concerned with the market for human blood, prepared animal blood, toxins, cultures of micro-organisms, and similar products excluding yeasts in Sweden. With the globalization of this market, managers can no longer be contented with a local view. Nor can managers be contented with out-of-date statistics which appear several years after the fact. I have developed a methodology, based on macroeconomic and trade models, to estimate the market for human blood, prepared animal blood, toxins, cultures of micro-organisms, and similar products excluding yeasts for those countries serving Sweden via exports, or supplying from Sweden via imports. It does so for the current year based on a variety of key historical indicators and econometric models.

In what follows, Chapter 2 begins by summarizing where Sweden fits into the world market for imported ... Read more