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This project examines the influence of the myth of Danish design on the consumption of Danish furniture. Danish design has historically been associated with qualities such as timelessness, craftsmanship, tradition and beauty and has played a significant role in the development of Danish society and culture. The construction of the category of modernist Danish design and its narratives was shaped by a social network of individuals and organizations, linking Danish design to notions of good taste and healthy living. Today, Danish design is praised for the same understated and high-quality features which legitimize its contemporary success.By drawing on Roland Barthes' theory of myth and Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, this study investigates both the way in which the myth of Danish design is created, and consumed. The analysis combines a semiotic examination of Danish design mythology with a conceptual content analysis of interviews conducted by a Danish furniture company, Fredericia, as part of their celebration of Børge Mogensen's Folkestolen’s 75th anniversary.The findings reveal that the myth of Danish design influences the consumption of Danish furniture by communicating symbolic valuations associated with positive attributes such as beauty, timelessness, and fine craftsmanship. Simultaneously, the myth perpetuates ideological narratives that serve the interests of dominant power groups in society, including the Danish nation state, the furniture industry and even certain groups of consumers. The furniture industry strategically exploits the myth to drive desirability and capitalize on the associations carried within Danish design.This research underscores the sociocultural function of myth, which constructs markers of social, national, and personal identity. Danish furniture transcends its functional and aesthetic aspects, becoming a symbol of economic and cultural wealth and social status. Simultaneously, the myth of Danish design distorts ideological narratives around class dominance and power and naturalizes the notions of nationalism and Danishness into signifieds of tradition, health, functionalism, sustainability, and social accessibility. The analysis situates consumption within the context of cultural capital, modern mythology, and late-stage capitalism, highlighting the transformation of furniture into tools for managing self-identity, and signifiers of social status and taste. The holders of cultural capital benefit from perpetuating the myth of Danish design, securing both material and symbolic profits from ownership of Danish furniture. Thus the class elite utilizes its cultural competence to maintain its capital and power dominance in society, as cultural capital reproduces social structures.This research investigates the complex interplay between the myth of Danish design, the consumption of Danish furniture, and their sociocultural implications. By critically examining the myth's influence, this study offers insights into the mechanisms by which design narratives and cultural capital shape consumption and perpetuate power dynamics in society.

This includes the extensive Supplementary Information (SI) document for the paper "A New Framework for Quantifying Prehistoric Grave Wealth", explaining the methods, background material, intermediate calculations for every object and grave, as well as other considerations that could not fit in the main paper. This is a dynamic document with dynamic contents, (some) interactive graphs, and interactive tables, and therefore works best in html-format. Download the file SI.html and open it in your favorite browser (tested in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge) and the whole document should show with all functions. Alternatively, it may be viewed without downloading at https://prehistoricmap.com/quantwealth/SI.html (although not a stable link). A static version of the code as it was used and data used in the study at the time of publication is also included here in the file QuantWealth.zip, and a link to the GitHub page where a continuously updated version is available is found in the file GitHub_repo_link.txt, or go directly to https://github.com/mnortoft/QuantWealth. This research was part of a PhD project funded by the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen

This project will deep into the motives and reasons behind cultural destruction. It will underline the will to entirely wipe off a distinctive group of population and its culture. Taking Syria as our main case given the events of the last decade; centring in the civil war where lives and art have been lost forever, together with the morale of its population, which fled to other countries in big numbers throughout the war. As for the perpetrators, ISIS will be the focus of our project, guilty of intentionally destroying many monuments, especially in Syria. Before explaining and answering to the questions of the project regarding culture, it is more than mandatory to analyse Syria’s history, tribes and regions. After reaching the core of our project and describing the possible reasons behind these actions, the third part of our project, which focuses on the emotional sphere of the victims. War brings with itself grief, loss, damage and destruction to a country and its material environment. To focus on the emotional attachment and emotional damage during this war shall be a matter of discussion nevertheless. We will not only analyse and discuss cultural destruction and the loss for humanity whenever perpetrators decide to damage forever something so important as our, as humans, common and singular past.

In the past few months more than a billion people have faced restrictions unlike any seen before. Shops are closed; the death toll is rising; people across the globe have been forced to rise to an extraordinary challenge. But it is important to remember that humans have experienced pandemics before. In this documentary Dan Snow explores some of these previous pandemics and what they can teach us about Covid-19. He talks to Dr James Rogers about what lessons we can learn from WW2.

This project was set out to explore the role of the Turing Test in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with emphasis on the historical perspective. This report contains an introductory presentation of the Turing Test and Artificial Intelligence. Furthermore, it presents two methods for analysis. The first method is a quantitative search in extracting the number of results from Google Scholars for search range between 1950 and 2019. The searched terms are ‘Turing Test’ and ‘Artificial Intelligence’. The second method is the one used for the analysis of two case studies, ELIZA and Google Duplex. In exploring the historical development, ELIZA is an early research topic from 1966 and Google Duplex is a contemporary project from 2018. This report concludes that the Turing Test appears to have played a role in the historical development of AI. Results from the quantitative search show that there is an exponential growth, followed by a short stabilisation, before it begins to decay towards the last decade. Both case studies failed when subjected to a strict Turing Test. Though when subjected to the Total Turing Test, Google Duplex seems to surpass it. Finally, this report also concludes that the Turing Test may no longer be relevant, as mediums for AI have evolved beyond text-based and most developments are no longer concerned with tricking humans.

In the paper we describe a new EU infrastructure project dedicated to lexicography. The project is part of the Horizon 2020 program, with a duration of four years (2018-2022). The result of the project will be an infrastructure which will (1) enable efficient access to high quality lexicographic data, and (2) bridge the gap between more advanced and less-resourced scholarly communities working on lexicographic resources. One of the main issues addressed by the project is the fact that current lexicographic resources have different levels of (incompatible) structuring, and are not equally suitable for application in in Natural Language Processing and other fields. The project will therefore develop strategies, tools and standards for extracting, structuring and linking lexicographic resources to enable their inclusion in Linked Open Data and the Semantic Web, as well as their use in the context of digital humanities.

The field of subtitling is certainly one of the underrated and underexplored areas in the academic world. This project intends to outline the lengthy evolution of subtitles as it was being shaped throughout the last century by experimenting with its different forms and uses. The historical perspective sheds light on the field of subtitling and looks at its functions, technology, and usages, tracing its change from the origin to its present-day form. The intention of covering the historical side of the field is to familiarize the reader with the profession and its practices before stepping into a more detailed observation, covering linguistic and semiotic elements of subtitling. As a medium of communication, it is a field that can reach countless viewers. It can be used as a tool for educating the illiterate, deaf and the hard of hearing, students of second language, enriching vocabulary, maintaining language skills for the elderly, not to mention its capability of translating information to a non-native-speaker audience for the purpose of exchanging cultural wealth.

The motivation for this project was based on the newly founded movement DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement 2025) and their manifesto. The movement’s ideas and visions are based on the critique of the European Union’s handling of the economic, refugee and migration crisis’, that has been debated throughout Europe in recent years. With their manifesto, DiEM25 has formulated an idealistic alternative vision for the future Europe. This assignment seeks to find answers to what kind of alternative this is. More specifically; which kind of cosmopolitanism is expressed in the manifesto, and which European concept historical traditions this cosmopolitanism builds upon. The analysis conducted in this project will be a comparative concept historian analysis of the cosmopolitan vision formulated in the DiEM25 Manifesto. The assignment concludes that the manifesto entails a potential utopian cosmopolitan vision of re-democratising Europe, and more specifically the EU in our present modern and globalised world. Furthermore, it concludes that the the cosmopolitanism in the DiEM25 Manifesto builds on a long tradition of cosmopolitan ideas, leading back to Immanuel Kant initial ideas of cosmopolitanism, through post world war and the thoughts of Ulrich Beck up until the 21st century and the notion of New Cosmopolitanism.

This project examines F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby and the historical, cultural, and societal periods surrounding, following its publication on April 10, 1925. Specifically, the Roaring Twenties (1920-29), the Great Depression (1929-39), and World War II (1939-45), in light of the wonder that it started out with lackluster reviews and only meager sales but later rose to international fame and popularity as the literary phenomenon we know today, all within the span of this specific generation. Applying a dualistic approach to the analysis, the project seeks to both study the literature and the culture, by introducing two different but complementing theoretical perspectives: The psychological perspective and the Marxist perspective. This is done to make sure that both the novel and its characters are analyzed from both an internal and an external perspective, to increase and to expand the understanding of Fitzgerald’s literary work and its impact on American culture and society. The project concludes that a reason the novel was not popular when it was first published is that the materialist and consumerist generation of the Roaring Twenties primarily identified with Daisy over Gatsby - and the way she chose her safety and esteem needs met with Tom Buchanan over her love needs and a life with Gatsby. Hence the perception and interpretation of a character like Jay Gatsby has changed radically through years of cultural and societal upheaval, which eventually caused the novel to finally be accepted and appreciated. In the 1920s, Gatsby was primarily seen as a critique of the lavishly spending and materialistic status quo, and people did not care much for that because of a bad social conscience, or they simply did not understand the critique. But later, in the 1940s, the American outlook had changed forever and so had their view of Gatsby, enthroning him instead as a hero, an icon and idol, and as a role model.

Through this paper, we examine the redesign process that the building of Nikolaj Church has gone through from the 1960ies, to how it appears today, as Nikolaj Kunsthal. The traces and layers have visible signs of a random design process through time. Nowadays the art centre aims for a coherent atmosphere and sense of place in an upcoming design process. Our analysis of textual data gathered from relevant documents and interviews with key stakeholders, relies on the development of a sociotechnical perspective. This perspective allows us to recognise the various agencies and networks in connection to the design process that emerge from the technical and social aspects, which are analysed. The findings emphasize the building as an actant and a network, that plays a crucial part in the design process.