Human dignity in Norway

Historically, Norwegian jurisprudence has been characterized by a strong legal positivist approach. Some scholars have argued that this has amounted to a rejection of anything that could not be positively verified, including notions of human rights, duties, and values. It is perhaps unsurprising then that Norwegian law, both legislation and case law, has historically made only very few references to the notion of human dignity. Human dignity is a concept that plays a much more limited role in Norwegian judicial reasoning than it does in other European countries. This animosity to rights discourse and value-based reasoning is dissipating, however, and this change is most evident in the recent 2014 amendments to the Norwegian Constitution. Among other significant changes, the Norwegian Constitution now includes a single reference to human dignity in relation to the rights of children in Article 104. This may mean that the concept of human dignity will come to play a much more significant role in Norwegian law in the coming years

Legal Aid in Norway

The chapter analyses civil legal aid in Norway. It gives a brief review of the history of the legal aid scheme in Norway, a detailed description of the public legal aid scheme, and how the public scheme relates to third sector legal aid initiatives. In general, the chapter paints a picture of the Norwegian legal aid scheme as a traditional oriented and well-funded social support scheme, originating on the basis of a traditional welfare state ideology. However, the public scheme is struggling to meet the need for legal aid. The third sector legal aid, such as student run legal aid clinics and special outreach legal aid organisations, has developed alongside the public scheme. This development gives reason to question whether the current legal aid scheme is in keeping with welfare state ideals

The taming of a tragic heroine: Electra in eighteenth-century art

The article explores two cases of the reception of the tragic heroine Electra in the visual culture of the eighteenth century. The British artist John Flaxman (1755-1826) created three drawings of the heroine, two based on Aeschylus’ Choephori (1795) and a third, unfinished one modelled on Sophocles’ Electra. Angelika Kauffman (1741-1807), a Swiss artist, portrayed Electra’s meeting with her sister in her painting Electra giving her sister Chrysothemis her girdle and a lock of hair from Orestes for the grave of Agamemnon (circa 1778). Flaxman’s drawings stress Electra’s devotion to her dead father Agamemnon and her love for her brother Orestes. Kauffman’s more unusual painting emphasizes instead the collaboration of the two sisters. As a female painter Kauffman chose to portray Electra in a more active role drawing on Sophocles’ source text in which she persuades her sister to replace her mother’s gifts with her own. Both receptions, however, chose to marginalise the more ambiguous aspects of Electra’s portrayal in Greek tragedy, especially her desire for revenge. Thus, in order for Electra to be acceptable to an eighteenth century audience she had to be ‘tamed’ and her passionate voice silenced

Ancient plant DNA in archaeobotany

Holozän - aDNA - Archäobotanik - Makroreste - Genetik - Getreide - Früchte - Holz - Methode - Kulturpflanzen - Vegetationsgeschichte - Ernährun