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- Abrahamsson, Elin, 1983-
(författare)
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Enahanda läsning : En queer tolkning av romancegenren
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis investigates popular romance, a mass-cultural genre with a large female audience. Popular romance is often considered ”lowbrow” and is referred to by terms such as ”porn” and ”garbage”. The female reader of this so called “sentimental trash” is often portrayed as naïve and unworldly. The thesis makes this derogatory view of the genre its point of departure, to investigate what cultural understandings of gender and sexuality the critique against popular romance entails. The thesis further investigates how these conceptions of gender and sexuality deviate from and challenge a culturally promoted and normative sexuality.The thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter describes the selection of the empirical material and the theoretical and methodological framework. The empirical material consists of the three novels in the popular series Fifty Shades of Grey and the four novels and five films in the popular series Twilight. The thesis places itself within the field of feminist cultural studies and queer theory. It makes use of the concept of masturbation (both literal and figurative) as an analytical entry point and as a method focusing on the “here and now” of romance reading.The second chapter contextualizes the study by defining the term “popular romance” and by providing a brief historical overview of the genre. Previous research on popular romance is presented and discussed in relation to the derogatory view of the genre.The third chapter studies the Swedish media commentaries on Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight to define how the rejected romance reader is conceptualized, and how this romance reader is presumed to be reading. This “romance reader” is thereafter discussed in relation to the Western historical discourse on masturbation, “female illness” and (women’s) private reading. The chapter closes with a discussion on the form of reading that the romance reader is associated with. This self-immersed, excessive and over-invested reading form is defined as “masturbatory”.The fourth chapter explores the act of romance reading when defined as a sexual activity. The romance community is compared to the “second wave” feminism of the 1970s in order to demonstrate how the genre establishes a separatist female community where relations, positions, and identifications are in motion, revealing both homoerotic and autoerotic elements to this homosocial context.In the fifth chapter, a close reading of the material is performed with a focus on the “here and now” of the reading situation. The dichotomy of desiring subject and desired object is problematized in relation to looks and gaze. The thesis argues that the romance text uses detailed and intimate descriptions to instill a sexual charge and to freeze the flow of the storyline in order to make room for constant erotic contemplation. These “frozen moments” and the repetitiveness of the genre are discussed in relation to theories of queer temporality. The romance text constructs a room “outside of time” that privileges the overwhelming pleasures of the “here and now”. This liminal room is not only available for the heroine and hero of the story, but for the romance reader as well.The sixth and final chapter ties together the main arguments of the thesis in an overarching discussion on how conceiving romance reading as a form of masturbation challenges previous research on popular romance and the gendering of and contempt for mass culture.
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| 2. |
- Dolk, Klara, 1979-
(författare)
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Bångstyriga barn : Makt, normer och delaktighet i förskolan
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In recent years, feminist research in education has put an increasing emphasis on the relationship between children and adults, mostly connected to a critique of gender pedagogy and other forms of so-called “fundamental values education” (värdegrundsarbete). This study looks at the power relations between children and adults in preschool in the context of educational activities intending to increase gender equity, social equality, and participation. The study’s aim is to examine the tensions and conflicts that occur in this context. How are the power relations between adults and children expressed and negotiated? Which possibilities do children have for participation, for resistance, and for creating something new? On a more general level, the study intends to examine democracy in the context of the educational work in question. It hopes to contribute to a discussion about the democratic implications of our understanding of “children” and “adults”, both in the preschool context and in society at large. This also concerns children’s and adults’ possibilities to step outside of preconceived frames and engage in processes of transformation.As a methodological approach I have followed fundamental values education in a selected preschool for one school year. I did an ethnographic field study, in which I observed the preschool’s regular activities. I also had separate meetings with the teachers, during which we discussed the children’s possibilities to participate in fundamental values education, drawing inspiration from action research. As a theoretical departure point, and in order to investigate the power relations between adults and children, I use poststructuralist and feminist theory, with a particular interest in power, norms, and participation. I put the focus on children’s resistance and on “unruly children”, who, I argue, challenge us to revisit and improve our educational aspirations in gender equity, social equality, and participation.
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| 3. |
- Liliequist, Evelina, 1982-
(författare)
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Digitala förbindelser : Rum, riktning och queera orienteringar
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Internet has been available for the public during the past thirty years, and is perceived as having radically changed the terms of LGBTQ peoples’ possibilities of connecting with one and other, especially for LGBTQ people in rural spaces. With a queer phenomenological approach, the overall aim of the thesis is to analyze how people come to find their way in life from a non-heterosexual position. The aim is more precisely to study LGBTQ peoples’ use of social media and how this relates to queer orientations.The main material consists of fifteen interviews with LGBTQ people from the north of Sweden, focusing on the usage of digital environments and its importance for the informants’ queer orientations. The material also includes online observations from Facebook and Qruiser, as well as observations of two rural and queer themed Facebook groups and two rotating curated Instagram accounts. From one of these Instagram accounts, the entries of three informants living in the north of Sweden were collected. The material also includes press material and marketing of the app Grindr available at Grindr.com, App Store and the related site INTO.In the thesis, questions about when experiences are made, and where they are made are of importance. Particular interest is thus focused on time and geographical location, mainly focusing on the north of Sweden. With inspiration from actor network theory, it is taken into account how digital materiality, together with time and space, co-create conditions for use of social media and the understanding of these types of digital spaces. The thesis is centered around themes that came forth in the material: significance of digital environments in LGBTQ peoples’ lives, problems and possibilities in relation to openness and visibility, and how social media platforms are used to bring about change and re-negotiate notions of geographical space and sexual orientation. The thesis shows the significance of digital, geographical, human as well as non-human relations and norms that are of importance regarding queer orientations and its bearings.
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