| 1. |
- Berg, Henrik, 1966-
(författare)
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Constructing Athenian Masculinities : Masculinities in Theophrastus' Characters and Menander's Comedies
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study examines the construction of masculinities in Theophrastus’ Characters and Menander’s comedies. As these works were written in early Hellenistic Athens during a period of great political and social changes, there is reason to assume that also the construction of gender changed. The aim of the study is to identify the hegemonic masculinity in the literary sources and see how it and other masculinities were constructed. This is carried out with the help of contemporary critical theories on men and masculinities, especially R. W. Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity and perspectives of intersectionality. The study argues that the use of contemporary theories helps to broaden the understanding of gender in antiquity. With the use of Connell’s theory on hegemonic masculinity a complex picture of masculinities emerges that intersects several social constructions including age, financial and social belonging. The hegemonic masculinity that emerges is one of Athenian citizenship at the age of being a kyrios with an oikos that contained children. It is also a masculinity that is dependent on fulfilling or obtaining the three virtues of sophrosyne, autarkeia and philantropia. The hegemonic masculinity seems to be one of nostalgia, focusing on how the contemporaries of Theophrastus and Menander perceived the hegemonic masculinity of a past era when Athens was one of the great powers in the region without foreign domination and interference. The study shows that, as in Connell’s theory, the hegemonic masculinity was one that no single male could obtain or maintain for any longer period of time. It is also the case that all gender relates in one way or another to the hegemonic masculinity.
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| 2. |
- Grahn, Lisa, 1989-
(författare)
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Jernbanans mödrar : Moderskap och berättande i Sara Lidmans Jernbaneepos
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis examines motherhood and mothering in seven novels by the Swedish author Sara Lidman (1923–2004). Published between 1977 and 1999 and collectively known as the Railroad Epic, the novels depict the industrialization of Northern Sweden in the late 19th century, and how it affected the people living there. Reading it as a story about motherhood and mothering not only broadens our understanding of Lidman’s work, but also widens the scope of representations of motherhood in Swedish literature. The study examines the depictions of lived experiences of motherhood, pregnancy and childbirth in the novels, as well as the conflict between (bodily) integrity and incorporation into family life and ideals. Moreover, it explores narratological power structures and the ethical implications of the motherhood motif. The analysis comprises close readings of the embodied experiences of motherhood and mothering, influenced by feminist phenomenological thinking. The epic is read as historiographical metafiction, as a way of using historical narratives to explore and question how history itself is told.The study uses the masculine-coded capitalist and colonial market economy that is introduced during the course of the novels to contextualize the mothers’ positions in a patriarchal structure, while focusing on mothering work to center the agency of the mothers. To this end, the thesis illustrates the width and complexity of the experiences of mothering in the novels, while connecting it to the wider themes of the epic, such as colonialism, modernity, and the conflict between community and integrity. Concerning this conflict, the study argues for a reading of pregnancy and mothering as potential sources for transcendence. Furthermore, the results highlight how already existing power structures are effected by gendered reproduction norms, creating a hierarchy amongst mothers which is then replicated in the narrative. In addition to these individual experiences, the results demonstrate how the matrilineal, along with repeated events and magical elements such as visions, ghosts, and spirits of unborn children, create a perception of existence as fragmented and multi-layered. The deconstruction of hegemonic history and storytelling is interpreted as a way to share experiences and sensations that are perceived of as ineffable, and to tell the stories of the unheard.
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| 3. |
- Haglund, Tuva, 1986-
(författare)
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Tillsammans i Engelsfors : Socialt fiktionsbruk i Engelsforstrilogins digitala fangemenskap 2011–2016
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis examines a digital reading community within a framework of fan culture. This community was formed in the early 2010s by fans of a Swedish fantasy series, The Engelsfors Trilogy (2011–2013), written by Mats Strandberg and Sara Bergmark Elfgren. Fan culture can be described as an interpretative community with established terminology and repertoires. Within a growing participatory culture, fans’ active engagements with fictional worlds have become mainstream, and more broadly spread. My study focuses on the creative practice of fan art, that is stories, pictures and videos created by fans, with an original work as a point of departure. I examine fan art as a form of reader response, expressed and shared within the digital community. The empirical material consists of blog posts (about 800) published between 2011 and 2016 on six different websites. Focusing on the readers of fan culture, my study combines perspectives of sociology of literature and fan studies. I also use theoretical concepts from narratology to discuss relations between the multiple variations of the Engelsfors universe that emerge through fan art. The analysis is partly a quantitative survey covering the art work’s forms and content, as well as contextual aspects of posting and sharing Engelsfors-related material, partly close readings of the most significant motifs: the engagement with fictional characters and romantic readings of the main love story. The approach provides a holistic perspective, unusual in research about fans and reading communities. By comparing the activities in different digital contexts, I argue for more nuanced perspectives on how digital engagements differ in relation to user purposes. The readers’ art works as well as their interaction, centre on the fictive characters, their features, personalities and relationships. Emotional readings comprise a general focus within fan culture, and among Engelsfors fans the emphasis is on strong positive emotions like affection, friendship, security, romance and love. Paying close attention to emotive aspects of how and why reading experiences are being shared has been a key perspective when looking at how different creative and communicative practices relate to different needs and purposes among the fan readers. Critical modifications of the source text are rare, and instead an enthusiastic and affirmative attitude dominates in relation to the authors’ project as well as to fellow fans in the community.
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| 4. |
- Areskoug, Linn, 1977-
(författare)
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Den svenske mannens gränsland : Manlighet, nation och modernitet i Sven Lidmans Silfverstååhlsvit
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with the nationalistic imaginary in the novels of Sven Lidman, published 1910–1913. The novels hold forth a conservative point-of-view that embraces the bourgeois ideal of masculinity and the idea of the healthy, Swedish rural way of life as opposed to the destructive metropolis. This dualism is part of a dichotomy that structures the novels. It also entails continuity/fragmentation, the Swedish/the foreign, men/women, activity/ passivity as well as masculinity/femininity and unmanliness. In the Silfverstååhl-cycle the protagonists are young men of a noble, Swedish family. They progress from lost and introspective youths to grown men who are deeply concerned with and engaged in society. They are different representatives of the Swedish man – the farmer, the business man, the explorer and the clergy man. What unites them is how their “coming of age” develops, how through trial and struggle they become stronger and prove worthy of the manly role they finally take on. This is a major principle of the bourgeois masculinity that is also closely connected to the national identity of the men. There is also an ambiguity concerning modernity. Throughout the novels a critique of modern society is formulated, that acknowledges the modern age but simultaneously takes on a prudent attitude towards modern society. There is no going back for the Swedish nation; the modern times have to be confronted. The present is very important since it is the time for scrutiny. The handling of the modern era takes place in the developing processes of the young men, who have to be careful not to get trapped in the modern whirlpool that threatens to shatter the human being. The past, the familiar and the rural anchorage that the family relation entitles, is a defense against the destructive forces of modernity. But the past is not completely beneficial. Even though the past is of major importance to the national identity of the protagonists, they have to be very careful not to delve too much into the past because of the risk of paralysis and effeminization. In the nationalistic narrative the present encapsulates the past and the future. The Swedish man has to navigate in the borderland of modernity.
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| 5. |
- Grahn, Lisa
(författare)
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Kvinnor och moderskap i Sara Lidmans Jernbaneepos
- 2020
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Licentiatavhandlingen undersöker skildringen av moderskap i Sara Lidmans Jernbaneepos (1977–1999), en romanserie i sju delar. I centrum för sviten står ett stort manligt kodat modernitetsprojekt – att ta järnvägen till Västerbotten. Licentiatavhandlingen fokuserar på de kvinnliga berättelser som också skapar historien, och hur upplevelser av sexualitet, graviditet och modrande arbete skildras. Genom att skilja på moderskap som en patriarkal institution och modrande som en kvinnocentrerad praktik, och genom att använda begreppet matrilinjära narrativ, belyser licentiatavhandlingen modersgestaltens agens och egna berättelse, till skillnad från de narrativ som traditionellt funnits kring moderskap. På så sätt undersöks modrande som en potentiellt frigörande och gränsöverskridande upplevelse, vilket är tidigare ouppmärksammade sidor av Lidmans författarskap.
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| 6. |
- Österholm, Maria Margareta, 1979-
(författare)
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Ett flicklaboratorium i valda bitar : Skeva flickor i svenskspråkig prosa från 1980 till 2005
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Girlhood is a recurring theme and problem in contemporary Swedish and Finland Swedish literature. The writings of Monika Fagerholm, Mare Kandre and Inger Edelfeldt and many other authors are full of girls not wanting or not being able to be Proper Girls.This dissertation, its thinking and writing, is inspired by a wide range of feminist, queer and aesthetic theory, focusing on femininity. A crucial point of departure is the collaboration between literature and theory and especially how literature can be seen as theory and a way of creating knowledge. The dissertation explores some of the notions of femininity in literature from 1980 to 2005, using a variation, hybrid and/or translation of queer - skev in Swedish. The word skev draws on the original meaning of queer, strange or twisted; its coinage was influenced by Norwegian and Danish attempts to translate queer. Skev illuminates forms of normativity not strictly tied to sexual desire – taking queer one step further but also back to the original meaning of the word. The term gurlesque is another way of thinking about and beyond proper girlhoods. Gurlesque is a mix of feminism, femininity, the cute, the disgusting and the grotesque.The literary girls are opening up spaces for trying to think femininity beyond the heteronormative order, about girls comparing, desiring, and twisting each other and other forms of girlhoods. Skev is not a category or a label you can easily put on a literary girl. Even the girls that seem to be proper and behave accordingly turn out to be uncomfortable and rebellious in many senses.
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| 7. |
- Andersson, Anneli, 1963-
(författare)
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Vi blev antagligen för många : Könskränkande behandling i akademisk miljö
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study is to further the theoretical understanding of gender harassment. I suggest an approach and a theoretical model that answers the question of how to understand and describe gender harassment both in terms of specific actions taken against an individual because of gender and the combined actions that constitute a gender harassment process. Due to the fact that gender harassment takes place in a structure and that the perpetrator needs structural support to be able to harass, the model considers existing power relationships at the workplace, i.e. how gender harassment reflects the distribution of power and structural behaviour of men and women. As my empirical material indicate aggressive behaviour and fear it is crucial to raise the issue of violence and to consider to what extent gender harassment is expressed av violence in the workplace. The empirical material contains broad-based and in-depth narratives about a kind of situation that is not well defined in the extant literature or elsewhere. It is essentially unknown whether gender harassment takes place to the same extent as sexual harassment. Even though quite a few narratives about daily working life bear witness of such situations they have remained largely undefined and little understood. In the present study, a combination of feministic organization theory about powerstructures at the workplace and violence theory is used to broaden the picture and to develop an instrument for understanding narratives about gender harassment. The results from the analysis, drawing upon material from practical gender equality work at a university and four in-depth interviews with victims of gender harassment, suggest that a combination of feministic organization theory and violence theory is fruitful for understanding the phenomenon of gender harassment. It is suggested that the proposed theoretical model offers a first but important step towards identifying and preventing gender harassment at the workplace.
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| 8. |
- Graeske, Caroline
(författare)
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Bortom ödelandet : En studie i Stina Aronsons författarskap
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with the writing of Stina Aronson. The main objective is to study how Aronson (1892–1956) developed as a writer in a contempory cultural context, as well as to revise the image of Aronson as a provincial writer. Aronson’s literary output stands at the centre of the investigation, and a crucial task has been to study how gender affected her work as an author.It took a long time for Aronson to find her footing in the literary field, and the different chapters of the thesis correspond to fresh starts and sudden turns in her writing. Generally speaking, Aronson was sensitive to the shifts and changes in literary sensibility. In the 1920s she adheres to an idyllic aesthetic, characteristic of the period, whereas in the ’30s she approaches more modernist modes of writing. Not until the 1940s was Aronson finally recognised as a major writer. Her writing now became devoted to the lives of people in a remote part of the country, while she employed different idioms. This resulted in what this thesis theorises as a dialectical mode of narration, enabling the narrator to observe a rural, far northern community from the inside and outside simultaneously.Marginality, in class as well as gender terms, is a consistent motif in Aronson’s fiction. In both her early and late work one finds powerless, eccentric characters who experience great difficuly in securing a position in society. The gap between the haves and have-nots is a recurring theme, as is the narrator’s desire to overcome this disparity.In her later work, one discerns a civilisational critique of the privilege to define others. Aronson’s contrasting ideal is that of tolerance towards strangeness, difference and alterity, in terms of novelistic content as well as narrative technique. In this way, her work takes an ethical turn that underscores the equal worth of all human beings and, as a consequence, modifies the received image of Aronson as a provincial writer.
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