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- Dahlberg, Leif, Professor, 1962-
(författare)
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Tre romantiska berättelser : Studier i Eyvind Johnsons Romantisk berättelse och Tidens gång, Lars Gustafssons Poeten Brumbergs sista dagar och död och Sven Delblancs Kastrater
- 1999
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The dissertation explores the notion 'romantic story' as a literary device in three Swedish late modernist novels: Eyvind Johnson's Romantisk berättelse (1953) (Romantic Story) and Tidens gång. En romantisk berättelse (1955) (The Passage of Time. A Romantic Story), Lars Gustafsson's Poeten Brumbergs sista dagar och död. En romantisk berättelse (1959) (The Last Days and Death of the Poet Brumberg. A Romantic Story), and Sven Delblanc's Kastrater. En romantisk berättelse (1975) (Castrati. A Romantic Story). The study consists of three parts, one on each novel.In part, the dissertation turns around the word 'romantic' and the historical period designated by this name; and addresses the topic of what the term has come to mean in a period of late modernist aesthetics. In part, it is an investigation of the three novels as 'romantic stories', i.e. a study of the generic properties of the novels, and also of the novel as a literary genre. By the very nature of the study the approach is ecclectic, encompassing interests in paratextuality (chapters 2, 5, 10), narratology (chapter 3), autobiography (chapter 4), hypertextuality and intertextuality (chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12), literary form (chapter 9), literary genres (chapter 10), as well as the relation between the literary work and the historical and cultural context that it is possible to construct around it (chapters 4, 6, 12, 13). However, the focus of the study always remains on the texts and how they work, making use of close reading as a strategic means of teasing out meaning and reference.The dissertation concludes with a chapter in which the three novels are looked at as group and from the point of view of the internal histor(icit)y of Modernism.
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- Johansson, Niclas, 1981-
(författare)
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The Narcissus Theme from Fin de Siècle to Psychoanalysis : Crisis of the Modern Self
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is an intertextual-thematological investigation of the Narcissus theme at the turn of the century 1900. It focuses primarily on French-, German-, and English-language decadent and Symbolist literature from the 1890s and early 1900s, as well as on early sexology and psychoanalysis. The general claim of the dissertation is that the common denominator for the turn-of-the-century interest in Narcissus is the sense of a destabilized foundation of selfhood, expounded here as a crisis of the modern self.The first chapter explores Narcissus as a poetic symbol, primarily within the context of French Symbolism. Young Symbolist writers such as André Gide and Camille Mauclair develop Narcissus as a symbol of pure self-referentality which performs a poetic reconciliation of the contingency of individual and finite existence with an absolute ideality. This chapter further explores the way in which Narcissus was used a polemical figure by opponents of Symbolism, such as Saint-Georges de Bouhélier, and how the symbol was developed to investigate the articulation between contingent and foundational aspects of selfhood by the mature Paul Valéry.The second chapter focuses on decadent narrative representations of the theme in works by Oscar Wilde, Leopold Andrian and others. These treatments employ the generic contours of a Bildungsroman, but depict the process of Bildung as a failure where the self-knowledge projected as its goal is unattainable. They thereby thematize the inability of the young male subject to find a steady foundation for his sense of selfhood in a modern world marked by irony and disbelief.The third chapter focuses on the conceptualization of the Narcissus theme as narcissism. It begins by tracing the genesis of the concept particularly in the works of Havelock Ellis, Isidor Sadger, Otto Rank and Sigmund Freud. The investigation then focuses on the role narcissism comes to play in Freud’s theory and argues that it ties selfhood and subjectivity to biological causation, but that it also allows Freud to suggest a path of psychologically informed Bildung, leading to self-knowledge and subjective autonomy.
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- Lindén, Axel, 1972-
(författare)
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Förnimmelser : En fenomenologisk analys av Herman Bangs författarskap
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is a phenomenological analysis of the works of the nineteenth century Danish author Herman Bang. It begins with a close reading of the short story “Chopin” and is therefore phenomenological at the outset as it embodies the Husserlian motto to go to the things themselves (”Sachen selbst”)—in this case, to the literature itself, before any theory or method is discussed. There is a centrality of perception in “Chopin” which points to the bodily phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. As a result, Merleau-Ponty is established as both a starting point and a backdrop to the dissertation. A key assertion is that literature can be categorized as a sixth sense or a perception in itself. Eight different novels and short stories are examined: Haabløse Slægter (1880), “Fratelli Bedini” (1885), “Les quatres Diables” (1890), “Ved Vejen” (1886), Stuk (1887), Tine (1889), Ludvigsbakke (1896) and Mikaël (1904). The analyses focus perceptions, ambiguities and vague impressions, but the individual traits of each work is also considered. A comparative summary of the analyses develops the phenomenological reasoning. The dissertation tries to move beyond the position that reading and analysis is a reciprocal dialogue. With, among others, Gilles Deleuze, the work of Bang is considered to be nothing less (or nothing more) than an event, an effect. The novels and short stories discussed earlier are then evocative forces rather than representations.
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- Ljungström, Linus
(författare)
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"En tystnad vari ordet sväller" : Bygdeskildringar som ordkonst i Stina Aronsons Hitom himlen och Tage Aurells "Pingstbrud"
- 2020
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Ämnet för denna licentiatavhandling är den konstnärliga behandlingen av landsbygden och glesbygden som språklig, social miljö, mer specifikt i romanen Hitom himlen (1946) av Stina Aronson (1892‒1956) och novellen ”Pingstbrud” (Nya berättelser, 1949) av Tage Aurell (1895‒1976). Syftet är att undersöka verkens spänningsfält mellan avantgarde och bygdeskildring. Hur används bygdemiljön som litterärt material, diskursivt och narratologiskt, i en medveten konstnärlig praktik, en poetik? I andra hand kommer frågan huruvida författarskapen delar så pass många egenskaper att det är rimligt att tala om en litteraturhistorisk strömning.Med hjälp av bland annat Ludwig Wittgensteins språkspelsbegrepp och Thomas O. Beebees transmesis-begrepp undersöks hur den språkliga, sociala miljön hämtad från Tornedalen och Värmlands skogsbygd framställs.I analysen av Hitom himlen ligger fokus inte minst på iscensättningen av den tornedalsfinska miljön, men också på romanens förhållande till en av Aronson själv antydd poetik. Analysen av ”Pingstbrud” undersöker framför allt skvallrets, inte bara tematiska, utan även formmässiga roll i framställningen.Centralt hos både Aurell och Aronson tycks vara temat kring människans ensamhet och längtan efter gemenskap och förståelse. Gestalternas ofta misslyckade försök att bryta sin isolering och nå verklig kontakt med andra grundar sig bland annat i att klyftan mellan gestalternas intention och förmågan att kommunicera denna intention är alltför vid för att lyckas. Både Aronson och Aurell förespråkar en litterär hållning som betraktar det ringa som något betydelsefullt. Genom en avlyssningens poetik försöker de uppfatta det som egentligen menas med allt som sägs. De ger orden en ny konstnärlig kontext där form och innehåll organiskt bär upp varandra. De ringa orden, de banala fraserna och de slitna uttrycken sätts i ett sammanhang som låter läsaren reflektera över deras uttrycksfullhet.Det är de ringa ordens poetik, en betydelsediger enstavighet, tystnaden som får ordet att svälla.
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- Löfgren, Ingeborg, 1980-
(författare)
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Interpretive Skepticism : Stanley Cavell, New Criticism, and Literary Interpretation
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation explores and analyzes interpretive skepticism in literary theory. It argues that traditional interpretive theories and debates often harbor unacknowledged forms of skeptical thinking and arguments. As these forms of skepticism are seldom recognized as skepticism, the problem tends to remain hidden and unresolved. The dissertation further argues that interpretive skepticism is (i) the result of a philosophical confusion, and (ii) practically harmful when used in order to regulate interpretive practice. Accordingly, a central purpose of the dissertation is to offer an analysis and taxonomy of what interpretive skepticism is. Only once we are in a position to understand and recognize it in its many guises will we be able to criticize and challenge it.The first part of the dissertation thus aims at identifying a specific structure of skeptical reasoning within the theory of literary interpretation. In articulating this taxonomy and analysis, the study builds on the American philosopher Stanley Cavell’s reinterpretation of epistemological skepticism in terms of tragedy, avoidance and repudiation of grammatical criteria. The second part of the study explores, in greater detail, interpretive skepticism within New Criticism. It centers on analyses of two classics within interpretive theory: “The Intentional Fallacy” by Monroe C. Beardsley (and W.K. Wimsatt) and “The Heresy of Paraphrase” by Cleanth Brooks. The study argues that Beardsley becomes both a so-called “skeptical twin” about literary interpretation and a straightforward literary other-minds skeptic with regard to authorial intentions. Brooks, for his part, becomes a straightforward skeptic about poetic interpretation and a “skeptical twin” about poetic meaning. Both theorists are investigated in comparison with Cavell’s explorations of the themes of intention, overinterpretation, fraudulence, modernism, and aesthetic judgment in art, literature and criticism. Despite these skeptical findings, the study also argues that there are important similarities between Cavell’s non-skeptical approach to literature and criticism, and New Critical “close reading.”The dissertation concludes with a chapter that leaves the confines of the New Critical idiom to explore interpretive skepticism within the tradition of so-called “hermeneutics of suspicion.” Through readings of Susan Sontag, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Cora Diamond, it argues that suspicious or paranoid hermeneutics is not skeptical in itself but can become so through the skeptical temptations of dogmatism, authoritarianism, and fraudulence.
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- Lönngren, Ann-Sofie, 1974-
(författare)
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Att röra en värld : en queerteoretisk analys av erotiska trianglar i sex verk av August Strindberg
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The subject of this dissertation is a queertheoretical analysis of erotic triangles with two men and one woman, in six texts by August Strindberg (1849–1912). The material consists of the novel A Madman’s Defence (1887–88) and the plays Creditors (1888), Playing with Fire (1892), Crime and Crime (1899), Dance of Death I (1901) and To Damascus I–III (1898–1901). Employing a queer understanding of the history of sexuality and a theoretical frame provided mainly by Judith Butler, I interpret the manifestation of “sex” within the above-mentioned texts as constructed by performative means, in particular those intimately linked to expressions of same-sex and different-sex erotic desires. With Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s term “homosocial desire” I direct the attention of the analysis primarily to the dynamic relationship between the male rivals within the erotic triangle. What consequences do the erotic desires have for the gender-categories in the triangular formation, and do they change over a longer time-span in Strindberg’s writings? The result of the study is that the sexual desires of the literary characters within the erotic triangle is of crucial importance for their status as legitimately gendered subjects, and ultimately as acceptable human beings, within the heteronormative context. Moreover, the triangular formation does not alter particularly over time, and the same elements keep occurring with only minor differences between the texts. This process I interpret, within the context of Jacques Derrida’s term “reiteration”, as a means to construct gendered characters that is at one and the same time normative and understandable, as well as dynamic and with a potential for change. In this construction the simultaneous threat and potential of same-sex erotic desires is of crucial importance as it enables new ways to move, create and touch a world.
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- Nordberg, Olle, 1972-
(författare)
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Avkoppling och analys : Empiriska perspektiv på läsarattityder och litterär kompetens hos svenska 18-åringar
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation examines young people’s reading of fiction in the digital age, with a special focus on the aspects of attitude and competence. The literary reading of respondents in their upper teens is considered from several perspectives—especially those of the respondents themselves. The discussion is based on three larger empirical studies of the reading attitudes and practices of 18-year-olds. These studies build on and complement each other in relation to the overarching research questions through a triangulating process combining qualitative and quantitative methods. The studies are, however, freestanding and were conducted using different empirical methods.The first study is diachronic in that it compares national test essays on the topic of reading from the year 2000 with essays written according to the same instructions twelve years later. The main aim of this study is to reveal possible differences between the two generations in terms of attitudes and approaches to reading fiction, and to relate them to issues of literary legitimization and competence. The second study consists of a questionnaire about a short story read by the respondents, as well as about their general reading and media habits. A connection is drawn between media habits and reading frequency, on the one hand, and the results of the essay study, on the other. The respondents’ reception and understanding of the story is analyzed separately. A summary of the first two studies reveals several complex issues with contradictory patterns. The third study, which examines these issues more closely, was conducted through focus-group interviews. All three studies have been carried out among groups of pupils in the third year of upper secondary school in Sweden.The final part of the dissertation summarizes the results of the three studies, applying a pedagogical perspective to literature pedagogy within the subject of Swedish at the upper secondary level. This discussion points out several opportunities for literature teachers today.
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