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In this essay I aim to study the concept of the historical novel through a character analysis of four novels by Vilhelm Moberg: Utvandrarna, Invandrarna, Nybyggarna and Sista brevet till Sverige; and one by Jan Guillou: Brobyggarna. These novels all portray characters of great determination and grit, although the ones created by Jan Guillou tend to also have qualities moe commonly associated with superheroes. 

To support my thesis, I use Georg Lukács´The Historical Novel, in which he defines what constitutes a well written historical novel. I have also researched how the two authors view their own works, with special emphasis on their claims to write truthfully, since one om Lukács main points is that the historical novel must be — not truthful — but realistic. 

In the analysis I compare the characters from the different works with each other to see how they fit into Lukács´ definition of the historical novel. I make a point out of Guillou´s characters being a bit too perfect for them to be realaistic, while Moberg´s characters seem more alive and honest in their quest for a better life. Guillou seems to write his characters as representants of specific historical movements. I then open up for a discussion about the key characteristics of the characters in a historical, and attempt to explain why they have to be written in such a way. 

This essay examines the complex identity struggles of Kwame Asante and Nana AdakuII in Mabel Dove-Danquah’s “Anticipation” and “The Torn Veil.” Dove-Danquah, a pioneer in African literature and politics, portrays the tension between traditional Ghanaian values and colonial influences. Through the lens of Mimicry, Hybridity, and Orientalism, the essay explores the characters’ negotiations between modernity andtradition. Kwame’s pursuit of education and status, juxtaposed with Nana’scommitment to cultural heritage, illustrates the post-colonial identity crisis. The analysis extends to societal impacts, showing how colonial legacies challenge traditional values. By delving into these stories, the essay highlights the cultural negotiation, resistance, and adaptation in postcolonial Ghana, offering insights into identity formation aftercolonialism. Mabel Dove-Danquah discusses through these narratives the enduring influence of colonialism on African societies.

Abstrakt

I denna uppsats skrivs en nutida version av Charles Dickens verk En julsaga. Texten kommer att utspela sig under 2000-talet, det blir alltså ett miljöbyte genom tidsresan, inte rent geografiskt. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka om genren och huvudkaraktärerna kan bevaras när miljön förändras och om den nya texten bibehåller formen av en saga. Inledningsvis har jag läst En Julsaga och sedan valt tre scener och av dem skrivit en nutida version.

The aim of this study is to develop a pedagogical approach to the teaching of literature in relation to value-based work, specifically regarding questions of sexuality and gender. The starting point for this approach is the pedagogue Gert Biesta’s vision of democracy as something that needs to be exercised within education, rather than a set of values that should simply be transmitted to the students. He also stresses the teacher’s role to actively interrupt the students’ predispositions for the education to be unpredictable, risky, and truly democratic. I combine this approach to teaching with queer theoretical, especially queer temporal, perspectives on sexuality, gender, and literature for ways to disrupt various interpretations of fiction. I also use Rita Felskis theories on literary engagement to interrupt and disrupt previous readings. In the analysis this approach is used to analyze readings of six books – three novels and three picture books: Moominpappa at Sea (1965) by Tove Jansson, Mamman och havet (2012) by Sara Stridsberg and Anna-Clara Tidholm, Darling River (2010) by Sara Stridsberg, Else-Marie and Her Seven Little Daddies (1990) by Pija Lindenbaum, Popular Music from Vittula (2000) by Mikael Niemi, and Kivi & Monsterhund (2012) by Jesper Lundqvist and Bettina Johansson. I study various previous readings of the texts, such as reviews, research, student essays and comments on online forums. This gives an idea of how the text have been read before, and how they are likely to engage the intended readers of this dissertation – interpretations which I disrupt using queer theoretical perspectives. The final chapter problematizes and further develops the thesis’ theoretical framework and discusses its implication for the teaching of literature, as well as for educational philosophy in general, regarding democracy, politics, and ethics.

Around 2007, several self-proclaimed norm-critical publishing companies were established in Sweden. This caused a long debate in the daily press, where some critics compared the ”norm-critical” books to propaganda. The debate indicates a conflict between an aesthetic and a didactic approach to children’s literature. Another lively debate with similar critique took off when Kivi & Monsterhund (Kivi and Monsterdog, 2012) by Jesper Lundqvist and Bettina Johansson was published – a picturebook where the protagonist is referred to by a gender-neutral prounoun. The purpose of this article is to problematise the prevailing view on self-proclaimed norm-critical children’s literature and its didactic relationship to the reader. The reception, the paratexts, and the book itself are analysed using Torben Weinreich’s and Clémentine Beauvais’ different definitions of didactics, Gérard Genette’s view on pararatexts, Maria Nikolajeva’s theories on picturebooks, and Judith Butler’s view on gender as performative. The book, and its didactic relationship to the reader, is found to be much more complex and conflicting than suggested by the reception and the paratexts.

Kapitlet handlar om berättelser om städning i etnografiskt intervjumaterial och skönlitteratur. Kapitlet diskuterar städningens (o)berättbarhet och relationen mellan produktiv och reproduktiv tid. Begreppet "obliven tid" introduceras som ett sätt att teoretisera städningens tid som en sorts icke-händelse. Även generationsproblematik och begreppet "reproduktiv framtidslighet" berörs i relation till städning. Exempel på skildringar av städning där barns och vuxnas tid gestaltas hämtas från Karl-Ove Knausgårds, Linda Skugges, Kerstin Thorvalls och Astrid Lindgrens författarskap.  

This article addresses the relationship between text and paratext in the publication history of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita. Such paratexts include Nabokov’s own afterword to the 1958 American edition and his postscript (published in 1967) to his own translation of Lolita into Russian, as well as various introductions and afterwords, both in English-language editions and in translations of Lolita into Russian and other languages. A particularly interesting type of paratext is constituted by annotations to the main text, and the analysis focuses on parallel examples published in annotated editions of Lolita in English, Russian, Polish, German, Ukrainian, and French. The analysis shows that the most detailed annotations concerning the totality of the English and Russian Lolita text and paratexts can be found in editions published in languages other than English and Russian, whereas most English or Russian editions seem to focus on the respective language version. There is still no complete, annotated edition of the bilingual text containing all the authorial paratexts.

”I am based on real people,” Kristina Lugn writes in the foreword to her play Nattorienterarna (1999). This quotation summarises the ever-changing concept of the ego which finds expression in Lugn’s writing and which is the focus of this study. Special emphasis is placed on the way in which Lugn tackles the concept of the ego in both her work and her appearances in the media, and also how in recent years she has taken to greater depths this playing with the ego’s changing forms and has, in an ironic way, created different egos which are constant in neither time nor space. The thesis is in part a text analysis of Lugn’s lyrics and drama and in part an examination of Lugn’s appearances in the media – and, in the case of the latter, it touches on intermedial aspects.

The analysis discusses how Lugn expresses in different ways in her appearances in the media pathos for groups seen as potentially isolated and vulnerable, of which children constitute a particularly charged category. One argument in this reasoning is that Lugn’s constant nods at and incorporating of the exposed and solitary child’s experience of society’s norms and power order structures is a basis and a reason for the explosive power in her ironic delivery of a critique of power, in her questioning and shaking up of the ordered roles of gender.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the irony and what can be characterised as “the giving of voice” in Kristina Lugn’s literary production, and also how these devices hang together. One chief question is whether it can be viewed that Lugn’s irony is used both as a means of style and as a (literary) political strategy.

The concept of the giving of voice is used to illustrate the way in which Lugn as author and role player allows her personae and characters to speak, often in situations of her devising where they are, and feel they are, powerless in different senses, even though she has inevitably, in her capacity as author, the power to edit and dictate.

A secondary aim is to present a more nuanced and in-depth picture of Lugn’s writing than that done so far in the reception given Lugn in the media. The study focuses attention on Lugn’s ironic stage-setting of ego positions and the constant playing with fiction and reality which characterises her writing. This is in contrast to the early reception of Lugn as a depressive confessional lyricist, where the fictitious personae were very much likened to the biographical figure of Lugn. Part of this revisionist picture includes a discussion about how central the position of the child is in both Lugn’s work and her appearances in the media.

Irony and the giving of voice in her writing is discussed and illustrated with examples from a selection of Lugn’s literary works. Focus is placed on the poetry collections Om ni hör ett skott… (1979), Percy Wennerfors (1982) and Hundstunden. Kvinnlig bekännelselyrik (1989),  and also on the theatre scripts Tant Blomma (1993), Idlaflickorna (1993), Nattorienterarna (1999) and Stulna juveler (2000). The selection of the material in the media consists of TV and radio programmes in public service broadcasting and also daily newspapers, evening papers and weekly magazines. An examination of this material is made on the basis of three points in time: that of Lugn’s literary breakthrough as a lyricist; i.e. 1983 and the period around then, the 1990s in connection with Lugn’s transition from primarily that of lyricist to that of dramatist, and the period around the turn of the millennium in connection with the première performance of the play Stulna juveler.

I den här uppsatsen undersöker jag hur platserna Kurouzu-cho från Junji Itos Uzumaki och Område X från Jeff VanderMeers Annihilation framställs ur ett ekokritiskt perspektiv. Detta genom att titta på växtligheten och naturfenomen, attityder kring platserna, hus och byggnader, samt hur platserna förhåller sig till begreppet agens. Bland annat används Timothy Mortons bok Ecology without Nature och Bruno Latours artikel Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene. Slutligen sammanfattas och diskuteras detta. Jag kommer fram till att platserna nästan fungerar som karaktärer. 

In this bachelor’s essay, I examine the importance of place in Marguerite Duras’ The Lover from 1984. By using an ecocritical approach I find that the concepts of “culture” and “nature”, or “human” and “environment”, are made undistinguished. I also find that colonialism is highly present, and the novel accords to the theories of the overlapping literary fields of ecocriticism and postcolonialism. Ecocritical postcolonialism maintains that non-white people have historically been likened to animals and thus have a similar relationship with colonisers as humans have with the non-human.

In addition, I apply Michail Bachtin’s concept of the chronotope to the novel and conclude that the Mekong River, the Cholen district, the mother’s home, the desert, and France are the most significant chronotopes. They all represent time in some way – usually in the form of cultural history or the protagonist’s lifetime – and each one plays into the novel’s overarching views of colonialism and nature.

The focus of this study is the two autobiographical novels Den högsta kasten (1997) and Djävulsformeln (2000) by Swedish author Carina Rydberg. Both novels generated lively public debate regarding how they ought to be read and understood, what genre they belonged to, and the ontological status of the narrating “I”. The aim is to investigate why the protagonist, Carina, is perceived as unintelligible by many readers and explore how she can be understood in relation to what constitutes an intelligible identity from a literary and cultural perspective.

The novels, as well as their protagonist, are approached from the perspective of genre theory, the argument being that Carina’s unintelligibility is directly dependent on what genre she is read in relation to. In the first part of the thesis the ambiguities of autobiographical texts are discussed, and the narrative and protagonist are analyzed in relation to the autobiographical genre. In the second part of the thesis the consequences of reading the texts as examples of the Gothic with emphasis on monstrosity, the uncanny and sexual transgression are examined. The two readings demonstrate how interpretations of text and character are highly influenced by the reader's expectations connected to genre. Rydberg’s transgression of the norms of genre, gender, and identity leaves the reader with a contradictory set of genre-specific expectations, which in turn makes it difficult to understand and accept the protagonist.

The main theme of both novels is Carina’s unsuccessful attempts to reconcile what she sees as two separate, essentially incompatible identities: woman and author. The final chapter includes a comparative study in which Rydberg’s novels are linked to works by other Swedish female writers, both past and contemporary, to demonstrate that the conflict of woman versus author is a common problem for female writers. The thesis closes with a discussion about the possibility of placing Rydberg in a specifically female literary tradition and demonstrate how a feminist analysis can make the unintelligible intelligible.

This article explores the writing and circulation of poems as a 20th-century form of folklore, especially with local newspapers as a base for their publication. Poems about regional health care and about the elk hunting season are chosen as examples in order to focus on how writing poems can be a way of making public statements on matters of common interest in a regional (county) context. The examples show how different subject positions and varying attitudes towards a topic can be expressed through poems. A conscious choice of genre, such as prayer, thanksgiving, praise and accusation, can make positions clearer and give further emphasis to the tendency of the message. I also argue the importance of noticing poems, and local media in general, both in ethnographic research and in the documentation strategies of archives and museums. Poems can be a genre in which it is possible to speak of big and small questions in everyday life; writing them is one form of a local specialist role; and the local circulation of written texts (published or unpublished) is an important part of cultural history, a forerunner of social media. Local newspapers have been one of the few arenas where the voice of the public has been given space.

This thesis studies Karin Boye’s novel Kallocain: Roman från 2000-talet (1940) and Ett öga rött (2003) by Jonas Hassen Khemiri. The aim of the analysis is to examine the novels’ portrayals of power in order to see if there are traces of totalitarian tendencies from the dystopian novel Kallocain, in the contemporary story of Ett öga rött. Due to the intention of the analysis, I chose to apply a palimpsestic methodology, meaning I have analyzed Ett öga rött – symbolically – on top of Kallocain. The theoretical groundwork consists mainly of Michel Foucault’s theory on power, particularly from his book Discipline and Punish (1975), but other works that have studied Foucault have been of help as well.

My results show that the same disciplinary powers are visible in Kallocain and in Ett öga rött. The governments, schools and other individuals exert the same type of power over the main protagonists Leo and Halim, which confirms that the totalitarian methods used in the fictional state of Kallocain are also utilized in Hassen Khemiris portrayal of Sweden in Ett öga rött. The discussion on knowledge is applicable in the same way. The notions of propaganda and truth are hard to separate in both novels, but I conclude that knowledge is used to control and adapt nonconforming people to standard society, while also constructing the protagonists as subjects and objects of power. This happens in Kallocain as well as Ett öga rött. The protagonists also use three methods to resist the disciplinary power, mainly: external resistance, internal resistance, and mimicry. These forms of resistance aim to free the protagonists from the oppressive norms and make them feel like individuals who cannot be controlled.

This essay studies the motif of houses in decay in En herrgårdssägen (The Tale of a Manor) (1899) by Selma Lagerlöf and La casa de los espíritus (The House of the Spirits) (1982) by Isabel Allende. Bachelard’s La Poétique de l’Espace (The poetics of Space) (1958) is used to examine what it means for the characters in these works to inhabit a place in general, but also a place that is disintegrating. Several characters from the works are studied, and a particular focus is placed on the characters associated with supernatural events. Through Susan Fraiman's article "Shelter Writing" (2006), a feminist perspective will be used, which questions Bachelard's idea of the home as a maternal embrace and his emphasis on housework as a nostalgic chore. The essay describes the houses from both novels before and after the decay and applies an expansive approach to the houses' boxes, trunks and rooms in order to grasp the places' connections to memories, chronology and imagination. The focus lays on how the houses are perceived individually by different characters and that the consequences of the property's decay can be downright beneficial for the characters in the works.

The article investigates the complex intertextual dialogue between Torgny Lindgren’s Minnen (2010) and Augustine’s Confessions, from which Lindgren has taken the motto of his autobiography. By using the patristic intertext as a starting point, the investigation intends to show how Lindgren has constructed his image of Västerbotten. The article is divided into four parts. The first part (I), establishes the heuristic principles of the investigation, which adhere to the recent tendency in patristic studies to observe the heterogeneous character of Augustine’s world of thought. The second part of the article (II) charts parallels between text and intertext in their portrayal of grace, evil, and man. It emerges that those elements of Lindgren’s world view which are particularly closely related to Augustinian theology are also the ones that possess a particularly strong Västerbottnian character. This intertextual affinity can be explained not only with reference to the Lutheran tradition of Västerbotten, but also has to be related to the text’s specific structure of memoria, which is unravelled in the remaining parts (III– IV). On the basis of modern cultural anthropological theories of memory, the third part demonstrates that most of the differences between text and intertext can be linked to the cultural memory of modernity, and document the rise and fall of industrial subjectivity. Lindgren embeds his autobiographical version of Västerbotten into the basic structure of modern memory, transforms it into a quasi-subject, and taints it with the symptoms of decay that plague the industrial ‘I.’ In the same as Western modernity, Minnen draws the majority of its metaphors of dissolution from Augustine’s paradigmatic doctrine of sin. The fourth part of the article (IV) aims to analyse the autobiography’s mechanisms of substitution. It is argued that these attempt—in analogy to many Western critics of modernity—to counteract the crisis of industrial cultural memory by reviving the Augustinian forms of memoria and creating a synthesis of pre-industrial and industrial. Within the quasi-subject of Västerbotten and its wealth of agrarian objects, Lindgren finds adequate metaphorical models for use in his compensatory project of counter-memory. The article concludes by observing that, just as Minnen’s productive dialogue with Augustine allows it to recapitulate the history of Western memory, Lindgren’s Västerbotten is elevated to the status of a universal symbol of European consciousness and its fate.

This paper addresses the literary style of the author Douglas Adams with the help of his Dirk Gently book series. The book series mixes different types of genres therefore this paper also aims to analyze if Adams literary style is affected by the genre of the book. The analysis is therefore focused on defining what genres the books belongs to, so to be able to see if Adams style differentiates depending on the genre. The first book, Detective Agency is defined as a science-fiction book, whilst the second book, Tea-Time is categorized in the fantasy genre. This paper also analyzes Douglas Adams’ writing structure and his use of irony to see if he was consistent in his writing. The conclusion is that Douglas Adams’ style is defined by the way that he uses humor and irony. His writing structure does not change depending on the genre, however his way of conveying irony does, either through the characters or the narration.

After being either completely ignored or mixed up with monsters and devils, which in the medieval imagination dwelled in the Extreme North, the Sami were suddenly brought into the limelight by Olaus Magnus (1492–1557), Swedish catholic bishop in exile. His Carta marina (1539) and Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (1555) contain most valuable information, depicting the Sami’s natural virtues, practical skills and mysterious magic powers. The image provided by these works became widely spread in Europe thanks both to the reprints of the Latin originals and to the numerous translations. In the seventeenth century the theme was re-actualized by a new publication, entirely devoted to Lapland and its inhabitants: Lapponia (1673) by Johannes Schefferus (1621–1679). Translated into a number of languages it replaced the image created by Olaus Magnus with a new one, at the same time similar and different. The present paper examines some crucial points of this evolution in order to show that both “portraits” reflect motivations that go beyond purely scholarly interest: each of them is part of the ideological struggle of its time—the Reformation in one case, the conflicts brought to life by the Thirty Years’ War in the other.

The focus of this essay is on the power that language has on the individual, the protagonist and anti-heroine of the novel, related to her use of language – her storytelling. How does she resist and break through the oppressive linguistic, psychic and social prohibitions of systematized discourse through her narrative?  The essay, exploring the protagonist’s relationship to language, attempts to explain the way power works, and how language makes this possible. The protagonist's story is analyzed using various feminist ideas on the female voice.  Through a close reading of the novel, this essay tries out a theoretical account by which the protagonist of the novel comes to internalize the suppression and restriction of her speech and thereafter overcomes the taboo of Handmaid speech, focusing on how the first-person narrator delivers her story.

Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley (1818) is the starting point for this reading of remix in relation to authorship and its implications for creative work. The monster in Frankenstein has no single author, or father, and is damned by his mixed parentage as much as by his inability to recreate himself. Alone, he falls into the waste as a product of the divide between poetry and science. The ‘two cultures’ coined by C. P. Snow (1956) address this same divide and lament its dominance in mid twentieth-century intellectual life. But contemporary remix culture that relies on digital media closes this gap as poets now write code and artists are technicians. In my close reading of five remixes I show that origin is no longer relevant in the mixed material realization of processes that are performed or ‘re-authored’ in reception. In these remixes the creator reinterprets by changing the context of remixed elements in the works. The result is textual hybrids that are remixed further in reception.

I approach digital media via brief examinations of spatial and narrative discourse networks not often associated with the digital. This approach is meant to suggest that digital media is a product and a producer of a dynamic realignment of cultural assumptions globally, such as what is considered to be 'narrative'. The cultural fields I discuss in relation to digital media are the performance of pilgrimage and some of the story telling systems of the Australian Aboriginal nations. In relation to pilgrimage the 9th century Buddhist stupa of Borobudur on the Indonesian island of Java is examined as an example of a spatial hypermediation that immerses the pilgrim in a story manifest through interactions. The Aboriginal story systems examined move across media forms (spoken word, song, body paint, sculpture, bark painting) to present a participatory narrative grounded in culturally specific understandings of space and place.

My use of the term 'digital' refers to media systems that rely on digital technologies. The major features of digital technologies relevant here is the effectiveness of the technology at constructing spatial relations in representations and the demand of the direct participation of the users as co-creators of what is represented.

This paper discusses three examples of rhetorical holiness from the online virtual world of Second Life. The rhetorical holiness is compared to the representation of beliefs and practices in physical settings. By examining representation of the holy in Second Life it is possible to discuss the shift from older to new media forms in established and therefore comparative contexts. How these movements reflect and affect practices and beliefs is argued as highlighting networks of power and meaning.

Cooperation over borders between individuals and groups is possible using online three-dimensional virtual worlds. This cooperation occurs in the production of art, research, teaching and learning, and performance as well as in building social, professional and personal contexts. The borders that are crossed can be geopolitical, generational, spatial and embodied. In order to maintain coherence for people to meet, talk, build, write, perform and exchange in virtual worlds, a sense and understanding of place is required. Such human activities as meeting are reliant on a shared space and place. This chapter integrates the idea of sharing places in examples of how virtual worlds can provide common spaces and places from a series of projects involving art, documentation, teaching and communication. By using examples of one artist’s project and several machinima – videos made using screen-capture software on computers, to film places and avatar actors in virtual worlds – I argue these virtual worlds can enable cooperation over a variety of borders through sharing.

This innovative volume of cultural history offers a unique exploration of how gender and status competition have intersected across different periods and places. The contributions collected here focus on the role of women and the practice of masculinity in setting as varied as ancient Rome, China, Iran and Arabia, medieval and early modern England, and early modern Italy, France, and Scandinavia, as well as exploring issues that affected people of all social rank, from raillery and pranks to shaming, male boasting about sexual conquests, court rituals, violence, and the use and display of wealth. Particular attention is paid to the performance of such issues, with chapters examining status and gender through cultural practices, especielly specific (re)presentations of women. These include Roman priestesses, early Christian virgin martyrs, flirtation in seventh-century Arabia, and the attempt by an early modern French woman to take her place among the immortals. Together this wide-ranging and fascinating array of studies from renowned scholars offers new insights into how and why different cultures responded to the drive for status, and the complications of gender within that drive.

In this paper I’m studying Toni Morrison’s short story Recitatif (2022) through the perspective of deconstruction. I theorise about conceptual meanings and differences that occur and can be found in structures. With deconstruction I can observe where in the text traces of metaphysics lay and what impact they have on the characters that live within the story. The study examines binary oppositions such as white and black; male and female; being rich and being poor; being somebody and being nobody. Questions are raised about found meaning in these categories, what they entail and say about perception of reality, and how all of these categories fit into one much bigger classification: the human. This study follows the text closely, exploring the story in chronological order and focuses on the two main characters, Twyla and Roberta, who symbolise two different ends of the binary opposition white and black skinned. Twyla and Roberta come to define themselves by their contrasts and that is also where deconstruction flows and exists. In the end, it’s the character Maggie – first seen as ”unimportant” – that comes to play a crucial part in the shaping of the story and Twyla and Roberta’s lives. Therefore, through deconstruction and its terms and notions, I further investigate Maggie’s character and her meaning and place in Recitatif. This study concludes with that while binary oppositions – and the perceptions they comprise – are firmly established around the characters and the world so are they not fully bound by them.

Menstruation och klimakteriet har fått förnyad aktualitet i Sverige: i radio, tv-program, poddar och på sociala medier har dessa övergångsåldrar fått stor uppmärksamhet under de senaste fem åren. Det märks inte minst i den självhjälpslitteratur som riktar sig till den menstruerande flickan och till kvinnan i klimakteriet. I bästsäljande böcker om hormoner och deras inverkan på våra kroppar får den medelålders kvinnan råd om hur hon kan hantera hormonsvägningar från pre- till post-menopaus på ett alltmer intrikat sätt. Parallellt får flickan i puberteten via handböcker om mens stärkande tips och råd om hur hon bäst kan bemästra den hormonella omställning som påverkar henne. I denna presentation sätter vi dessa berättelser i kontakt med varandra och reflekterar över vad de säger om vår samtids syn på övergångsåldrar och åldrande. Vad är det som ska undvikas? Vad är det som ska vinnas? Syftet är att utforska hur denna litteratur skildrar önskade och oönskade subjektspositioner – före, innan och efter den hormonella övergång som beskrivs. Vi återvänder till teorier om åldrande och sårbarhet. Resultaten visar att dessa övergångsberättelser har en feministisk potential men också återinstallerar det ”starka subjekt” som feministisk och queerteoretisk forskning sökt att destabilisera. I presentationen funderar vi på var otidsenliga fenomen som skam, sårbarhet och ickekontroll hör hemma i samtidens powerfeministiska diskurs. 

The balance recipe: the art of managing menopause in the hormone stories of self-help literature 

In recent years, menopause as a phase of transformation has received great media attention in a Swedish context. It is then not only specifically concerning the time when menstruation ceases – but about a longer period of time when female bodies undergo an adjustment with a focus on hormonal changes. In books such as Hormonstark (Hormone strong) (2020), Perimenopower (2018) and Livet med klimakteriet (Life with Menopause) (2020), the stressed reader in the middle of the career receives knowledge, tips, ideas and inspiring stories about how to deal with the fluctuating hormones that are said to affect the body during menopause. In this article, we start from these books with a poststructuralist feminist perspective on narratives and body control on the hormone stories of self-help literature. The aim is to explore how the literature represents women's menopause and hormonal bodies in a broader sense, and how women are encouraged to act in relation to this. The results show that hormone narratives may have feminist potential, but that they primarily make menopause an individual rather than structural matter. Further, they also reveal a close resemblance between the hormonal narratives and a biocapitalist contemporary, with an aging female body as a lucrative threat.

I denna uppsats undersöker jag hur ett litterärt "jag" framställs i Arne Sands roman Väderkvarnarna (1962). Med utgångspunkt i Sands texter om ett gestaltskapande problem i den för Sand samtida "gestaltskapande" romanen tolkar jag Sands projekt i Väderkvarnarna som ett projekt där dess "gestaltskapande" tematiseras och problematiseras. Det är utifrån det gestaltskapande problemet som "jaget" i texten blir relevant. Om 60-talets roman har problem med att gestalta ett "jag" utifrån dess förändrade samhälle i efterkrigstidens följd, hur sker då jag-framställningen i en roman vars författare proklamerar detta problem? Samtidigt finns i Väderkvarnarna intertextuella kopplingar till vad jag i uppsatsen valt att kalla Kierkegaards ironiska jag-position. Med den Kierkegaardska ironin verkar ett fragmentariskt "jag" utan kontinuitet kunna skönjas, där "jaget" blir negativt fritt från verkligheten. Med den kierkegaardska ironin som teoretisk utgångspunkt och intertextuell vägvisare närmar jag mig i uppsatsen frågan om hur Väderkvarnarna framställer ett litterärt "jag", som genom problematiserandet av "gestalter" eventuellt  bereder väg för ett kommande litterärt "jag" i den svenska litteraturhistorien.  

The aim of this thesis is to study representations of identity and (in)visibility in Swedish lesbian novels written in the 1930s, and to provide a summary of Swedish lesbian literature up to the early 21^st century. This study has been done through a close reading primarily of Charlie by Margareta Suber (1932), Fröknarna von Pahlen by Agnes von Krusenstjerna (1930–1935) and Kris by Karin Boye (1934).

Lesbian literature is discussed as a loose category, a construction which can be used as an analytical tool in a conscious and reflexive way, with its basis in the categories of author, text and reader. In short, I define lesbian literature as novels written by women, about lesbian figures and/or relationships, and for lesbian readers in the sense that the literature depicts lesbians from an insider’s perspective.

As regards the period before 1930, the focus is on romantic friendship and the excitement zone when the romantic friendship becomes a sexual one, as seen in the fictitious case of Sin fars dotter (1920) by Lydia Wahlström.

Sexological theories, the image of “the new woman” and changes to the law all colour the first half of the 20^th century. This is seen in Charlie by Margareta Suber, where the author makes use of many such explanations in her creation of a lesbian figure.

A reading of Fröknarna von Pahlen by Agnes von Krusenstjerna shows an intricate pattern of relationships at its heart. My analysis charts several same-sex couples, a lesbian single woman and two collectives; that is to say, the female collective and the male homosexual collective. The relationships between women are many-faceted and include everything from romantic friendship, kinship and sensualism to eroticism and shared parenthood.

In my analysis of Kris by Karin Boye, I focus on Malin, the main character, and the development of her sense of identity, in which the struggle between the language of the world around her and her own emotional experience of love for a woman is a central theme.

After the 1930s, the historical context changed in terms of everything from decriminalisation in 1944 via the homophobic panic of the 1950s to the impact of queer theory in the 1990s. Swedish lesbian literature addresses everything from crime of passion (murder) to the coming out process of young women.

There exists in all novels from the 1930s an interplay that is (in)visible: the characters or lesbian relationships depicted are both visible and invisible at the same time. The characters are more or less aware of the potential risks attached to being visible as a lesbian, and often they do not notice themselves when this occurs. During the course of the 20^th century, (in)visibility becomes replaced by openness and secrecy, and the visibility of the lesbian characters is politicised. 

At the heart of this thesis are the Swedish author Stig Larsson’s novels: Autisterna (The Autistic, 1979), Nyår (New Year, 1984), Introduktion (Introduction, 1986) and Komedin I (The Comedy I, 1989). The purpose is to illuminate how certain central activities in the novels contribute strongly to the actual formation of these works. A part of this purpose is demonstrating that these central activities can be related to fundamental thinking in the writer’s authorship that concerns a struggle for authenticity. In terms of theory I connect principally to Jean-Pierre Richard’s thematic criticism. The purpose of the thesis, the theoretical considerations and a presentation of Stig Larsson form the first chapter.

The second chapter discusses Larsson’s aesthetic points of departure, where a recurring striving after authenticity and change stand in focus. The chapter begins by placing Larsson’s authorship in relation to a late-modernistic literary tradition. Next it is emphasised that this authentic attitude often stands on a collision course with a harmonising and anti-modernistic view of literature, associated with György Lukács, which was common in Sweden in the 1970s when Larsson debuted as an author. The chapter ends with a rough description of the three most important elements of Larsson’s quest for authenticity: insignificant phenomena, everyday activities and painful experiences.

The third chapter concerns the insignificant and minimal activities that are such a dominant element in Larsson’s novels. First comes an analysis of the ”small moments” observed during a train journey by the protagonist of Autisterna, and then a comparison is made with literary impressionism. The chapter then focuses on: the peripheral spatial dimension, the odd moments in time, the slow movement and, finally, ”the view of an uninterrupted nothing”. Given Larsson’s aversion to a harmonising and grandiose literature, these insignificant phenomena are a clear element in his struggle for authenticity.

The everyday, the worthless and the ugly are the focus of the fourth chapter. The theme of everyday life is looked at from four different perspectives. The first concerns an ordinary everydayness (food preparation, watching TV and everyday games) and the second the literally worthless and ugly (rubbish and bodily fluids). The third perspective looks in detail at everyday language, and the performative character of dialogue in Larsson’s novels, and the fourth at relations to modern Swedish social developments since the 1960s.

The fifth chapter looks at humiliation, violence and abuse in the novels. I argue throughout that Larsson chooses to touch on phenomena such as humiliation and violence because they show more authentically how real people behave towards each other in real life. Even the way in which these activities are portrayed can be related to ideas concerning authenticity. This is because Larsson generally chooses to portray both violence and humiliation visually and without comment.

The thesis ends with a sixth chapter, which consists of a brief conclusion that shows how ideas concerning authenticity and change can also be related to four autobiographical prose works that Stig Larsson released between 1997 and 2000.

I denna studie utforskas hur arbetet karakteriseras samt hur arbetarnas upplevelser skildras i de två arbetarromanerna Drömfabriken (2010) av Maria Hamberg och Yarden (2009) av Kristian Lundberg. Det som studeras är hur kropp, solidaritet och livsberättelse påverkas av kapitalismens kultur med särskilt fokus på de bemanningsföretagsanställda karaktärernas erfarenheter. I Drömfabriken, vars berättelse utspelar sig innan Yardens, skildras konsekvenserna av vinstmaximerande åtgärder på en bilfabrik. Att hyra in personal är en av de slutliga åtgärderna. I Yarden skildras hur tillvaron påverkas av att vara anställd av ett bemanningsföretag. Inom ramen för studien sker en viss jämförelse med exempel hämtade ur det tidiga 1900-talets arbetarlitteratur. Analysen har genomförts med hjälp av Richard Sennetts teorier om hur arbetare påverkas av den nya kapitalismens kultur. Även begrepp som respektabilitet, turist och vagabond har använts.

Sammanfattningsvis visar undersökningen att kropp, solidaritet och livsberättelse tar skada av den fragmentariska och för arbetarna icke-påverkansbara situation de befinner sig i. Förhållandet till kroppen är komplext. Kroppen är en förutsättning för arbete, men den slits också av det. Studien visar även att solidariteten bland arbetare har försvagats över tid. Den återfinns dock till viss del i de studerade romanerna. Studien visar också att bemanningsföretagsanställda avpersonifieras i Drömfabriken och avhumaniseras i Yarden. Livsberättelse i form av utveckling och framgång på arbetsplatsen är inte tillgänglig för karaktärerna i Drömfabriken och Yarden. De arbets- och anställningsförhållanden som skildras har även en negativ inverkan på romankaraktärernas försök att skapa sin livsberättelse utanför arbetet.

En slutsats som dras är att arbetarlitteratur, som ger en kritisk röst till dem med osäkra anställningar, fyller en viktig funktion som ställföreträdare för det kollektiv som inte kan formas till följd av rörlighet, kortsiktighet och få anställningsrättigheter.

The conference Codex and Code: Aesthetics, Language and Politics in an Age of Digital Media (NorLit 2009)was held at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, August 6–9, 2009. The conference was organized by the Nordic Association for Comparative Literature (NorLit); the Department of Culture and Communication, Linköping University; the School of Computer Science and Communication, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH); the Department of Comparative Literature, Stockholm University; the Department of Culture and Communication, Södertörn University College; and the Department of Comparative Literature, Uppsala University.

    The aim of the conference was to develop the study of Comparative Literature through Nordic collaboration both in its own discipline and in Modern Language and Cultural studies. As the title for the conference suggests, the principal question for the conference was the challenge that the study of literature encounters in an age of digitalization and globalization. It was our aim to encourage discussion of how literary studies respond to the ongoing changes in media and technology, politics and economy. Many have argued that the Humanities currently are in a state of crisis. We believe that the discipline seldom has found itself in such an interesting and fruitful historical moment. Several of these questions have surfaced during earlier media system changes, in particular during Romanticism and Modernism, which provided the conference with an historical frame. The conference Codex and Code also addressed questions of authenticity and originality, identity and gender, literary genres and reading practices, media and materiality, culture and popular culture, language and history, world literature, work aesthetics, translations, and canon formation.

    The conference Codex and Code wanted to stimulate interdisciplinary scholarly research of the literary in a broad sense. The conference was open to scholars in Comparative Literature and in Classical and Modern Languages, Aesthetics, Media and Communication studies, Film and Theatre studies, Philosophy and adjacent disciplines. The conference was organized around a number of thematic sessions in which researchers and scholars presented and discussed papers.

    The conference has received generous financial support from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, Magnus Bergwall foundation, Granholms foundation, Linköping University, School of Computer Science and Communication, Royal Institute of Technology, Svenska litteratursällskapet; the Swedish Academy, Swedish Science Council, and Vitterhetsakademien.

The purpose of this bachelor’s essay is to examine the exclusion as a theme in Agnes Cecilia (1981) by Maria Gripe. The essay is analysing the exclusion of the characters in the novel and the way this might be linked to their personal development, which leads the essay to a further focus: the female development novel as a genre. The essay also examines whether the exclusion can be seen as the theme of the novel, which makes the essay reflect on ways to define theme as a concept.

The essay is not based on any theory, but previous research on Agnes Cecilia and the authorship of Maria Gripe are frequently used. Skuggornas förtrogna (2000) by Ying Toijer-Nilsson and Sökande, spegling, metamorfos (1994) by Carina Lidström are the ones of most importance. Litterär teori och stilistik (1972) by Peter Hallbergs and the article ”Superhjältar och björnvarelser: temabegreppet och lärarens förberedande läsning från förskolan till mellanstadiet” (2019) by Christian Mehrstam are both used to clarify different definitions of theme as a concept. 

The analysis examines how the exclusion is expressed in the novel and the way this exclusion is the basis of the characters personal development, as for the course of events in the novel. Furthermore, the analysis focuses on the female development novel as a genre. The relationship between mother and daughter is especially highlighted, since it turns out to be strongly linked to the exclusion of the novel.

Our times of ecological disasters and climate crisis inspired the author Mikael Niemi to write the novel Fallvatten (2012). The narrative deals with what happens when a dam in a hydro-electric power plant bursts, and creates a tsunami-like flood. The purpose with my essay was to make a thematic analysis of this novel from an ecocritical, ecofeministic and postcolonial perspective. The genre and its importance for the themes and the shaping of the novel were also noticed in the essay. My questions were: Does the author use an ecocritical, ecofeministic and a postcolonial approach in the novel? If he does, how is that shaped in the narrative? Is the story adversarial to civilization and/or technology? Is Fallvatten an ironic novel? If it is, what is the irony about? What are the characteristics of the genre ecothriller, and why can the novel be placed in this genre? How does the genre influence the themes used and development of the story? By using the method of close-reading I have made a thematic analysis of the novel Fallvatten, with a theoretical frame of ecocriticism, ecofeminism and postcolionial theory. The results of the analysis demonstrated that this novel can be regarded as an ecocritical, ecofeministic and postcolonial “rewriting”. In the narrative nature is personified and depicted as an active agent who takes vengeance on humanity’s greed. The author is deconstructing dichotomies and stereotypes about the view of both gender and nature. He is also depicting the Sami cultural identity as hybrid and heterogeneous.  Fallvatten can be placed in the genre of ecothriller, because the environment is a premise for the story and it also includes an intense and increasing suspense. The genre has enabled the author to create a polyphonic and rhapsodic novel containing several protagonists with a variety of points of view. In the story, the protagonist´s personal problems get exposed, and forces of good and evil within them reveals, trough their encounter with the disaster. Fallvatten might be adversarial to civilization, but not to technology. In the story technology is depicted positively and it often seems to be indispensable. The narrative contains several Bible-references, which seems to be meant as a parody. But I don´t consider Fallvatten to be an ironic novel. Instead, I see it as a seriously meant story written with a sense of humor and with an ironical tone. I believe the author handles weighty subject matters in the novel with humor and irreverence because it works in a subversive way, with an ecocritical, ecofeministic and an anticolonial aim.

This papers purpose is to compare the female protagonist as a subject and reader in Madame Bovary, Watermelon and Bridget Jones´s diary. The aim is feministic, where Judith Butler’s concepts of subjectivity and performativity have been used besides the method of close reading. These novels are pioneering works of each genre; the realistic novel and chick lit. Emma Bovary loses her subjectivity and turns in to a passive object when she is desired and looked at by men. Instead dead objects gets animated, which produces an extremely objectifying portrait of Emma. This culminates with the depiction of her suicide. Surprisingly Emma’s position as a subject, if she ever has one, appears through her reading. The performativity of the texts gives her power and agency to try to change her life within the limits of the bourgeoisie marriage. The protagonists of Watermelon and Bridget Jones´s diary are two female subjects in a modern society, who loves reading. Despite their different opportunities to live fulfilling lives, as compared to Emma, they tend to objectify themselves in relationship to men. They also emphasize the importance of love and having a man in their life, which is according to the genre. Interpreted through Butler, an explanation could be that the power of submission not only sets the outer limits, it also influences our internal desires. These chick lit-novels also discuss literature and cultural hierarchy, where the protagonists tend to prefer popular literature. Watermelon also contains an opening for subversion, depicted by Claire’s achieved independency at the end of the novel, and through some gender-parodies. Most of all, these two chick lit-novels tend to reiterate and consolidate a traditional gender-order through their performativity, although ironizing over the same.

Keywords: Reading, genre, realistic novel, chick lit, feminism, Judith Butler, subjectivity, performativity, Madame Bovary, Watermelon, Bridget Jones´s diary.

The image of Northern Sweden has long been subjected to stereotyping, and the stereo­typed image of the Northerner is widely spread in various media contexts within Sweden. Historically, Norrland has been regarded as a wide wilderness, and the Norr­landic literature in turn has typically been studied in terms of the pastoral genre, the romanti­cism of the wilderness, or from an eco-critical perspective. The study of masculin­ity within modern Norrlandic literature, however, is largely overlooked, de­spite the undeniable stereotyping of Norrlandic males within other forms of media. This the­sis aims to solve this anomaly by providing insights into the creation processes of masculinity in three contemporary Norrlandic novels.

In the novels Smekmånader [Honeymoons, 2017] by Mikael Berglund, Solidärer [Solidarians, 2017] by Anna Jörgensdotter, and Silvervägen [The Silver Road, 2018] by Stina Jackson, the construct of Norrlandic masculinity is examined through close-reading. The questions of how Norrlandic masculinity is constructed is examined through a theoretical framework combining the hegemonic masculinity of R. W. Connell, the gender performativity and queer studies of Judith Butler, the frontstage and backstage perspective of Erving Goffman, and the creation of emotions of Sara Ahmed, in the reading of three contemporary novels following male protagonists—each seeing their identity challenged while on a journey far away from home.

Viktor of Honeymoons is constructed as a brave cry-baby or a highly sensitive person whose self is disintegrated in the absence of his wife Maija. He is furthermore constructed as a person offering emotional comfort, despite being deeply void of such comfort himself. Ingemar of Solidarians is constructed as a mummy’s boy or a dreamer who ends up as a martyr, who always requires the presence of a woman—his mother Eivor, Klara whom he is wooing, or Conxa whom he meets in the war in Spain—in order to advance from a mere lust to an actual event of action. His emotions are slightly supressed. Lelle of The Silver Road is constructed as an emotionally blunted vigilant or a nervous wreck, who readily succumbs to aggression and violence towards other men, in his lack of emotional cathexis to a physical person. He is struggling with his perceived failure in his role as a father, and is furthermore driven to action by his need of reconciling with his past. Nonetheless, none of the male protagonists exhibits a lasting hegemonic masculinity.

The study concludes that the analysed novels contribute to a new form of Norrlandic literature which challenges the traditional and stereotypical ideas of rural masculinity.

This paper deconstructs twelve contemporary political speeches from leaders of the Swedish parliament, using Julia Kristeva’s interpretation of the abject. Focusing mainly on Annie Lööf (C) and Jimmie Åkesson (SD), it examines speeches made at Almedalsveckan, spanning the years 2014–2019. In addition to these speakers, but to a lesser extent, it references Ebba Busch Thor (KD) and Jonas Sjöstedt (V) from the same time period and event. Rather than looking at these narratives from a rhetoric point-of-view, this paper analyses the reader’s/listener’s affective relationship to the text. Are the speakers attempting to arouse feelings of horror, disgust, repulsion, or anxiety in their audience with their choices of words and images? When, how… and why? To answer these questions some sociological and political theories are utilised alongside Kristeva’s, namely those of Randall Collins and Murray Edelman. In applying Collins explanation for how group solidarity is generated – by extension, how group identity is created – this paper suggests that abjection serves a vital role in these speeches as part of the political strategy to gain and maintain support. Through separation and exclusion, delineating what the speaker and their sympathisers are and are not, as well as designating enemies on whom they can project their fears and frustrations, the speaker effectively forges group cohesion. This process can provide members of said group (i.e. readers and listeners) with a release of tension, or feelings of reassurance or excitement. The result of these political narratives, whether intended or not, is an imagined, idealised Swedish subject, who affirms the “necessity” of the political leader that imagines them.