Claustrophobic Families. Reading Queer/ly in Changing Contexts. In Conversation with Jenny Björklund

nordlitt – Skandinavistische Literaturforschung im Gespräch

nordlitt continues the mini-series on Queer Theory and literature with the help of Jenny Björklund, Uppsala University. We ask what queer literature and reading might mean in a time and place where gay and lesbian parenting has become normalized. Jenny guides us through a novel by Viktoria Myrén about a mother who abandons her children, making literary detours to Victoria Benedictsson, August Strindberg, Margareta Suber, and Sara Stridsberg. We learn about Sweden's pro-natalist history and wonder if literary deaths can be read as acts of resistance. Last but not least, we emphasize the joy of co-writing and the importance of saying Yes!

(00:00:17) Introduction Jenny Björklund

(00:00:28) How Did Jenny Björklund End Up at the Intersection between Literary and Gender Studies?

(00:03:01) Moving Towards Queer Studies from Gender Studies

(00:06:47) What Happens to Queer When it Becomes Canonized?

(00:11:36) The “Pro-Natalist Tradition” in Sweden

(00:20:06) Queerness in Literature and Reading

(00:23:23) Queer Reading and the Concept of Death

(00:33:54) Paranoid and Reparative Reading

(00:38:00) The Body and Figurations

(00:45:38) Viktoria Myrén’s Novel I en familj finns inga fiender (There Are No Enemies in a Family)

(00:50:52) Queer Aspects of the Novel

(00:58:26) Marie as an Unreliable Narrator?

(01:03:02) The Structure Failing the Individual

(01:06:15) Leaving and Abandoning

(01:09:54) Family Conflict as War?

(01:18:09) Ambiguous Ending

(01:28:19) What Advice Would You Give Your Student-Self?

Bibliography, further information, and comments are available on Experiment Geisteswissenschaften.

https://exgeist.hypotheses.org/

Idea and conception: Stefanie von Schnurbein

Cut: Cecilia Falkman