The Countryside, Nature, and Swedish Agrarian Policies. Vilhelm Moberg from an Eco-Critical Perspective

This study applies an eco-critical perspective on the agrarian utopia Vilhelm Moberg depicts in his fictional works. His autobiographical novels about Knut Toring from the 1930s and his emigrant series from the 1950s are put in the foreground. (Sänkt sedebetyg 1935, transl. Memory of Youth 1937; Sömnlös 1937, “Sleepless”, not translated into English; Giv oss jorden! 1939, transl. The Earth is Ours 1940; Utvandrarna 1949, transl. The Emigrants 1951; Invandrarna 1953, transl. Unto a Good Land 1954; Nybyggarna 1956, transl. The Settlers; Sista brevet till Sverige 1959, transl. The Last Letter Home 1961).

These works can be read as variations on a theme which occupied Moberg throughout his life as a writer: the loss of rural Sweden. The study focuses on Moberg’s utopian concepts of how the countryside could be saved. The solution lies in increased productivity and growth. In both his fictional and journalistic works Moberg has come forward as a critic of modernity in general and more specific the emerging Swedish welfare state, the so called ”Folkhemmet”. But the study argues that Moberg’s novels, paradoxically enough, in certain respects are compatible with Swedish agrarian policies in the middle of the 20th century and the ideological ideas underpinning ”Folkhemmet”, with development, progress and growth as overriding goals. The eco-critical perspective puts this policy of growth in a historical and anthropological and ideological context, aiming to show that nature in the works of Moberg is primarily seen as a resource for man. Nature is a bottomless source of riches, and man is assigned to manage it.

Artikeln behandlar begreppet och fenomenet arbetarlitteratur från en vardagsspråkfilosofisk och ideologikritisk utgångspunkt.

The Swedish poet Stig Sjödin (1917–1993) is generally recognized as an important figure in both Swedish literary history and the history of Swedish working-class literature. This status rests almost exclusively on poetrycollections published in the 1940s, 1950s and 1970s. In addition to this, however, Sjödin was also active as a poet within the labour movement. By including his activities there, and discussing their relationship to his poetry collections, this article aims at broadening the understanding of Sjödin’s oeuvre. It also argues that research on modern Swedish working-class literature must transcend the traditional realm of literature.

This article analyses how the working-class poet Stig Sjödin (1917-1993) thematizes, in his works, his role as a labour-movement poet. This is done though an investigation of his relationship to older agitational labour-movement songs. These songs constituted an important genre within Swedish working-class literature during the decades around the turn-of-the-century 1900. However, they belong to a different era than Sjödin’s poetry, and were shaped by different conditions. Therefore, a comparison can make visible what is historically specific about Sjödin’s oeuvre, especially regarding its (and modern Swedish working-class literature’s) relationship to the labour movement. 

This article analyzes the ambivalent attitude of several Swedish working-class writers towards the tradition of working-class literature during the period 1945–2010. To certain extent, this ambivalence is a product of some aspects of the general symbolic economy in the field of literary production. Primarily, however, it is the result of conditions specific to Swedish working-class literature. Working-class writers often motivate their membership to the tradition of working-class literature in terms of the tradition's legitimizing of radical class discourses both within and beyond the field of literature. At the same time, however, the subaltern status of this tradition often makes its conventions for literary representations of class appear aesthetically and politically unsatisfactory. Furthermore, over time, the general cultural production of class on a societal level necessitates a break with the class-political literary strategies developed within the tradition of working-class literature.

This article analyses the construction of Swedish working-class literature. In particular, it discusses how, at various point in time and in different contexts, emphasis has been put either on its ties to the working class or on its literariness. Special attention is given to Ivar Lo-Johansson – often viewed as the archetypical Swedish working- class writer – whose works display an ambivalent attitude; sometimes he argues that the fundamental function of working-class literature is to give expression to workers’ experiences, at other times he stresses its literary qualities. The article argues that in Sweden, working-class literature has often been viewed as a literary, rather than a social or political, phenomenon, and that this must be taken into account in scholarly definitions of this literature.

The article discusses the relevance of (re-) readings of Marx's Capital for the study of literature.

This article analyzes how the thematization of childhood (childhood as a motif, as well as the use of narrative focalization through a child) is used in the cultural construction of class in Swedish working-class literature from the 1930s, exemplified by Ivar Lo-Johansson’s Godnatt, jord (1933), Moa Martinson’s Mor gifter sig (1936), and Eyvind Johnson’s Romanen om Olof (1934–37). The main argument is that in these novels, the child symbolizes a working class that is subjected to injustice, but also has the potential to put an end to this injustice. Thus, the child also represents the working-class writer’s subordinate-yet-vivacious position in the field of literature.

In an analysis of the Swedish satirical magazine PUSS (1968–1974) this article explores what is considered as improper rhetoric and aesthetic in the public sphere. It draws on theories of representation and the culture of carnival laughter and the grotesque as well as research on the Swedish folkhem and satire and democracies. I coin the concept demogrotesqueatic in order to capture how PUSS, by using comics, grotesque bodies and carnivalesque, improper rhetoric and aesthetics, makes visible fundamental challenges to democratic societies. I argue that the magazine’s representational practices highlight the function of what is often considered ‘filth’ in the public sphere and the central role the gro-tesque body plays in upholding – and breaking – boundaries of propriety. I interpret this as important democratic work, and demonstrate that while the satire in PUSS is situated in a specific time and place, it is also part of a longstanding literary and artistic tradition.

The position of American Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) on the field of literary production is problematic. In her own lifetime she was an enormously successful writer and a well known intellectual, as well as a bridge between east (China) and west (US), but today she is either forgotten by literary history/critics, or known as the most infamous of all Nobel Prize winners: »the worst writer ever to receive the Prize.« This makes her a very interesting case study for an analysis which focuses on questions of valuation and classification of literature, especially from a postcolonial perspective. I argue that by studying Buck, and particularly the reasons why she is typically portrayed as such a problematic writer, we can learn about these important processes. Because Buck is a writer that crosses borders and claims multiple homes, her trajectory foregrounds the intimate relationship between literature, nation states, and identities. Her history also sheds light on the functions of the imaginary and real communities involved in the processes of valuation and classification of literature, not least the Swedish Academy.

Är det bra eller dåligt att genuskrysset är borta?För att svara på frågan måste jag börja från början:Genuskryssen var ju en konsekvens av VR:s uppdrag att främja genusperspektiv i forskning och fyllde en funktion i deras uppföljande och utvärderande verksamhet – de var ett verktyg i VR:s interna analys. I den allmänna debat-ten kom de dock tyvärr ofta att uppfattas och användas som en direkt symbol och ett bevis för att genusforskning var något statsrelaterat och statsreglerat. Genom denna feltolkning och användningen av en guilt-by-association tek-nik har forskning inom genusfältet ofta blivit tvungen att förklara och försvara sig på vis som andra vetenskapliga discipliner inte varit nöd-gade till. Det positiva med situationen har varit att det har förts en ständig diskussion kring vad forskning inom genusfältet är och kan vara, vil-ket förmodligen har bidragit till att fältet nu är ett livaktigt och starkt forskningsfält. Men det är också så att det utmattat och tagit kraft.Om jag tänker positivt så är genuskryssens borttagande ett tecken på att vi i dag befinner oss i en situation där forskning inom genusfäl-tet inte behöver främjas och följas upp (VR:s tidigare uppdrag) eftersom denna forskning är etablerad och accepterad som ett vetenskapligt fält bland andra. Om jag tänker negativt så är det ett tecken på en backlash vi då endast be-finner oss i början av. Förmodligen ligger san-ningen någonstans där emellan.Jag och många med mig önskar dock att vi nu är redo att ta steget in i en helt annorlunda dis-kussion än den som de famösa genuskryssen var en del av. Genuskrysset är dött, men länge leve diskussion TFL 11forskningen inom genusfältet. Jag väljer därför att tänka positivt och svarar med ett rungande: ja, det är bra att genuskrysset är borta!

In this article an example of class room work on Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita is used to discuss text selection in teacher education. My starting point is that text selection far too seldom becomes a matter of risk taking. What happens when you as a teacher deliberately choose texts that may provoke your students? What are the didactic and ethical possibilities and difficulties? My thesis is that the choice of provocative literature can function as a productive bridge between aesthetical and instrumental ways of reading. Texts which challenge core values of the school and “the myth about the goodness of literature” open up for dialogues about the what, how and why of literature instruction.

In this paper I chart some of the numerous connections between literature, theory and terrorism. Ever since the emergence of romanticism, the artistic ideal of transgression has played a prominent role in aesthetic theory and practice. In late modernity, however, the notion of transgression has become so common in all fields of culture, that its critical potential must be questioned. This complex issue is discussed here in relation to both literary and theoretical examples.

In contemporary popular literary culture (Collins 2010), the circulation of representations of reading as a kind of lifestyle is increasing rapidly. I will highlight this phenomenon by way of a discussion of two new literary magazines, the Swedish Books & Dreams, and the British The Happy Reader. Here, reading becomes a lifestyle fully imbedded in contemporary ”designer culture” (Julier 2013), and is metonymically linked to, amongst other things, interior design, cooking, and travel. Which reading practices are encouraged in the magazines, and in what ways do they challenge (or confirm) traditional ideas of the forms, functions, and values of reading?

En fråga som sysselsatt våra tankar under senare tid är hur vårt uppdrag som lärare i litteraturvetenskap (och övrig humaniora) ska se ut i framtiden. Att undervisa i humaniora verkar idag i allt högre grad innebära att konfronteras med frågan hur undervisningen, ända ner i dess minsta beståndsdelar, kan examineras. Hur kan man veta vilket betyg en viss student förtjänarpå en specifik del av ett seminarium? Är gruppdiskussioner ens möjliga eller blir de överflödiga om de inte går att övervaka och examinera? Denna tendens – att examinationen blir viktigare än både undervisningens innehåll och former – kan förstås som en följd av ökad detaljstyrning generellt inom den högre utbildningens ramverk, men vi upplever det också som att dagens studenter ofta anammar och internaliserar detta synsätt. Vi gick därför ut med en förfrågan till olika universitet och högskolor för att undersöka om några delade vår uppfattning: Håller du med om beskrivningen ovan? Är denna tendens i så fall ett problem eller något att omfamna? Hur bör litteraturvetenskapen förhålla sig till denna utveckling? Kan vi fortsätta som vi alltid har gjort, eller kommer detta att förändra möjligheterna att bedriva undervisning i litteraturvetenskap? Finns det därför skäl att protestera? Här nedan ger några litteraturvetare sin syn på problematiken. 

Homoerotiska föreställningar och strukturer i Heidenstams brev till Levertin undersöks och sätts i relation till gestaltningen av karaktären Ahirab i Heidenstams roman Hans Alienus.

recension

Fact and Fiction in Ekphrastic Representations

How do we distinguish between fictional and factual texts? Is there an inherent difference between the language used in, for example, a poem, and a text in an art history book? Or is it merely a matter of context? Ekphrastic texts have a special place in discussions about fact versus fiction, since they often (though not always) relate in various ways to existing media products such as paintings, photographs and sculptures, and since they have been traditionally used as substitutes for actually seeing, for example, a work of art.

In this article I investigate ekphrastic poems and factual texts which represent the same art works, in order to discuss the issue of fact and fiction in different kinds of texts.