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<p>This study investigates how an ambivalence surrounding men and masculinity has been expressed and exploited in Pop literature since the late 1980s, focusing on works by German-speaking authors Christian Kracht and Benjamin Lebert and American author Bret Easton Ellis. I compare works from the United States with German and Swiss novels in order to reveal the scope - as well as the national particularities - of these troubled gender identities and what it means in the context of recent debates about a "crisis" in masculinity in Western societies. My comparative work will also highlight the ways in which these particular literatures and cultures intersect, invade, and influence each other. </p><p> In this examination, I demonstrate the complexity and success of the critical projects subsumed in the works of three authors too often underestimated by intellectual communities. At the same time, I reveal the very structure and language of these critical projects as a safe haven for "male fantasies" of gender difference and identity formation long relegated to the distant past, fantasies that continue to lurk within our cultural currencies.</p> / Dissertation

Title: “All roads here always lead to irony”. Verbal irony as a mean of presenting dandyismin the novels ‘Faserland’, by Christian Kracht and ‘Att komma hem ska vara en schlager’, byPer Hagman. A contrastive analysis. Author: Hanna JulinSupervisor: Bärbel WestphalExaminator: Corina Löwe Summary: The aim of this study is to investigate how verbal irony is used in fiction to indicatedandyism in pop-modern literature. It is a contrastive study based on Christian Kracht’s novelFaserland (1995), which is considered to be a romana à clef in the German popliterature. Attkomma hem ska vara en schlager (2004), by Per Hagman is a Swedish novel comparative tothe German „pop-novel“. The analysis has shown that the verbal irony primarily has threefunctions: social criticism, distancing and self-criticism. These elements correspond withdistinctive features which are typical of the dandy. Irony itself, according to Barbey (1987),Schickedanz (2000) and Rauen (2010) among others, is a distinctive feature of the classicaldandy figure, as well as of the pop-modern one. However, further research consisting of bothsynchronic, diachronic and contrastive analysis is relevant, as the dandy, according to Hörner(2008) and Tietenberg (2012) among others, always renews himself – so that his image alwaysappears elegant, modern, original and rebellious in his contemporary society.