Thesis--Lund. / Without thesis statement. "Använda källor och litteratur" p. [xiv]-xxxi.

Thesis--Lund. / Without thesis statement. "Använda källor och litteratur" p. [xiv]-xxxi.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1975. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation is a study of how the culture of sensibility was expressed in the everyday practices and social relations of the Gjörwell family. Headed by publicist, publisher and royal librarian Carl Christoffer Gjörwell (1731-1811), the Gjörwell family served as the centre of a wide circle of friends in late 18th-century Stockholm. Gjörwell has been regarded as one of the first Swedish representatives of 18th-century sensibility as well as an archetype of the Swedish cult of friendship. Due to his effusive emotional expressiveness and passionate friendships with other men, Gjörwell has largely been derided as effeminate by researchers from the 19th century onwards. Using theoretical perspectives from the field of the history of emotions (more concretely the perspectives of William Reddy, Barbara Rosenwein and Monique Scheer) this study centres on the emotional practices of the Gjörwell family, especially taking aspects of gender, class, sexuality and power into account. Gjörwell’s vast collection of family and friendship correspondence forms the empirical basis of this study. This study shows that the Gjörwell family and circle of friends in many ways could be regarded as an emotional community in which primarily emotions of happiness and joy are expressed. Furthermore, this study shows how the exercise of power could form part in the creation of an emotional community, as Gjörwell makes constant attempts to influence the way family members and friends manage their emotions, strongly dissuading them from the expression of melancholy. Although he has been viewed as effeminate by posterity, Gjörwell in fact regards himself as manly. This is due to his ability to remain joyful through adversities which testifies to his strong, and therefore manly, nervous organisation. This study thus further illustrates how a marked shift in masculine gender norms took place between the 18th and 19th centuries. This study also shows how expression of tender emotion could be a way of reinforcing personal status. This was due to the close association made between sensibility and virtue, in itself a central concept during this era. As Gjörwell is denied recognition in his professional life, the expression of tender emotion – and thus of virtue – becomes an important aspect of his personal life.

The aim for this thesis was to investigate how the rape narratives, where men are raped by women, are portrayed in Swedish youth literature to be able to discover whether the discourse of rape has been subjected to change over time. This is done through a comparative analysis of the male victims, the female perpetrators and how power structures determine the credibility of the victims in Glappet (1998) by Christina Herrström and Sebbe sa nej (2019) by Niclas Christoffer. The investigation is done against the context that shows how female on male rape has been constructed and reproduced as unlikely, based in culturally established norms that depict men as sexually active and women as sexually passive. A model combining Judith Butler’s theory regarding how penetration secures the sexes, with Gayle Rubin’s theory on the sexual value system, is developed and used to detect how the unintelligible rape is made intelligible. In addition to this Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubars’ angel/monster dichotomy is used to explain the construction of the female perpetrator. Through the analysis it becomes visible that the narratives are shaped in certain ways to make the unintelligible rape intelligible. The understanding of sexual perpetrators and victims is deeply connected to the cultural understandings regarding gender norms and sexuality. In many ways female on male rape is constructed as an exception in the novels, and explained in terms that fit within a heteronormative framework. Despite this, the comparison of the narratives shows that the concept of rape has broadened enough to include female on male rape as a type of sexual violence.

The purpose of this essay is to examine whether visiting noblemen at the castles of Borgholm and Kalmar with their vast network of acquaintances can determine a tendency towards a political stance in the civil war of Sweden in the late 16th century. This is done by examining the guests and the company of the bailiff, born as a commoner but later governor and nobleman, Christoffer Gyllengrip Andersson, who in the end of the century would perish in the same manner as many of the peerage who fell at the bloodbath of Linköping in the year 1600. The networks are analyzed with the help of accountings and census records from the above mentioned castles between the years 1579-1592 whereon by the year 1593 the following national as well as local events will be analyzed and presented until the year 1600. The essay shows that allegiance to one or the other side can be seen to certain degree in the presented era delving into Kalmar Castle generally, allthough the true nature of one’s political ideals become most visible in the later 1590s when the noblemen actually are forced to take sides, instead of the double-agent poppycock of which they were in the antecedent decade of 1580. The essay shows that the information given by the census-records can be anchored in history’s more famous line such as when Olof Andersson Oxehufvud (one of many) is assigned as governor in the year 1594 to prevent the eminent empowerment of his uncle Karl, Duke of Södermanland, Närke and Värmland.