This essay examines how female authors are described in the literary canon of two different editions of the Swedish education material on the history of literature: Svenska Timmar – litteraturen. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the depiction of female authors has changed from the first edition (1991) to the last edition (2012), and how these changes correspond with the curriculums Lgy70 and Lgy11. The study is quantitative as well as qualitative. The quantitative part of the study shows that the percentage of female authors has increased in the 2012 edition. A greater number of female authors are also portrayed with pictures and headings. This increase is partly explained by the new curriculum, Lgy11, which demands that female authors should be included in the history of literature. This was not the case with Lgy70. The qualitative part of the study contains a feminist and gender analysis, examining how a “gender system” produces and reproduces a dichotomy and hierarchy between the sexes, where the male is norm and the female deviates from this norm. This section shows that, despite the increased number of female authors, their portrayal still differs from that of the male authors. For example, the literary work of women is likely to be categorized as “female literature”, which signals that it is not considered as general as the men’s work. This is, in my conclusion, a way to reproduce the gender system of the literary canon.

After the American Revolutionary War Hannah Webster Foster wrote a new form of the epistolary novel that was based on the life and death of the poet Elizabeth Whitman. Foster's novel The Coquette performs a type of interiority for its audience that is paradoxically public. This novel fills in the gap of missing female biography and autobiography by using the prevailing conventions of fiction to craft a subversive, political identity for marginalized female citizens.

A poet who is a woman and a theologian writes under three pressures, or a triple bind: individuality, spirituality, and society. The desires and drives of the ego and those of spirituality often conflict, and societal expectations which gender bestows add further stress to the poet's efforts. This constant struggle destroys some poets (Plath, Sexton) and renders silent many of the rest. The following collection of poems combats the silence in four progressive sections: The first is an introductory essay which further discusses the triple bind; the second, "Between Two," illustrates spiritual relationships from despair to disillusionment; the third section, "Life in the Mirror," describes deteriorating human relationships; the final section, "Salt," presents problems resolving to a kind of negative capability. This poetry collection continues one woman's poetic struggle toward validity and acceptance.

Modern critical works on the seventeenth-century Extremaduran author Catalina Clara Ramírez de Guzmán are sparse, with the exception of recent interest manifested by a small group of feminist scholars in the United States. Apart from intermittent mentions of her poetry, she is virtually unknown among British Hispanists. This thesis seeks to fill many existing gaps in knowledge on her by providing a broader critical assessment of her surviving poetry than has been available thus far, particularly by situating it and its author within their historical, literary and social contexts and drawing thematic and stylistic analogies with works by other authors, male and female. Part I will concentrate primarily on historical aspects. It will establish the reputation enjoyed by the poet in her day and review references to her work in modern critical literature. It will also provide a detailed reconstruction of the poet's family antecedents and discuss the evidence of a literary community in her home city during the period in which she was active as a writer. Part II will focus on the poetry itself, specifically a consideration of the thematic content of a broad representative selection of Ramírez de Guzmán's verses, which were not published until nearly two centuries after her death, and an examination of her interaction with the genres of occasional verse, verse portraiture and burlesque and satirical poetry, all of which will be discussed against the background of their respective traditions.

This paper analyses Helene Hegemann´s novel Axolotl Roadkill from a gender perspective. It is hereby set focus on Judith Butler´s gender theories which are compared to the novel´s depiction of sexuality. A short overview on gender studies in literature is given in advance in order to set a context for the analysis.

This essay examines how female authors are described in the literary canon of two different editions of the Swedish education material on the history of literature: Svenska Timmar – litteraturen. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the depiction of female authors has changed from the first edition (1991) to the last edition (2012), and how these changes correspond with the curriculums Lgy70 and Lgy11. The study is quantitative as well as qualitative. The quantitative part of the study shows that the percentage of female authors has increased in the 2012 edition. A greater number of female authors are also portrayed with pictures and headings. This increase is partly explained by the new curriculum, Lgy11, which demands that female authors should be included in the history of literature. This was not the case with Lgy70. The qualitative part of the study contains a feminist and gender analysis, examining how a “gender system” produces and reproduces a dichotomy and hierarchy between the sexes, where the male is norm and the female deviates from this norm. This section shows that, despite the increased number of female authors, their portrayal still differs from that of the male authors. For example, the literary work of women is likely to be categorized as “female literature”, which signals that it is not considered as general as the men’s work. This is, in my conclusion, a way to reproduce the gender system of the literary canon. / Denna uppsats undersöker i vilken omfattning och på vilket sätt kvinnliga författare framställs i den litterära kanon som förmedlas i två olika upplagor av ett läromedel i litteraturhistoria för gymnasieskolans högskoleförberedande program: Svenska Timmar – litteraturen. Syftet med studien har varit att undersöka om det sker någon förändring mellan den första upplagan 1991 och den senaste upplagan 2012, och hur dessa förändringar förhåller sig till läroplanerna Lgy70 och Lgy11. Målet har varit att blottlägga några eventuella värdeförskjutningar kring kvinnliga författarskap som har ägt rum i gymnasieskolan inofficiella litterära kanon. För att undersöka detta har antalet kvinnliga författare i Svenska Timmar – litteraturen dels beräknats kvantitativt, dels studerats kvalitativt. Den kvantitativa delen av studien visar att andelen kvinnliga författare, och textutrymmet som de upptar, har ökat i upplagan från 2012. Fler kvinnliga författarskap porträtteras också med en egen bild och rubrik jämfört med 1991. Skillnaden beror förmodligen på att läroplanen Lgy11 – till skillnad från Lgy70 – innehåller krav på att kvinnliga författare ska inkluderas i litteraturundervisningen. Den kvalitativa analysen har inneburit att de två upplagorna har lästs från en feministisk och genusteoretisk horisont, med huvudsaklig utgångpunkt i Yvonne Hirdmans teori om hur ett genussystem skapas och upprätthålls genom en dikotomi och en hierarki mellan könen, där mannen uppfattas som norm och kvinnan som avvikande. Den kvalitativa delen av studien visar att även om antalet kvinnliga författare är fler, existerar fortfarande skillnader mellan hur kvinnliga och manliga författare framställs. Kvinnornas civilstånd fokuseras i större utsträckning än männens i båda upplagorna. Kvinnorna föses också ihop i särskilda delar, under rubriker som antyder att det handlar om ”kvinnolitteratur” och inte om allmängiltig litteratur. Sådana strategier bekräftar genussystemets särhållande av könen, istället för att bryta mot det, och som blivande svensklärare är det viktigt att ha insikt om hur den manliga normen fortsätter att prägla läromedel i litteraturhistoria.

The aim of this essay is to analyse gender representations in Wuthering Heights byusing French literary criticism. French literary critics thought that the language ofliterature was predominantly phallocentric as male authors, who helped shape thatlanguage, dominated it. For female authors to be published, or have any kind ofrecognition for their work, they would therefore use male pseudonyms, as was the casewith Emily Brontë who was initially published as Ellis Bell. Hélène Cixous added to theliterary criticism by noting that the constructed language at the time depended on binaryoppositions such as, passive/active, weak/strong, and intuitive/theoretical, amongstothers. She suggested that these oppositions were applied to represent femininity andmasculinity where feminine attributes were negative and the masculine attributes beingpositive. In effect, the characters in literature having feminine attributes, although somebelonging to the male gender, would automatically mark them as the weaker sex and putthem in the negative category. This, she suggested, determined the outcome from theonset, as those characteristics that was deemed negative would eventually be eliminated,as the binary opposition were not able to co-exist. Kristeva who has theorised the notionof “abject” in her thesis Power of Horror, describes abject as something foul andgrotesque which is always applied to the feminine maternal figure, that also gives creditto Cixous’s theory about the feminine being seen as the negative.

Modern critical works on the seventeenth-century Extremaduran author Catalina Clara Ramírez de Guzmán are sparse, with the exception of recent interest manifested by a small group of feminist scholars in the United States. Apart from intermittent mentions of her poetry, she is virtually unknown among British Hispanists. This thesis seeks to fill many existing gaps in knowledge on her by providing a broader critical assessment of her surviving poetry than has been available thus far, particularly by situating it and its author within their historical, literary and social contexts and drawing thematic and stylistic analogies with works by other authors, male and female. Part I will concentrate primarily on historical aspects. It will establish the reputation enjoyed by the poet in her day and review references to her work in modern critical literature. It will also provide a detailed reconstruction of the poet¿s family antecedents and discuss the evidence of a literary community in her home city during the period in which she was active as a writer. Part II will focus on the poetry itself, specifically a consideration of the thematic content of a broad representative selection of Ramírez de Guzmán¿s verses, which were not published until nearly two centuries after her death, and an examination of her interaction with the genres of occasional verse, verse portraiture and burlesque and satirical poetry, all of which will be discussed against the background of their respective traditions.

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O presente trabalho propôs-se a investigar a escritura literária de autoria feminina nas obras Ventos do Apocalipse (2006), de Paulina Chiziane, e Ponciá Vicêncio, de Conceição Evaristo, no sentido de estabelecer um diálogo com o espaço da experiência perceptiva e cultural geradora de imagens libertárias da consciência feminina nos contextos moçambicano e brasileiro. A opção por pesquisar obras produzidas em espaços sociais e políticos distintos reflete a preocupação em demonstrar que as mulheres continuam buscando formas de se fazerem ouvir, no campo do literário, criando discursos e estratégias enraizadas nas experiências femininas em Moçambique e no Brasil. O fato de este estudo ter buscado suporte interdisciplinar, na linha dos estudos culturais, sobretudo a reflexões históricas, sociológicas e até psicanalíticas, deriva de considerarmos a escrita literária de autoria feminina como um nicho relevante, a partir do qual as mulheres reinventam a sua identidade plural e atuam como agentes de conscientização e de transformação das relações sociais de gênero nos contextos em que suas obras se inserem. / This paper intends to investigate the literary writings by female authors in the works Ventos do Apocalipse (2006), by Paulina Chiziane, and Ponciá Vicêncio, by Conceição Evaristo, in order to establish a dialogue with the cultural and perceptive experience space where libertarian images of the feminine conscience in the Mozambican and Brazilian contexts are generated. The option to study works that were produced in diverse social and politic environments reflects the preoccupation to demonstrate that women are still searching ways to be heard in the literary field, by developing speeches and strategies whose roots lie in the feminine experiences lived in Mozambique and Brazil. In this paper we have searched a multidisciplinary basis, by means of cultural studies, mainly historical, sociological and even psychoanalytic reflections; and we have chosen this approach because we consider the feminine literary writing a relevant niche in which women reinvent their plural identity and perform the role of agents that arise awareness and lead to changes in the gender social relations of the contexts in which their works are embedded.