Den här uppsatsen undersöker graviditetsskildringarna i Helena Granströms prosalyriska kortroman Hysteros (2013). Med stöd i nymaterialisten Karen Barads teori om materiella-diskursiva apparaturer och ett antal begrepp lånade från ekokritikern Timothy Mortons mörka ekologi, försöker den genom närläsningar att ta reda på hur graviditet – ett motiv som genomsyrar hela Granströms författarskap – i den aktuella texten fungerar som ingång till den form av ekologisk medvetenhet som Morton kallar ”ecognosis”. Läsningarna äger rum mot bakgrund av den nya moderskapslitteraturen, vilken definieras med hjälp av forskaren Lily Gurton-Wachter. Ett latent syfte med uppsatsen, utöver att beskriva graviditetsskildringarna och visa på deras relevans för det ekologiska tänkandet, är att demonstrera potentialen som finns i denna litteratur, liksom i studiet av den, både vad gäller förståelsen av de specifika erfarenheter den utgår från och utforskandet av andra filosofiska spörsmål med hjälp av dessa erfarenheter. Uppsatsen argumenterar i slutändan för att Granström framvisar graviditet som en miniatyr av antropocen, med vilket jag menar att graviditeten skildras som en aktiv materialitet som decentraliserar och löser upp gränserna för det autonoma mänskliga subjektet. Graviditeten ställer således Hysteros berättarjag inför samma svårigheter som antropocen enligt ekokritiken ställer mänskligheten inför.

Using postmodern, feminist and queer notions of utopia/dystopia and narrative theory, this thesis contains an analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale (novel 1985; film 1990; TV series S01 2017) based on theoretical and methodological understandings of utopia/dystopia and narrative as deeply connected with notions of temporality and relationality, and of violence and resistance as the modes of expression of utopia and dystopia in the source texts. The analysis is carried out in an explorative manner (Czarniawska 2004) and utilises the notion of “disidentification” (Butler 1993; Muñoz 1999) and the concepts of “diffraction” (Haraway 1992, 1997; Barad 2007, 2010), and “entanglement” (Barad 2007). The conclusion becomes that utopia and dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale are, to a great extent, imagined within the same system of understanding, but that utopian hope can be found in the relationality and temporality of resistance, and that the radically different utopian place is the queer horizon.

This essay analyzes Mette Edvardsens performative work oslo, which usually falls under the label of dance and choreography. The performance is in many ways making use of and staging language though, so the aim here is to examine how the linguistic and textual material of the performance is enacted in relation to its mediating devices and vice versa. The essay is making use of the media theory by David J. Bolter and Richard A. Grusin to show that no medium stands by itself but always exists and works in a web-like relation to other medias. Language will therefore not be seen as isolated but always interacting with other mediating instances. Their theory will also stand as a base in trying to track different medias ideological origin. With inspiration from actor-network theory, this essay tries to map the performance as a network made up by components. The components will be understood, through material- semiotic theorists as Donna Haraway and Karen Barad, to exhibit agency. That is, they are seen to be doing something, they affect the network in a way which is beyond the control and possible intention by an author. The essay shows that Edvardsens performance is being enacted by its network, wherein the author or choreographer is one but not the only actor. The essay also examines how we come to understand a body or and object for what they are, how we define their borders, and will argue that borders are not static but are open for negotiation.

Within the interdisciplinary field of new materialism Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism deconstructs our current euro-western metaphysical perception of the world and our existence within it, to then re-build an understanding based on relatively new findings within quantum physics. In this thesis I try to recreate Barad’s theory to see what ethical consequences might come from it. Together with practical examples within the discourse of today’s social world and our global connectedness I hope to create a better understanding of the impact of our actions and being on our culture and what we call the natural world. Removing the unique agency given to human culture and language to instead, with the help of post-humanistic ideas, add agency as a universal enactment rather than an attribute, we should start to see ourselves as active and real parts of the world-building that is our home. One main question that I see arise in the end is: what does responsibility entail when we all are one and the same?

Throughout these last few decades, phenomenology and modern physics have slowly started to approach each other in order to bridge the gap between the subjective and objective. In this thesis I aim to show an approach done with the help of Karen Barad's agential realism; a quantum interpretation enabling us to better understand and analyse our complex world, as well as our perception of it.Taking inspiration from new materialism, phenomenology and physics, I see a need to properly leave discrete dualism behind, in order to be able to describe cultural and material structures as continuous manifolds. Instead of endlessly searching for their binary and changeless parts. / Under de senaste decennierna har fenomenologin och den moderna fysiken sakta men säkert börjat närma sig varandra, för att försöka fylla gapet mellan det subjektiva och det objektiva. I den här uppsatsen vill jag visa på ett av dessa tillvägagångssätt genom att använda mig av Karen Barads agentisk realism; en kvantfysisk tolkning som underlättar vår förståelse och förmåga att analysera en komplex värld, samt vår perception av den.Med inspiration från nymaterialism, fenomenologi och fysik, så ser jag ett behov att lämna en diskret dualism bakom oss, för att istället beskriva kulturella och materialistiska strukturer som en kontinuerlig mångfald. Till skillnad från det ändlösa sökandet efter deras binära och oföränderliga delar.

With evidence ranging from visual representations by scanning tunneling microscopes to the fluid and dynamic language of poetry, my research shows that we are shifting from a culture primarily based on ‘sight’ to one that is involved with ‘touch,’ metaphorically and literally speaking. Recent developments in theory and technology, especially quantum physics and post-structuralism, have redefined representation to encompass the necessary reflex of the representer. To be sure, my research has also found feminist and postcolonial criticisms to echo this theory: both have sought to challenge representations due to the objectivity normally attributed to the representer, the Cartesian logic of which quantum theory has destabilized. Thus, by reading poetry with a quantum theoretical lens, specifically the works of Gertrude Stein, Marianne Moore, Anne Carson, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, I show how ‘touch’ plays into our language, consequently affecting how we think through language. / Master of Arts / This is an essay on language – how we read language, where we go with language, and how language affects the way we think. Because poetry is an activity that first realizes the limits of language and then attempts to go beyond those limits, reading and writing poetically teaches us to use language to think in a different manner, what I propose to be by <i>touch</i>: a quantum manner. With respect to the field of Linguistics, I want to clarify that I am not saying our thoughts are wholly limited and determined by our language – the space of our minds are quite far-reaching, and it is quite possible to think whatever we want. What I am saying, however, is that language <i>habituates</i> how we think, and poetry reveals these habits in an attempt to break from them. Marilynne Robinson calls these habits our “little island of the articulable, which we tend to mistake for reality itself” (21). Thus I explore attempts at breaking linguistic, hence cognitive, habits with poetry through the writings of Anne Carson and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. I use feminist, post-colonial, and post-structural theories to formulate a methodology that shows how we <i>touch</i> language and understanding through poetry, at the same time enacting this poetic through my own writing

Through an experimental theatre play, this thesis explores the development of human-like agency in contemporary “social robot” technology. The entrance point of this study is the gender gap and lack of diversity in contemporary AI/robot development, with an emerging need for interdisciplinary research across robot technology and social sciences. Using feminist technoscience and critical posthumanism as the theoretical framework, this research involves an analysis of a particular social robot case, currently being developed at Furhat Robotics in Stockholm. Inspired by Judy Wajcman (2004), I analyze how socially intelligent machines impact perceptions of human agency, body, gender, and identity within cultural contexts and through interaction. The first part of the empirical research is carried out in the robot-lab. The robot is then, in the second part, invited to perform as an actor in a theatre play. Entangled amidst the other players and audience members, a queered agency starts to reveal itself through human-machine “intra-action” and embodiment (Barad 2003). Human-like agency in machines is shown to be a complex matter, drawing the conclusion that human-beings are vulnerable to a myriad of entanglements and preconceptions that artificial intelligence potentially embodies.

Abstract Sustainability is a catchword for contemporary concerns of environmental and societal vulnerability. Scholars, policymakers, designers, and educators alike find themselves knotted increasingly within fabrics of sustainability, approached as an object of concern in education and technoscientific projects. In relation, scholars drawing from posthuman and new materialist thinking have begun to re-imagine sustainability. Considering human subjectivity as part of the world in its ongoing, reiterative becoming has introduced new possibilities to rethink responsibility in and for sustainable change. This research is rooted in my engaged practices of participatory design and education on violence, violence prevention, and non-violence, which form the empirical research terrain of this study. This dissertation includes four articles that inquire into the practices in question by exploring possibilities for nurturing non-violence—and by scrutinising responsible participatory practices in design. This synopsis re-engages with the results presented in the articles mentioned and participates in calls to rethink sustainability. In order to reconsider sustainability in and for practices of sustainable change, I develop theoretical thinking based on response-ability and touch, as discussed by Karen Barad and Donna Haraway. Through a diffractive, affirmative engagement with sustainability in the engaged practices of change-making, I aim to unfold the affordances of feminist (new) materialist renegotiations of ethics and responsibility, in order to inform responsible participatory practices of change-making and, in particular, change towards non-violence. This research offers insight into the intricate ways sustainability reconfigures in and through practices of change-making in participatory design, education, and everyday engagements for non-violence. I begin by proposing a thinking and practice of response-able engagement. Then, through the idea of touchable matters, I foreground how the co-constituted conditions of ethically sustainable response become reconfigured in the designerly, the researcherly, the pedagogical, and other everyday practices, challenging for a shift to a new mode of entangled response-ability for sustainable change and towards non-violence. / Tiivistelmä Kestävyys on aikaamme läpileikkaava, sosiaalisiin ja ekologisiin epäkohtiin tarttuva haaste, joka yhdistää tutkijoita ja muita toimijoita moninaisina jaetun huolen ja interventioiden kohteina myös koulutuksellisissa ja teknotieteellisissä projekteissa. Posthumanistinen ja uusmaterialistinen ajattelu on haastanut ymmärryksiä kestävyydestä asettamalla inhimillisen toimijuuden erottamattomaksi osaksi maailman jatkuvia tulemisen ja tuottumisen prosesseja. Painopiste kestävyyden, muutoksen ja niihin liittyvien vastuullisuuksien tarkastelussa on siirtynyt arkisten käytänteiden moniulotteisiin kietoutuneisuuksiin. Väitöstutkimukseni sisältää neljä artikkelia, jotka perustuvat kahteen empiiriseen kokonaisuuteen. Työni aineisto on tuotettu tutkimalla työpaikkakiusaamiseen liittyvän osallistuvan suunnittelun vastuullisia käytänteitä sekä väkivaltaa, väkivallan ehkäisemistä ja väkivallattomuutta käsittelevää akateemista koulutusta. Väitöskirjaan sisältyvissä artikkeleissa olen tarkastellut pyrkimyksiä kohti väkivallattomuutta sekä muutokseen sitoutuneita ja siihen moninaisesti kietoutuvia käytänteitä. Työni yhteenveto-osassa työstän artikkeleissa esitettyjä osallistumista, refleksiivisyyttä, välittämistä ja väkivallattomuutta käsitteleviä tuloksia diffraktiivisesti. Työstämisen teoreettis-käsitteellisenä kumppanina toimivat Karen Baradin ja Donna Harawayn kosketusta ja vastuullisuutta käsittelevät keskustelut. Yhteenvedon tavoitteena on tarkastella feministisen (uus)materialistisen ajattelun mahdollisuuksia tuottaa uutta ymmärrystä kestävyydestä osana vastuullisia osallistuvia toimintatapoja muutoksen – ja erityisesti väkivallattomuuteen pyrkivän muutoksen – jokapäiväisissä käytänteissä. Kestävän muutoksen ja väkivallattomuuden mahdollisuudet tuottuvat osallistuvan suunnittelun, koulutuksen ja arjen käytänteissä moninaisin tavoin. Vastuullisuutta tarkastellessani esitän ajatuksen ”koskettavista kudelmista”, mikä kutsuu tunnistamaan, kuinka eettisen kestävyyden ja suhteisuuden mahdollisuudet ”kanssatuottuvat” arkisissa kohtaamisissa. Samalla se haastaa rakentamaan uudenlaista, tähän eettis-ontologiseen kietoutuneisuuteen sitoutunutta vastuullisuutta jokapäiväisissä suunnittelun, tutkimuksen, koulutuksen ja arjen pyrkimyksissä kohti kestävää muutosta ja väkivallattomuutta.

This essay aims to understand how meaning and materiality work in four picture books from the 00s and 10s; Gittan och gråvargarna by Pija Lindenbaum, I skogen by Eva Lindström, Vem ser Dim? by Maria Nilsson Thore and Vi blåste bort ibland by Viveka Sjögren. The essay uses two theoretical works about picture books: Bilderbokens pusselbitar by Maria Nikolajeva and Modernismens bilder – Den moderna bilderboken i Norden by Elina Druker. Questions to lead the analysis are: How can text and picture be understood as materiality? How can meaning be understood as a material-discursive phenomenon? How can reading and meaning be understood as performative processes? The chapter “Diffractions: Differences, Contingencies, and Entanglements That Matter” from Karen Barad’s book Meeting the Universe Halfway – Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning provides help to understand diffraction as a metaphor and methodological attitude. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s understanding of knowledge as performative in the book Touching Feeling – Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity is used to understand the picture book as an act of knowledge and meaning, and reading as a performative process where human involvement cannot be overlooked. The essay problematizes the theoretical texts about picture books by taking on different parts of the picture book’s form and drawing examples from the four chosen picture books. Parts that are examined are divisions of signs in semiotics (and in the picture book theory), the picture book’s limits between for instance framework and content, fiction and reality, and book and reader, mimesis and the analytical problems with looking for truth, the impact of the picture book’s size and shape, and lastly illustration techniques and the influence that illustrator, materiality and reader have on the book. The essay shows how different involvements affect the meaning that is created in the picture book, how solid delimitations of different kinds can be problematic, and how words such as picture, text, paratext and content should be treated gently and consciously. Different ways of breaking with methods and thoughts of habit are presented, for instance by using Barad’s concept of diffraction. The essay ends by emphasizing the complexity that follows meaning, materiality and reading, the responsibility it demands of us and how picture book theory sometimes simplifies analysis. This essay stresses the importance of questioning how the methods and words we use affect what is possible to understand, but not in the sense that we should read in a paranoid and closed way, but rather open minded and with room for failures, reconsiderations and other ways forward. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att förstå hur mening och materialitet hänger ihop i fyra bilderböcker från 00- och 10-tal; Gittan och gråvargarna av Pija Lindenbaum, I skogen av Eva Lindström, Vem ser Dim? av Maria Nilsson Thore och Vi blåste bort ibland av Viveka Sjögren. Uppsatsen går i dialog med de bilderboksteoretiska verken Bilderbokens pusselbitar av Maria Nikolajeva och Modernismens bilder – Den moderna bilderboken i Norden av Elina Druker. Frågor för att leda undersökningen är som följer: På vilket sätt är text och bild materialitet? Hur kan mening förstås som materiellt-diskursivt fenomen i bilderböckerna? Hur kan läsning och mening förstås som performativa processer? Avsnittet ”Diffractions: Differences, Contingencies, and Entanglements That Matter” ur Karen Barads verk Meeting the Universe Halfway – Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning fungerar som hjälp för att förstå diffraktion som metafor och metodologisk hållning. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwicks förståelse av kunskap som performativ i verket Touching Feeling – Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity används för att förstå bilderboken som ett görande, och läsningen som en performativ process där mänsklig inblandning inte kan förbises. Uppsatsen problematiserar de bilderboksteoretiska verken genom att ta sig an olika aspekter av bilderbokens form samt exemplifiera detta med hjälp av det skönlitterära materialet. Områden som vidrörs är semiotikens (och bilderboksteoretikernas) indelning av tecken, bilderbokens gränser mellan bland annat ramar och innehåll, fiktion och verklighet samt verk och läsare, mimesis och sanningssökandets analytiska problem, bilderbokens påverkan av storlek och format, samt slutligen illustrationstekniker och den inverkan illustratör, materialitet och läsare har på verket. Uppsatsen visar på hur olika inblandningar påverkar den mening som skapas i bilderboken, hur fasta gränsdragningar av olika slag kan anses problematiska, samt hur begrepp som till exempel bild, text, paratext och innehåll bör behandlas varsamt och medvetet. Olika sätt att komma runt upptrampade metodologiska tillvägagångssätt och tankespår presenteras, bland annat med hjälp av Barads diffraktionsbegrepp. Uppsatsen avslutas med att betona den komplexitet som följer med mening, materialitet och läsning, det ansvar detta avkräver oss och hur bilderboksteorin ibland fungerar förenklande i analyser. Denna uppsats lyfter vikten av att ifrågasätta vad de metoder och ord vi använder egentligen gör med vad som är möjligt att förstå, men inte i den mening att vi bör läsa misstänksamt och stängt, utan snarare öppensinnat och med utrymme för misslyckanden, omprövningar och andra vägar vidare.

Listen. If I ask you to listen, what is it that I ask of you—that you will understand, or perhaps obey? Or is it some sort of readiness that is requested? What occurs with a body in the act of listening? How do sound and voice structure audio-visual-spatial relations in concrete situations? This doctoral thesis in fine arts consists of six artworks and an essay that documents the research process, or rather, acts as a travelogue as it stages and narrates a series of journeys into a predominantly sonic ecology. One entry into this field is offered by the animal “voice” and attempts to teach animals to speak human language. The first journey concerns a specific case where humanoid sounds were found to emanate from an unlikely source—the blowhole of a dolphin. Another point of entry is offered by the acousmatic voice, a voice split from its body, and more specifically, my encounter with the disembodied voice of Steve Buscemi in a prison in Philadelphia. This listening experience triggered a fascination with, and an inquiry into, the voices that exist alongside us, the parasitic relation that audio technology makes possible, and the way an accompanying voice changes one’s perceptions and even one’s behavior. In the case of both the animal and the acousmatic, the seemingly trivial act of attending to a voice quickly opens up a complex space of embodied entanglements with the potential to challenge much of what we take for granted. At the heart of my inquiry is a series of artworks made between 2012 and 2016, which constitute a third journey: the performance Limit-Cruisers (#1 Sphere), the praxis session Limit-Cruisers (#2 Crowd), the installations Therapy in Junkspace, Fluorescent You, and “Then, ere the bark above their shoulders grew,” and the lecture performance Articulations from the Orifice (The Dry and the Wet). The relationship between what is seen and heard is being explored and renegotiated in the arts and beyond. We are increasingly addressed by prerecorded and synthetic voices in both public and private spaces. Simultaneously, our notions of human communication are challenged and complicated by recent research in animal communication. My work attempts to address the shifts and complexities embodied in these developments. The three journeys are deeply entwined with theoretical inquiries into human-animal relationships, technology, and the philosophy of sound. In the essay, I consider as well how other artistic practices are exploring this same complex space. What I put forward is a materialist and concrete approach to listening understood as a situated practice. Listening is both a form of co-habitation and an ecology. In and through listening, I claim, one could be said to perform in concert with the things heard while at the same time being changed by them. / <p>Avhandlingen är även utgiven i serien: Malmö Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts, Lund University: DoctoralStudies and Research in Fine and Performing Arts, 16. ISSN: 1653-8617</p>