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Abstract The great detective Sherlock Holmes casts a long shadow on the previous research on the short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, where Mr. Holmes has been given the main attention. On the periphery, however, a woman named Irene Adler is recognizable. Adler makes her single entrance in the Sherlock Universe in “A Scandal in Bohemia” from 1891 when she outsmarts Mr. Holmes and makes him reconsider the entire female sex as a consequence. In the BBC adaptation Sherlock, the case is however different for the early feminist icon Adler. The portrayal of Adler in the episode “A Scandal in Belgravia” from 2012 is mainly focusing on her sexuality, nudity and seductive personality when meeting Holmes, which has resulted in this essay that aims to study the transformation of Adler from text to screen from a gender perspective. By conducting a comparative study based on gender theory and adaptation theory, the essay finds that there has been a sexualisation and diminishing of independence on behalf of Adler, which relates to common stereotypes in the portrayal of women in film. Through a successive degradation of the female character, it is possible to detect a form of reversed emancipation where the hundred year older predecessor shows greater feminist characteristics than the modern adaptation. / Sammanfattning Mästerdetektiven Sherlock Holmes kastar en lång skugga efter sig och har stått i centrum för majoriteten av forskningen om Sir Arthur Conan Doyles noveller. I periferin återfinns emellertid en kvinna vid namn Irene Adler som i ”A Scandal in Bohemia” från 1891 överlistar Holmes och får honom att omdefiniera hela sin syn på det kvinnliga könet på grund av Adlers intelligens och agens. I BBC:s filmatisering av den berömde detektiven i serien Sherlock har dock stora förändringar skett i transformationen av den feministiska förgrundsgestalten Adler. Porträtteringen av Adler i avsnittet ”A Scandal in Belgravia” från 2012 fokuserar till stor del på hennes sexualitet, avkläddhet och förföriska person i mötet med Holmes, vilket också föranlett denna uppsats vars syfte är att studera porträtteringen av Adler från text till filmduk ur ett genusperspektiv. Genom en komparativ metod grundad i genusteori och adaptionsteori finner uppsatsen att det skett en sexualisering och ett osjälvständiggörande av Adler som överensstämmer väl med många av de vanligt förekommande stereotypiska porträtteringarna av kvinnor på filmduken. Genom en successiv nedbrytning av den kvinnliga karaktären kan ett slags omvänd emancipation skönjas, där den hundra år äldre förlagan visar starkare feministiska förtecken än den moderna adaptionen.

This doctoral thesis is about female rock musicians who are involved in two Swedish non-profit feminist music associations; Rockrebeller, which is situated in Uppsala and She´s Got the Beat in Umeå. The aim of the study is to analyze how the informants describe their lives as rock musicians and as active participants in these feminist music associations. The main issues are musicianship, identity, feminism and gender. The empirical material consists of in-depth interviews with ten informants – five from Umeå and five from Uppsala – and these interviews are complemented by a number of participatory observations. The focus of thesis is on the informants’ self-presentations: their stories and experiences. One central theme is the ways that the informants’ different identities are interlaced and closely knit together in different ways: as feminists, as musicians and as active participants in the associations. Two major themes in my thesis are music and politics and they can be regarded as two sides of the same coin; in order to make it easier for women to play rock music they have become involved in the associations, and this relationship is regarded as a form of political work. The informants have been influenced by punk and Riot Grrrls Movement – a feminist movement that is associated with punk bands and fanzines is sometimes seen as representative of a "third wave feminism". All the informants are members of rock bands, but many are also engaged in other projects, for instance in the role of a singer-songwriter, and these different identities as musicians are often seen as complementary to each other. Rock bands are generally considered to be fascinating but insecure experiences because bands tend to split up with time. Those who are also active musicians outside of the band (most often guitarists) usually regard their own individual identity as musicians as the most important thing; a safe harbor that is always there. Their ideological beliefs are for instance visible in a common vision of the ideal rock band as democratic, anti-hierarchic and where an equality of opportunity exists. Rock music is in some ways used as an expression for an alternative way of life, of rebellion, and is seen as politically subversive. One of the ambivalences of the source material is the kind of identity politics that the associations represent and whose purpose is to improve the gender equality in the field. There is a well-known dilemma involved in this practice; how is it possible to navigate from a marginalized, subordinated position, without using the method of categorizing that may increase the probability of reproducing their own marginalization? Their life as rock musicians is described as enjoyable rewarding, and as a means of expressing their cultural belonging and ideological beliefs, such as feminism. However, the overall picture highlights the pleasures of creating and making music, which serves as an explanation why they strive to make rock music more accessible for women. The descriptions of being in a band and performing on stage are varied and on the whole complex. The group dynamics of the band are portrayed as very meaningful but also trying at times, and playing in front of an audience is described as everything between ecstasy and a nerve-wrecking experience. However, there is an overall adaptation to the norms surrounding rock music; a sense that one has to adjust oneself in order to function as a rock musician. The informants´ statements generally emphasize gender, but from time to time they identify themselves with other male amateur rock musicians.

This comparative essay discusses feminist and post-feminist concepts in the novels Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (1973) and Trip Reports by Tone Schunnesson (2016) from a generational perspective. The term feminism embraces both second-wave and third-wave feminism, while the term post-feminism represents the contradictions between and within the two. The analysis centers on the first-person narrators, Isadora Wing, in Fear of Flying, and the anonymous narrator, in Trip Reports. A phenomenological close-reading was employed to uncover generational differences, contradictions, and similarities in the texts, which were then analyzed through the lens of feminism and post-feminism. Examination of the texts was facilitated through the use of three categories: love, the body, and artistry. The primary theory utilized in the analysis is Toril Moi’s feminist theory developed out of Simon de Beauvoir’s reflections on “the body as situation,” where it is argued that a person’s lived experience, one’s whole subjectivity, is dependent upon and reflected through one’s body. The body forms the relationship to ourselves and our experience of the world, as well as how others view us. Thus, the female lived experience and each woman’s individual project is in this regard connected to having a female body. The results define differences in the narrators’ lived experiences and how the two women view themselves and others, in relation to societal norms and each narrator’s specific generation. Furthermore, the narrators’ are both ambivalent in their thoughts and actions. The identified similarities center around male dependency, various degrees – or lack of - female identification and traditional gender norms, independent of generation. The results of the analysis could offer a cultural and generational contribution to the current feminist literary discussion. / <p>Godkännande datum 2019-06-03</p>

This thesis focuses on three fashion industry themed female friendship films: Pret-a-Porter/Ready to Wear (1994) by Robert Altman, The Devil Wears Prada (2006) by David Frankel, and The September Issue (2009) by R.J. Cutler. Female interpersonal relationships are complex – women often work to motivate, encourage and transform one another but can just as easily use tactics like intimidation, manipulation, and exploitation in order to save their own jobs and reputations. Through the lens of post-feminist theory, this thesis examines significant female interpersonal relationships in each film to illustrate how femininity is constructed and driven by consumer culture in the fashion industry themed films.

Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy v Praze DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Daniela Theinová LIMITS AND LANGUAGES in Contemporary Irish Women's Poetry "Irish poetry" is an inherently equivocal concept characterized by two fissures, one linguistic (Irish-English; standard English-Hiberno English) and the other chronological (oral-written; Old Irish-modern Irish). Central to my project is to show how this bifurcate cultural identity, prominent in Irish literature due to Ireland's history and the politicized concept of "national language," figures in poetry by Irish women of the last forty years. While I account for the significance of the hyphen in Anglo-Irish as well as in Gaelic-Irish poets, contradictory tensions are traced not only across and along the linguistic divide. In attending to the shift from feminism (Eavan Boland, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Paula Meehan, Medbh McGuckian, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill) to post-feminism in Irish poetry (Biddy Jenkinson, Vona Groarke, Caitríona O'Reilly, and Aifric Mac Aodha), I illustrate the role that the border between English and Irish has played in these processes. The dissertation falls into two parts each of which consists of two chapters. Part One explores some of the ways in which poets have confronted the inherited tradition and the feminine stereotypes therein. My...