Over the years, an increasing number of scholars have argued that a "coming out imperative" characterizes Western society, urging those who harbor hidden identities to make those identities visible for the greater good. A number of sources repeatedly remind queer-identified individuals, for example, that coming out of the closet results in crucial visibility that, among other things, can help lead to political advances for the GLBTQ community. Yet, the call to make the invisible visible also valorizes the gender and sexual binary system that queer theory seeks to dismantle. How might we view the closet--a location that we find ourselves in repeatedly over time, regardless of any and all coming out events--in queer terms? How might we queer common conceptualizations of its construction and its utility? While he does not technically identify as gay, the popular culture stalwart known as Superman provides a useful exemplar for engaging in such a task. Since his first appearance in the pages of comic books more than seventy years ago, consumers and critics have continually inscribed Superman with meanings other than those presumably intended by his authors, thus attesting to the figure's polysemy. These subtextual layers enable consumers to recognize aspects of his texts that they find especially salient, including cues that speak to queer experiences. For example, because Superman's identity is in constant flux, with Superman always masking Clark Kent and vice versa, queer audiences may view Superman as especially relatable given their own experiences with a sexual- and gender-based closet. Superman does not adhere to the "coming out imperative," though, since he constantly relies on his closet in order to perform his super-job efficiently and effectively. His narrative, by its very nature, valorizes some measure of invisibility as a viable approach to managing a life with difference, however super or terrestrial that difference may be. This project analyzes four Superman texts--the television series Smallville, the motion picture Superman Returns, and the animated films Superman: Brainiac Attacks! and Superman: Doomsday--to ponder a closet that may offer opportunity rather than blanket oppression. Through his own identity negotiation, Superman struggles with his difference in ways that are similar to his queer human counterparts, and his eventual embrace of that identity, costume and all, suggests that he achieves some measure of pride in that difference. Yet, his closet remains intact. He may not always appreciate its limitations, but he understands the opportunities it bestows, and I believe we can learn from him. In other words, rampant heteronormativity and heterosexist presumption ensure that we must live with our queer closets everyday. This project seeks to reclaim that space for its practical and critical utility.

This study aims to undertake a queer reading of four Swedish picture books, with the names: Punkpapporna, Kivi och Monsterhund, När mammorna blev kära and Regnbågsbesbisen. Furthermore its purpose is to explore the concept of family, and more specifically the rainbow family. This will be explored in the relations to previous research made in the field of queer kinship, children's literature, representation and silencing. Aditionaly this will be influenced by representational and queer theory. The methodical approach is as mentioned queer reading, but in combination with thematic analysis, where a few themes have been picked out. These themes will help in analyzing the representation of the rainbow family in the chosen books. The research concluded that rainbow families can be portrayed and represented in many different ways and how they are understood is completely dependent on the story in the books but also on the reader.

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The female gothic as a genre, with its emergence in the 19th century, has a history of critiquing women’s place in the domestic sphere by showcasing the horrors of the home. When The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson was first published in 1959, it did so with both this historical genre background, as well as with a resurgence of traditional gender roles as an ideal. With the help of this context, this paper will do a queer reading of Jackson’s novel, highlighting the main character Eleanor’s queer longing for her friend Theodora. It will furthermore take into consideration Eleanor’s gender and the restrictions put on it during the time, especially concerning heteronormativity. To closer examine the relation between Eleanor and her desires, Hill House as a force will be analyzed. Although previous scholars have differing conclusions regarding Hill House, the most common one is Hill House as a patriarchal presence. However, Eleanor is also shown to be merging with Hill House during the narrative. To be able to combine these readings, as well as a queer reading, Sandra Lee Bartky’s reworking of Michel Foucault’s theories of internalization and self-surveillance will be used. This results in a queer reading of the novel where Hill House reflects Eleanor’s patriarchal internalization and acts as a self-surveilling force, disciplining her queer desires and finally resulting in her suicide. Ultimately, this essay argues that the character of Eleanor in The Haunting of Hill House has internalized patriarchal oppression and acts out disciplinary acts onto her own gender and sexuality through Hill House itself, which results in an overall textual critique of heteronormative ideals.

Bc. Martina Stanjurová The Chronic Innocence: A Queer Reading Abstract: The Master's thesis analyses Klaus Rifbjerg's novel The Chronic Innocence (1958), one of the central works of the Danish literature. The analysis is carried out from the gender studies perspective, namely through the principles of the post structuralist queer theories. The thesis deals with the analysis of the dynamics of the relationship between the central figures, the narrator Janus and his classmate Tore. By using the queer reading method, the thesis unveils how the narrator expresses and conceals his platonic fascination for the friend. Moreover, the thesis tries to explain the essence of the narrator's relationship to the female figures, which shows misogynic traits.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att fokusera de queera ögonblicken i J.R.R. Tolkiens trilogi The Lord of the Rings för att visa att det queera finns i kulturen på samma sätt som det icke-queera. När är de två hobbitarna Frodos och Sams relation queer? Vad gör den queer? Hur kan vi förstå denna queerhet i termer av homosocialitet och homoerotik? Uppsatsen är inspirerad av Tiina Rosenbergs queera läsningar, jag använder mig dessutom av Adrienne Richs teori om "lesbisk kontinuitet" och Sedgwicks resonemang om manligt homosocialt begär. Jag har kommit fram till att Frodos och Sams relation rör sig mellan mer och mindre queerhet. Då den inte är statisk kan den inte förstås som renodlat homosocial eller homoerotisk. Däremot kan den ses som en del av en manlig samkönad kontinuitet, vilken inkluderar allt ifrån homosocialitet till homoerotik.

The thesis proposes the New Queer Cinema chapter of film history as a paradigm of queer film's subversive practices. The theoretically and historically focused first part establishes the term queer, expounds its possible applications to film in the realm of queer film studies and in the third chapter critically introduces the 'new wave' of queer film New Queer Cinema. The analytical part assigns queer and its possible functions as its basis for inquiry. It consists of two parts: the first performs the formal-content analysis of the pivotal film Swoon (1992); the final chapter builds on its conclusions and examines the corpus of New Queer Cinema films along four analytical cuts in order to describe how they produce the queer discourse. The final output of the thesis is an open model of prospective approaches to queer film.

This thesis is a queer masculinity reading of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894). The analysis focuses on the dissonances, tensions and queerness that reside within the text itself. This has been done from my problem statement: How is Sherlock Holmes and John Watson’s sexuality and masculinity portrayed within the boundary of the text? What is being said, what is hidden, and what is dealt with silently? To reveal these queer parts this analysis has been focused around five themes: the late Victorian male, the Woman, countertypes and decadence, the homosocial sphere and sexuality. The thesis has two major theoretical perspectives: masculinity theory, and queer theory. For the masculine analysis I have used Jørgen Lorentzen and Claes Ekenstam’s concept of manly/unmanly, character, and the citizen from the book Män i Norden: Manlighet och modernitet 1840-1940 and George L. Mosse’s countertype. For the queer theoretical I have used a queer resistant reading combined with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s concept of homosexual panic, and Judith Butler’s gender melancholia. Professor Joseph A. Kestner’s Sherlock’s Men has guided the reading of the short story collection. This thesis aims at showing that the improbable might well reside within the text, not least in the relationship between the two main characters Holmes and Watson. At first glimpse this world of Holmes’s seems devoid of desire, but in a closer reading cracks appear. There are silences, and unnecessary explanations, which have little to do with the adventures themselves, not to mention silent looks, and the association with the domestic. These threaten to effeminize their masculinity, especially Holmes who is a bachelor and suffers from repeated nervousness. Disease of the nerves was associated with effeminacy and homosexuality during the Victorian era. Also, the relationship between Holmes and Watson do at times parody the heterosexual. It’s hard however to find any conclusive evidence of any sexuality in the text, least of all homoerotic, which is hardly surprising considering the forbidding laws that were in place.

The history of Japanese women who love women is often either ignored by or inaccessible to English speakers. To address this lacuna, I will lay out two case studies of women whose Queerness is potentially useful as models of Queer Japanese womanhood. I examine the narratives surrounding two women, Murasaki Shikibu (c. 973 or 978 – c. 1014 or 1031), the author the Tale of Genji, and Otake Kōkichi (1893-1966), an author, artist, and first wave feminist activist, in order to see how narratives surrounding their Queerness, known or posited, affect or are affected by cultural and religious narratives of identity and sexual values. The only major reading of Murasaki Shikibu as a woman who loved women is that of literary scholar and lesbian feminist Komashaku Kimi in Murasaki Shikibu’s Message (Murasaki Shikibu no Messeji), written in 1991. Her argument is that the interest in women’s bodies Murasaki shows in her diary and Poetic Memoirs was a kind of same-sex desire and that that desire was integral to her message in the Tale of Genji. This argument has never been given significant scholarly attention. As such, I examine this argument and present it in English. Otake Kōkichi, born Otake Kazue, is one of a handful of Queer women from the early 20th century who are regularly discussed in academic literature on Japanese feminist history, but most narratives surrounding her tend to center on a same-sex relationship she had in her youth and ignore the radical nature of her life after marriage. I will present aspects of her life that worked with and resisted various religions and systems of value creation that were competing for influence in twentieth-century Japan. The narratives surrounding Otake and Murasaki as Queer people center the radical nature of their work and lives. Both are discussed as having a kind of embodied politics that resists dominant images of womanhood and sexuality in favour of more liberatory constructions of value and identity. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Frauenliteratur ist ein gattungs- und epochenübergreifend verwendeter Sammelbegriff für die Literatur von/für/über Frauen. Die Definition erfolgt im Gegensatz zur unmarkierten ("Männer"-)Literatur über das Geschlecht der Autor_innen, Leser_innen und Protagonist_innen. Feministische Literaturwissenschaftler_innen haben der Homogenisierung und Marginalisierung der Literatur von oder für Frauen Strategien wie Sichtbarmachung (Frauenliteraturlexika/-geschichten) und Resignifikation ("Neue Frauenliteratur") entgegengesetzt.