Abstract The present study examines three novels by Finnish women – Johanna Sinisalo, Pirkko Saisio and Helena Sinervo – each of whom has received the Finlandia Prize for fiction. The novels Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (2000), Punainen erokirja (2003) and Runoilijan talossa (2004) are analysed in the context of contemporary cultural change in which queer themes have become not only a visible part of cultural representations of gender and sexuality but also active constituents of the established cultural canon. The study considers the varieties of gendered and sexual meaning which are generated by this fiction and – as the novels in question deal with non-normative sexuality – it also discusses how these issues were manifested in their reception. Additionally, it investigates the problematics of a literary genre which thematises non-normative sexuality. Beyond its engagement with the interrelationship between the selected novels (along with their social context) and the present culture, institutions and canon, the study also concerns itself with the question of how non-normative sexuality is addressed and discussed in literature and its reception. The novels are examined as products of a context in which their publication had seemed like a swift, yet appropriate, response to a cultural need for the creation of new, 'liberal' and 'progressive' queer representations. In addition, they are approached as works with specific queer-political agendas, aimed at opposing and deranging the hetero establishment. The analysis of the novels is consequently grounded in the politics of performativity, queer theory and the problematics of its domestic contextualisation, taking account, too, of the intersection between performativity and queer reading. This methodology is called queer political reading. The novels under investigation participate in the cultural, societal, social and discursive processes that use gender and sexuality to construct meaning. The fact that they have also received the Finlandia Prize connects them to a wider context, into a contemporary culture and society, which places sexuality at its centre. Where wide and far-reaching gender issues, brought about by cultural, intellectual, judicial and political changes, marked the turn of the 20th century, the turn of the present century is more explicitly sexual in character, facilitated by contemporary phenomena – such as the epochal changes in theories of gender and sexuality, or legislation and presentations of sexual culture, which have manifested themselves over recent years. Nevertheless, it would seem that discussions of queerness tend to remain allusive and implied rather than explicit, taking not only peculiar but also traditional forms, in which the rhetoric of the closet is used extensively. On the one hand, queerness is quite visible in representations of sexuality. But on the other hand, the reception of that queerness remains largely in the closet. This suggests that – particularly on institutional levels – queer themes can be rendered explicit only when it remains contextually suitable. / Tiivistelmä Tutkimus tarkastelee kolmen kirjallisuuden Finlandia-palkinnolla palkitun naiskirjailijan, Johanna Sinisalon, Pirkko Saision ja Helena Sinervon palkintoromaaneja Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (2000), Punainen erokirja (2003) ja Runoilijan talossa (2004). Teoksia analysoidaan osana nykyistä kulttuurista käännettä, jossa heteronormatiivisuutta kyseenalaistavat, queerit kulttuurituotteet ovat tulleet osaksi sukupuolen ja seksuaalisuuden kulttuurisia esityksiä ja jopa osaksi hyväksyttyä kulttuurista kaanonia. Tutkimuksessa kysytään, millaisia sukupuolen ja seksuaalisuuden merkityksiä Sinisalon, Saision ja Sinervon normienvastaista seksuaalisuutta käsittelevät teokset tuottavat ja miten aiheet tulevat esille vastaanotossa. Lisäksi pohditaan normienvastaisia seksuaalisuuksia käsittelevän kirjallisuuden lajiproblematiikkaa. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan paitsi teosten, myös niiden yhteiskunnallisen kontekstin kautta nykyistä kulttuuriin ja sen instituutioihin ja jopa kaanoniin kytkeytyviä tapoja, joilla normien vastaisista seksuaalisuuksista puhutaan ja kirjoitetaan sekä kirjallisuudessa että sen vastaanotossa. Romaaneja tutkitaan siinä kulttuurisessa kontekstissa, jossa niiden julkaiseminen vaikuttaa äkkiseltään sopivalta vastaukselta kulttuurin tarpeeseen saada uudenlaista, "vapaamielisyydestä" ja "edistyksellisyydestä" kertovia queer-esityksiä. Toisaalta niitä lähestytään teoksina, joilla on queer-poliittisia, heterojärjestystä vastustamaan ja sekoittamaan pyrkiviä tavoitteita. Teosten tarkastelu liitetään osaksi performatiivisuuden politiikkojen sekä queer-teoretisoinnin ja sen kotimaisen kontekstualisoinnin problematiikan tutkimusta, performatiivisen ja queer-luennan risteyskohtaan. Tätä tutkimuksen menetelmää kutsutaan queer-poliittiseksi luennaksi. Sinisalon, Saision ja Sinervon romaanit osallistuvat osaltaan siihen kulttuuriseen, yhteiskunnalliseen, sosiaaliseen ja diskursiiviseen prosessiin, jossa työstetään ja rakennetaan sukupuolten ja seksuaalisuuksien merkityksiä. Se, että ne ovat saaneet myös kirjallisuuden Finlandia-palkinnon, kiinnittää ne laajempaan kontekstiin, nykykulttuuriin ja -yhteiskuntaan, joiden keskeiseksi kysymykseksi seksuaalisuus on muotoutunut. Siinä missä 1800–1900-lukujen vaihdetta kuvasti laaja ja kauaskantoinen sukupuoliproblematiikka, jolle aikaan sidottu kulttuurinen, intellektuaalinen, oikeusjärjestelmällinen ja poliittinen muutos raivasi tilaa, tämän vuosisadanvaihteen murros liittyy seksuaalisuuteen, jonka raivaajina ovat samankaltaiset, omaan aikaansa kytkeytyneet ilmiöt: jopa käänteentekevät muutokset sukupuoli- ja seksuaaliteorioissa, lainsäädännöissä ja seksuaalisuuden kulttuurisissa esityksissä. Näyttäisi kuitenkin siltä, että julkisissa keskusteluissa queeriudesta ei vieläkään puhuta kaikissa yhteyksissä suoraan vaan vihjaillen ja mitä eriskummallisimmin mutta usein silti hyvin perinteisin, kaapin retoriikkaa hyväkseen käyttävin sanankääntein: queer on yhtäältä kovin läsnä ja pinnassa seksuaalisuuden representaatioissa, mutta samalla esimerkiksi vastaanotossa monin ehdoin kaapissa. Näyttäisi siltä, että piilevästä queeriudesta huolimatta etenkin instituutiotasolla queer-tematiikka on näkyvää vain silloin, kun se on paikan ja tilanteen mukaan sopivaa.

This thesis aims to present, discuss, and analyze issues relating to queer representations in film and television. The thesis focuses on existing tropes, such as queer coding, queerbaiting, and the “Bury Your Gays” trope that are prevalent in contemporary media, and applies the analysis of these tropes to a case study based on the television series Black Sails (2014-2017). The analysis explores the main research question: in what way does Black Sails subvert or reproduce existing queer tropes in film and television? This then leads to the discussion of three aspects: the way queer sexual identities are represented overall, what representational strategies are employed by the series in a number of episodes, and whether or not these representations reproduce or subvert media tropes.

The image of Northern Sweden has long been subjected to stereotyping, and the stereo­typed image of the Northerner is widely spread in various media contexts within Sweden. Historically, Norrland has been regarded as a wide wilderness, and the Norr­landic literature in turn has typically been studied in terms of the pastoral genre, the romanti­cism of the wilderness, or from an eco-critical perspective. The study of masculin­ity within modern Norrlandic literature, however, is largely overlooked, de­spite the undeniable stereotyping of Norrlandic males within other forms of media. This the­sis aims to solve this anomaly by providing insights into the creation processes of masculinity in three contemporary Norrlandic novels. In the novels Smekmånader [Honeymoons, 2017] by Mikael Berglund, Solidärer [Solidarians, 2017] by Anna Jörgensdotter, and Silvervägen [The Silver Road, 2018] by Stina Jackson, the construct of Norrlandic masculinity is examined through close-reading. The questions of how Norrlandic masculinity is constructed is examined through a theoretical framework combining the hegemonic masculinity of R. W. Connell, the gender performativity and queer studies of Judith Butler, the frontstage and backstage perspective of Erving Goffman, and the creation of emotions of Sara Ahmed, in the reading of three contemporary novels following male protagonists—each seeing their identity challenged while on a journey far away from home. Viktor of Honeymoons is constructed as a brave cry-baby or a highly sensitive person whose self is disintegrated in the absence of his wife Maija. He is furthermore constructed as a person offering emotional comfort, despite being deeply void of such comfort himself. Ingemar of Solidarians is constructed as a mummy’s boy or a dreamer who ends up as a martyr, who always requires the presence of a woman—his mother Eivor, Klara whom he is wooing, or Conxa whom he meets in the war in Spain—in order to advance from a mere lust to an actual event of action. His emotions are slightly supressed. Lelle of The Silver Road is constructed as an emotionally blunted vigilant or a nervous wreck, who readily succumbs to aggression and violence towards other men, in his lack of emotional cathexis to a physical person. He is struggling with his perceived failure in his role as a father, and is furthermore driven to action by his need of reconciling with his past. Nonetheless, none of the male protagonists exhibits a lasting hegemonic masculinity. The study concludes that the analysed novels contribute to a new form of Norrlandic literature which challenges the traditional and stereotypical ideas of rural masculinity.

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This thesis uses a combination of medical humanities, queer public theory, and literary analysis to showcase the uniquely American connections between alcoholism and masculinity in the literature of Ernest Hemingway. By situating both Hemingway and his characters within the medico-legal rhetoric of modernism’s famous Parisian Jazz-age, which occurred at the same time as American prohibition, I reveal changes in white American men’s relationships with gender, bodily autonomy, and the patriarchy that are often overlooked due to Hemingway’s publicly constructed masculine persona. My work provides new queer interpretations of The Sun Also Rises (1926) and the posthumous Garden of Eden (1986) divorced from Hemingway’s masculine persona and critical of how celebrity and scholarship impacted the public reception of these novels and American masculinity as a whole. Through my analysis, I forward a new, uniquely American concept in the masculine gender performance I call the autonomy of masculinity.

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Dans ce mémoire de maîtrise, il s'agit d'examiner le rôle du genre, de la sexualité et de la traduction dans les rapports entre deux mouvements nationalistes. D'abord, nous examinerons les représentations de la famille véchiulées dans l'autobiographie du membre du Front de libération du Québec Pierre Vallières (1938-1998), Les Nègres blancs d'Amérique. Ensuite, nous nous pencherons sur l'analyse du genre et de la sexualité contenue dans Soul on Ice, un recueil de textes écrits par le nationaliste noir Eldridge Cleaver (1933-1998). Dans les deux cas, la question de la violence révolutionnaire tiendra lieu de fil conducteur. Enfin, dans le troisième chapitre, nous relirons la traduction anglaise de Vallières, White Niggers of America, signée par Joan Pinkham. Cette relecture nous fournira l'occasion à la fois de comprendre et de critiquer, à partir de la perspective établie par la pensée de Cleaver au sujet de la masculinité noire dans une société régie par la suprématie blanche, comment Vallières essaie de bâtir des réseaux de solidarité internationaux et interraciaux entre les hommes. Dans notre conclusion, nous réunirons ces trois textes par le biais du sujet de l'internationalisme, en nous servant de la théorie queer, de la traductologie et des données biographiques pour résumer les résultats de nos recherches. / In this master's thesis, I will explore the roles of gender, sexuality and translation in the relationship between two nationalist movements. In the first section, I will look at the representations of family life contained in the autobiography of Front de liberation du Québec member Pierre Vallières (1938-1998), Les Nègres blancs d'Amérique. In the second section, I will examine the analysis of gender and sexuality offered by Soul on Ice, a collection of texts written by the Black nationalist Eldridge Cleaver (1933-1998). In the third section, I will re-read Nègres blancs in English translation—Joan Pinkham's White Niggers of America—in order both to understand and to critique, from the vantage point created by Cleaver's reading of Black masculinity in a white-supremacist society, Vallières's attempt to build networks of international and interracial solidarity between men. In the conclusion, I discuss internationalism as a way of tying the three texts together and make use of queer theory, translation theory and biographical data to formulate final remarks.