My intention with this essay is to analyze how lesbianism is described in Swedish youth literature. I have done a queer reading of three books written in the 2000’s to find out if lesbian love is described as a problem, and if it isn’t: what it causing problems in the novels? When reading the novels I have also observed how the environment and the characters themselves perceive lesbian identity. The novels I have chosen are Det händer nu by Sofia Nordin (2010), Som eld by Sara Lövestam (2015) and Du och jag, Marie Curie by Annika Ruth Persson (2003). To apply queer theory I have used several concepts, such as heteronormativity, coming out, shame and internalized homophobia, when analyzing the texts. The conclusion of my analysis is that one of the novels describes the lesbian love itself as a problem, while the other two are wider in their descriptions. Some characters are comfortable in their lesbian identity, while some are struggling with shame and coming out-issues. My final conclusion is that it is heteronormativity that is causing problems in the novels, not lesbianism.

abstract: This dissertation is an examination of a modernist desire to construct future materiality via material language, which represents a desire to overcome biology and the biological body. As such, modernist discourses of material language must be understood within their broader historical context, as these textual constructs developed against a cultural backdrop replete with eugenicist ideologies. Modernists wielded discourses of material language to determine via cultural reproduction which futures might materialize, as well as which bodies could occupy those futures and in what capacities. This dissertation argues that these modernist constructs contain their own failure in their antibiologism and their refusal to acknowledge the agency of corporeal materiality before them. Unlike language, the body expresses biopower through its material (re)productivity—its corpo-reality—which, though it can be shaped and repressed by discourse, persistently ruptures through the restraints of eugenicist ideologies and the autonomous liberal model of white masculine embodiment they uphold. This work analyses sexually marginalized bodies in texts by Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, Nathanael West, and Ernest Hemingway that, through their insistently persistent biological materiality, disrupt modernist discourses of material language that offer no future for feminine, queer, and disabled corporeality. By exploring how intersecting issues of gender, sexuality, and disability complicate theories of language’s materiality in modern American literature, this dissertation brings attention to writers and texts that challenge broader attempts in the early decades of the twentieth century to subvert the biological body through eugenicist projects of cultural reproduction. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2019

In the decades following the Stonewall riots in New York, there has been an increasingly public acceptance and normalization of LGBTQ identities. In some spaces, however, like public schools, LGBTQ identities continue to be contested and positioned as problematic, creating challenges for teachers who seek to create safe and affirming spaces within the classroom and the curriculum. This study using a narrative inquiry methodology, examines the stories of seven teachers of foreign languages at the high school level as they seek to make sense of their work as it relates to LGBTQ identities. This research study using narrative inquiry methods describes the experiences of seven teachers of foreign language as they make sense of and negotiate LGBTQ identities in the context of their work as foreign language teachers. The teachers describe how and when LGBTQ identities manifest in their instruction, their knowledge base of LGBTQ identities, ways in which they address sex and gender normative practices and behaviors in their classrooms, and supports and barriers available to them as they work to create curriculum and classroom spaces that are inclusive of LGBTQ identities. The findings of this study address the unique ways in which foreign language teaching presents a unique site of study of the target language and culture, including LGBTQ identities that are present within those target languages and cultures and within the classroom environment. Teachers described barriers, like language proficiency, administration, perceived surveillance, and lack of materials as challenges to enacting LGBTQ inclusive teaching practices. They cited supports like colleagues, professional learning communities and opportunities to engage with one another on challenging topics, as well as the nature of foreign language teaching as beneficial in their work.

Purpose: The present thesis aims to gain an insight into pre-school teachers’ perceptions of the relevance of using illustrated books that include representations of same-gender families/relationships and address issues of gender expression that do not follow the normative gender categories in the classroom. The thesis was conducted within the interdisciplinary field of child studies, drawing from a social constructivist viewpoint and having queer theory as a point of departure. Methods: A small-scale, qualitative study was designed, which included semi-structured interviews with pre-school teachers who educate four to six years old children in Greece. Five participants were interviewed, and the interviews were analysed with the use of thematic analysis. The questions asked in the interviews were oriented around the teachers’ reflections on the use of a mentioned book in their classrooms, upon possibilities or difficulties in relation to the use of this kind of literature and finally, their ideas about children, gender and sexuality. Results: The pre-school teachers did not discuss the implementation of pedagogical practices that are driven by interrupting heteronormativity, neither positively nor negatively. They did discuss an unwillingness to address topics about sexual minorities or gender non-conformity within their classrooms, because of the following difficulties: unreadiness, children’s insensibility towards sexual minority topics, societal normative values. Finally, they discussed gender understood as synonymous to sex and through the binary of male and female. Conclusions: The findings of the thesis support the ongoing silencing of some forms of sexuality or gender-related topics in early childhood education. Furthermore, they provide an insight into the difficulties pre-school educators come across when they face the dilemma of addressing topics that challenge heteronormativity. Moreover, the results of the study problematise dominant discourses about children, gender and sexuality. Consequently, this study presents in-depth qualitative knowledge of a small group of pre-school teachers and motivates further research on gender education that Greek children receive.

Deaf lesbians are a population that is underrepresented in the academic literature. Through the use of narrative inquiry, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with a woman who self-identified as Deaf and lesbian. She shared her experiences growing up as a woman who is Deaf and later in her life, realized she is lesbian. The researcher juxtaposed her experiences as a hearing, lesbian woman and an ally to the Deaf community to better illuminate the Deaf lesbian experiences. The research delved into how these dual minority identities have affected the Deaf lesbian participant as she makes her way in the world of the dual majority cultures of hearing and heteronormative.

<p>Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka hur olika samhällsinstansers syn på våld i samkönade parrelationer och vad de gör för att arbeta kring denna problematik. Ämnet studerades med en kvalitativ ansats. Urvalet av den teoretiska populationen utfördes genom strategiskt urval. Den insamlingsmetod som användes för data var delfimetoden. Vid analysen användes tidigare forskning samt queerteorin som teoretisk utgångspunkt. Analysen resulterade i tre huvudkategorier/teman<em>; synen på våld i samkönade parrelationer,</em> <em>utbildning & samverkan</em> samt<em> bemötande</em>. De slutsatser som drogs var att ämnet behöver synliggöras bättre och att utbildning/information bör ges i större utsträckning, både kring våld i samkönade parrelationer, men även kring andra sexuella läggningar än heterosexualitet generellt. Utbildning/information efterfrågas även för att kunna erbjuda samma stöd och hjälp för alla individer som utsatts för våld i en nära parrelation.  </p>

<p>This essay discusses the students’ thoughts about the teacher's response to their gender identity. The students discuss their right to have an intergender identity which means that they don’t identify themselves in the traditional sexes, <em>man and <em>woman, and the gender role each category has. They want to be called with a neutral pronoun and not be seen like boys or girls. </em></em></p><p>To understand these students’ point of view I used queer theory and discourse analysis to see the differences between sex and gender. Judith Butler the most famous philosopher in the field of queer theory emphasizes that there is no differences between sex and gender roles and explains that sex and gender roles are neither made by nature nor have mystery sources. Instead they are created by historical, social and cultural processes. She declares that language and the names we give each other affect what identities the society think are normal or not. There are many different identities that can’t be identified or categorized in the traditional gender roles. We have to think beyond these categories and not see people in only two sexes/genders, woman and man.</p><p>The Swedish schools have many values to work with and in these values it’s written that the teachers have to treat every student with respect and encourage them to grow and evolve. I investigate how the teachers react to the students’ transgender identities. The investigation is made with four different students who identify themselves as intergender. The study is based on interviews that took between forty and sixty minutes. The interviews were transcribed and written with spoken language. The main purpose of this essay is to investigate what the students thought about their teachers’ reaction.</p><p>The conclusion of this essay is that the students think that the teachers have insufficient knowledge about the transgender identities. The students want the teachers to have more knowledge about transgender identities. That will make the teachers more comfortable in their behavior against students who identify themselves between the traditional sexes.</p>

Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka hur olika samhällsinstansers syn på våld i samkönade parrelationer och vad de gör för att arbeta kring denna problematik. Ämnet studerades med en kvalitativ ansats. Urvalet av den teoretiska populationen utfördes genom strategiskt urval. Den insamlingsmetod som användes för data var delfimetoden. Vid analysen användes tidigare forskning samt queerteorin som teoretisk utgångspunkt. Analysen resulterade i tre huvudkategorier/teman; synen på våld i samkönade parrelationer, utbildning &amp; samverkan samt bemötande. De slutsatser som drogs var att ämnet behöver synliggöras bättre och att utbildning/information bör ges i större utsträckning, både kring våld i samkönade parrelationer, men även kring andra sexuella läggningar än heterosexualitet generellt. Utbildning/information efterfrågas även för att kunna erbjuda samma stöd och hjälp för alla individer som utsatts för våld i en nära parrelation.

In this thesis, I assert that the mikvah, a Jewish purification ritual, can be understood as a queer ritual in that it has the potential to destabilize the knowledges and structures that it has traditionally been understood to uphold. I draw on queer theory in order to establish Victor Turner’s liminality as a productive analytical tool and then utilize this new queer liminality to illuminate the mikvah’s latent potential for producing new meanings and modes of resistance for its participants.

The study aims to examine how three books written for teenagers and young adults address topics that are generally considered as deviant to social norms in order to conclude if they can contribute to a norm critical pedagogy in school. Norm critical pedagogy is foremost based on gender- and queer theory and tends to discuss how social norms and power structures are constructed and reproduced in different social contexts. To work in a norm critical fashion the teacher must be aware of the present norms and work to make the pupils conscious of them. Thereby the focus is on existing norms, rather on the deviances. To use norm critical pedagogy correct it must be incorporated in all subjects in school. The books that have been analysed in this essay are Syskonkärlek by Katarina von Bredow, Henrietta är min hemlighet by Maja Hjertzell and Tusen gånger starkare by Christina Herrström. This study shows that all books include and discuss subjects that are deviant to social norms, such as: non-conformal gender roles, homosexuality and incest. Tusen gånger starkare and Henrietta är min hemlighet are suitable to teach in upper school and upper secondary school, because they discuss subjects and themes that pupils and students in that age can relate to and they are written in ways that open up to discussions.  However, all books are not suitable to use in a norm critical pedagogy. Syskonkärlek’s theme is the incestuous relationship between a brother and a sister. Incestuous love is not only deviant to social norms, it is also against the law. To teach that book in the purpose to make the pupils aware of norms and start thinking critical about them, can have the opposite effect, though incest is seen as wrong in so many ways.