This dissertation develops an existential-aesthetic theory of the subversive power and lure of limited and recessive forms of social intimacy that it calls queer indifference. By putting queer concerns with the normative politics of identity, visibility, and inter-relationality in conversation with philosophical concepts of indifference, it responds to expectations of the self-evident value of active bodies, personal recognition, and mutual experience for meaningful social political agency, and argues that recessive relations experienced and cultivated in the fortuitous spaces of “shared-separation” constitute a queerly-imagined rapport with alterity rather than being the source of social deprivation. Queer indifferences, I argue, effect their own ethical engagements beyond the self that are not reducible to readily legible connections to the social, while they may be continuous with such modes of connection. Drawing on a number of critical resources from queer theory, poststructuralist philosophy, film criticism, dream science, and the history of AIDS activism, this dissertation seeks to discover the generative impasses in perception, consciousness, and connection articulated by queer aesthetic media that make themselves seen and heard through the involutions of social legibility and recognition. In social postures such as solitude, techno-mediated encounters with cinematic worlds, and the creative automation of dreamlife, this dissertation locates aesthetic-ethical expressions of justice oriented towards the defiant persistence of queer life. Films such as Brokeback Mountain and Last Address, and the dream diaries of American artist and activist David Wojnarowicz, access and communicate a certain inaccessible and incommunicable core of self and intimate expression that elicits relations with the other in appearances of isolation or remoteness, and that generates creative and imaginative possibilities for justice ahead of indeterminate futures. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation explores a series of limited and obscure relations marshalled under the concept of “indifference” to develop what I call a theory of queer indifference. By bringing concerns from queer theory about socially compulsive forms of inclusion and connection in conversation with philosophical concepts of indifference, this dissertation expands the political, ethical, and aesthetic potential of such ways of being to challenge existing relations of power. It argues that the dissident force of indifferent relations generates the queerly critical, imaginative, susceptible, and hospitable capacities inherent to doing justice. Experiences of solitude, film-viewing, and dreaming illustrate the social lure of indifferent relations as practices or embodiments that can be understood otherwise than as a source of deprivation. From the un-belonging spaces of solitude, to the film camera’s technological gaze, to the unwitting intelligence of dreamlife, this dissertation examines the “space of shared-separation” between self and other, viewer and camera, and waking and sleeping selves as a type of existence that produces queer relations to social order and that nurtures creative orientations to indeterminate futures. The films Brokeback Mountain and Last Address, and the dream diaries of American artist and activist David Wojnarowicz, are the aesthetic core of this dissertation’s investigation of and experimentation with ways of being that are queerly at odds with the way things are.

This dissertation will focus specifically on queer deployments of femininity. I use queer here in two registers: both to refer to one’s nonnormative relationship to gender and/or sexuality and to how people are “made queer” by virtue of their shared subordination in relation to power (Ahmed, 2006; Cohen, 1997). In particular, Blackness, transness, and engagement in sex work are all made queer in relation to dominant cultural norms embedded in white supremacy, cisnormativity, and sex negativity. The vast majority of what we know about the valuation and devaluation of femininity relies on a tacit assumption of cisness and a presumed coherence between gender identity and gender performance. The operation of femmephobia—the repudiation of femininity and its social consequences—effects people of all genders, but to different degrees and consequences depending on who is its target. In this dissertation, I am interested in mapping on to each other both conceptualizations of “queer”—that is, as a gender and/or sexual identity and as a relation to power to analyze femmephobia across domains. For example, looking at the “feminine failures” (Hoskin, 2017; 2021) of those who do—or don’t do—femininity in ways that violate our cultural expectations can help tease out the value (or penalty) of its performance. Specifically, this dissertation seeks to answer the following questions: Is the experience of femininity dependent its wearer? Who “wears” femininity, and how? How do race, gender, and sex assigned at birth affect how it is valued, used, and assessed? Using ethnographic and interview data, this dissertation will consider three case studies in queer femininity across embodiments and social contexts. Specifically, the data includes 16 in-depth interviews with trans masculine and non- binary sex workers who embody femininity for work, 72 in-depth interviews with women who primarily date women and lesbians of all genders, and twelve months of virtual and in-person ethnographic observations across a variety of queer parties, bars, and events.

This thesis investigates how queer women on the social networking site (SNS) TikTok are expressing their cultural identity and building community. Previous research has shown that self-expression and self-presentation are important parts of defining one's identity and building community for queer individuals, and this study analyzes details specifically within the unique platform of TikTok. Its popularity and success as an SNS that utilizes an advanced algorithm justifies its examination and highlights its multifaceted benefits, such as ease of community building and accessibility to diverse content. In a thematic analysis of 66 TikTok videos using the song "girls" by Girl in Red, and consisting of female-presenting individuals, two themes were revealed and defined: color combinations communicating identity and viral trends as queer confirmation or communication. These themes reveal two ways those in the queer community are embracing small content details to find each other and practice cultural identity expression. Study findings outline the social and technological advancements of online community building, while also illuminating how stigma symbols defined by previous studies are continually employed in the TikTok videos examined in this study. Results also support previous TikTok research suggesting that queer users are developing self-organized practices in response to algorithmic functions. / MACOM / This study examines strategies employed by queer women on TikTok to express their identity and build community with one another. The mobile app, which allows users to post short video clips accompanied by audio, often songs that are popular or coordinated with the message of the video, has become an increasingly important channel of communication for members of various communities. For gender and sexual minorities, self-expression and self-presentation are important parts of defining one's identity and building community. Inspired by the growing popularity online of the Norwegian singer-songwriter Girl in Red, this study analyzes the contents of 66 videos using her song, "girls." The study illustrates how online community building has advanced since early social media, the influence of the innovative TikTok algorithm, and provides context for a popular trend on the app. Results show that queer women recognize and utilize TikTok affordances to their advantage, such as participating in trends or liking specific content to encourage cultural identity connections via the algorithm.

This study aims to show how themes of sexuality, consent and relationships is treated in a classic romance novel from the 19th century and in modern romantasy from the 21st century. In order to find the romance genre’s potential to be used as a teaching resource, in the Swedish subject as well as in sex education, towards the Swedish upper secondary school. Through hermeneutic reading and thematic comparative analysis of the novels Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and the first two books in the series A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas, examples of the themes are found and compared. The results are then interpreted through queer theory. The findings show that there is potential for the romance genre to be used as a teaching resource in the Swedish subject, particularly in discussion of themes such as sexuality, consent, and relationships.

Queer theory emphasizes the circulation of power through sex-gender-sexuality systems to trace methods of normalization for the purposes of political intervention. Within literature, queer theory functions as a lens into historical gender and sexual ideologies. My thesis attempts to bridge queer theory with medieval studies to highlight queer and non-normative sensibilities within a particular medieval text: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales develops characters who straddle the line between the queer and the licit, and he creates situations that disrupt the expected hetero-normative, masculine ideology of medieval England. Queering Canterbury explores how queer-gender, queer-bashing, queer humor, and the queynte function within Chaucer's Canterbury Tales while relating the overarching struggle for masculinity and power.

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.

<p>Drag Cuisines is an interdisciplinary study of the cultural, social, and historical interconnectedness of veganism, queerness, and animality. To interrogate these links requires mixed methods such as the collection of oral histories with self-identified queer vegans, analysis of animal themes in queer film and literature, social media analysis, and analysis of food cultures and restaurant rhetorics. Following work by prominent American Studies scholars, this project posits that the practice of veganism embodies queer performativity in how queerness and animality are ontologically linked.</p>

In Queering Nabokov: Postmoderne Zeitlichkeiten und Erotik in Ada, oder Ardor nähert sich Nathalia Saliba Dias dem Spätwerk Vladimir Nabokovs aus der Perspektive der Queer-Theorie und der Queer-Zeitlichkeiten, um eine bestimmte Kombination von Themen zu untersuchen: die Überschneidung von postmodernen Zeitlichkeiten, Verspieltheit und Erotik. Nabokovs Umgang mit der Zeit wurde oft mit der Suche der Moderne nach Transzendenz und Zeitlosigkeit in Verbindung gebracht und im Lichte von Marcel Proust und Henri Bergson interpretiert. In Ada, oder Ardor (1969) jedoch stellt Nabokov alternative Formen der Zeitlichkeit, die historisch als weiblich und seltsam identifiziert werden (wie Rhythmus und Textur), im Gegensatz zu Linearität, Uhr und Kalenderzeit, die oft mit männlicher Zeit assoziiert werden. Darüber hinaus beschreibt Nabokov die Erinnerungen der Figur als ein sexuelles Ereignis und manipuliert historisches Material (Fotos, Dias, Bücher usw.) als sexuelle Objekte. Er sexualisiert auch seine Beziehung zu anderen Autoren in der Komposition des Romans und verwandelt die Literaturgeschichte in eine homoerotische und frauenfeindliche Beziehung. Schließlich sexualisiert Nabokov seine literarische Familie und seine literarischen Mittel, insbesondere die Parodie, indem er das Material anderer in seinen eigenen Schriften auf abartige Weise "einfügt", "durchdringt" und "manipuliert". Das zentrale Argument dieser Arbeit ist, dass Nabokov in Ada, oder Ardor schließlich einen spielerischen Umgang mit der Zeit (reflektierende Nostalgie) als verkörperte und sexuelle Erfahrung in den Mittelpunkt stellt, anstatt die Zeit als Wunsch zu erforschen, seine Vergangenheit in der Gegenwart wiederherzustellen (reparative Nostalgie). / In Queering Nabokov: Postmodernist Temporalities and Eroticism in Ada, or Ardor, Nathalia Saliba Dias approaches Vladimir Nabokov’s late work from the perspective of Queer theory and Queer temporalities to investigate one particular combination of themes: the intersection of postmodernist temporalities, playfulness, and eroticism. Nabokov’s approach to time has been often associated with the modernist search for transcendence and timelessness, being interpreted in the light of Marcel Proust and Henri Bergosn. In Ada, or Ardor (1969), however, Nabokov embraces alternative forms of temporality, which are historically identified as feminine and queer (like rhythms and texture) in opposition to linearity, clock and calendar time, which are often associated with masculine time. Furthermore, Nabokov describes the character’s memories as a sexual event and manipulates historical materials (photos, slides, books, etc.) as sexual objects. He also sexualizes his relationship with other authors in the composition of the novel, transforming literary history into a homoerotic and misogynistic relationship. Finally, Nabokov sexualizes his literary family and devices, especially parody, “inserting,” “penetrating,” and “manipulating” the material of others in his own writings in deviant ways. The central argument of this thesis is that in Ada, or Ardor Nabokov finally focuses on a playful treatment of time (reflective nostalgia), as an embodied and sexual experience, rather than exploring time as a wish to reinstate his past in the presente (reparative nostalgia).

The importance of family is widespread, both in society in general and within social work specifically. This essay focuses on the construction of family in the guidelines concerning adoption that the Board of health and welfare issue. The aim of this study is to identify and uncover dominant discourses concerning family in the guidelines. To do this we have used a form of Critical Discourse Analysis, influenced by Norman Faircloughs three-dimensional analytical model. Our major findings were, among others, that different kinds of family practices are excluded from the idea of what a family is. This process of exclusion is done through two different sets of discourses; discourses of sameness and discourses of difference. Discourses of sameness is concerned with including the adoptive family in the norm of the “ideal” family, but without really changing the idea of what a family can be. This leaves the traditional idea of family to remain unchallenged in the guidelines. Discourses of differences is concerned with the construction of the adoptive family as different than the idea of the “ideal” family. The consequences of this is that the construction of the “good” family excludes family practises that defy the traditional “ideal” family.

This two-year master thesis in Library and information science, explores how femininity is created within the librarian profession year 1900-1930 in Sweden. By using three Swedish female librarians as case studies I study how female librarians responded to norms for women within the profession. I also ask if the librarians were able to break these norms or if the standards for women formed how the librarian profession was shaped.The thesis has a queer theoretical framework and uses hermeneutic methodology together with Judith But-lers performativity theory and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivaks deconstruktivism. Queer theory and hermeneutic methodology can be used on historical sources to gain new perspectives and still be aware of the ideals and norms that existed within the historical period. I use “woman” and “femininity” as socially constructed gender categories that changes according to the context they are created within and in relation to.My main source material consists of articles and letters written by the librarians together with a rich materi-al of women’s rights history and Swedish public library history. By using the female librarians own words I try to get a first-hand perspective, described by the women who worked and lived as librarians during the first dec-ades of the 20th century. They worked in an important and ground-breaking time for public libraries and wom-en´s self-sufficiency.My thesis shows that the female librarians used different pronouns and adjectives to describe their profes-sion depending on which context they spoke or published their texts. Greta Linder, Hildur Lundberg and Maria Larsen used different strategies to survive within the profession. In some cases, it was important to emphasize the category “woman”, but in many cases their professional identity as librarians was of greater significance. As self-sufficient and unmarried librarians, they could create other possibilities than within the limited space that existed for married women.