<p>This paper discusses some concerns about Japanese gender identity as a construct and the subversive means to overthrow it. In my paper I claim that the eastern influences on Japan has created a gap between old and new gender- traditions and norms. This interspace is what the philosopher Judith Butler claims as the site for a possible gender transformation. As Butler claims gender identity to be a construct, I use her methods of understanding and subsequently queertheory, to investigate the construct of Japanese gender identity and also the norms that constitute a national identity. As I elaborate on this theory I use specific artworks from Morimura Yasumasa, Yoshiko Shimada and Bubu de la Madeleine and also the all-male theatre kabuki vs. the all-female revue takarazuka. These examples are not symptomatic for a queer culture. Rather they, as I, aim to in some stances challenge normative gender roles and in other cases offer an alternative vision of what gender identity can mean. As the paper will show, queertheory is a tool that is available for anyone who wishes to criticize and examine strategies of a normative gender. The artworks and the queertheoretical interpretations will, in this paper, offer a possibility to dream of another world.</p>

This paper discusses some concerns about Japanese gender identity as a construct and the subversive means to overthrow it. In my paper I claim that the eastern influences on Japan has created a gap between old and new gender- traditions and norms. This interspace is what the philosopher Judith Butler claims as the site for a possible gender transformation. As Butler claims gender identity to be a construct, I use her methods of understanding and subsequently queertheory, to investigate the construct of Japanese gender identity and also the norms that constitute a national identity. As I elaborate on this theory I use specific artworks from Morimura Yasumasa, Yoshiko Shimada and Bubu de la Madeleine and also the all-male theatre kabuki vs. the all-female revue takarazuka. These examples are not symptomatic for a queer culture. Rather they, as I, aim to in some stances challenge normative gender roles and in other cases offer an alternative vision of what gender identity can mean. As the paper will show, queertheory is a tool that is available for anyone who wishes to criticize and examine strategies of a normative gender. The artworks and the queertheoretical interpretations will, in this paper, offer a possibility to dream of another world.

This essay, When women become men, is written with the intention of illustrating a way in which archaeologists and osteologists can work together to derive from the notion that men and women, and masculinity and femininity, are two rigid binary components which oppose each other. This is done on a practical level by analysing the graves from the Viking age burial site at Stora Hallvards, Silte parish, Gotland, Sweden. The analysis has been carried out through the means of osteological and archaeological sex assessments and osteological means of age assessment on the individuals. The main questions asked are how well the archaeological and osteological sex assessments correlate with each other, and what it means when they don’t; whether or not there is a difference in sex and gender based on age; and how the non-normative individuals in the materials can be reached. The essay has been written through intersectional feminist theoretical perspective with a base in queertheory, and an introduction has also been given to different views of, and ways in perceiving, sex and gender in different cultures around the world, with a broad time perspective to broaden the sex/gender discussion over time and space. The results of the analysis show that the archaeological and osteological sex assessments matched in 47,8% of the cases, and did not in 8,7% of the cases. The results are then discussed from a gender perspective, and it shows that there are differences between both children and adults, but also between adults, and between children. The difference can to some extent be linked to age. In this essay, it has been shown that it is fully possible to interpret the material based on more parameters than femininity and masculinity, and that this can only be achieved by seeing gender as the wide range of humanity that it actually includes, such as identity, status, sexuality, occupation and age. All that is required is that one is open to the idea that gender is not linked binary to biological sex.

The aim of this study is to describe how sex eduacation, as an area of expertise, is made visible and constructed in dance teachers education in Swedish higher secondary school. The queer theory describes dance teachers’ work from a perspective of body, sexuality, gender and normativity. Using qualitative methods, leaving space for reflection and subjective experiences, four higher secondary school working dance teachers were interviewed. The findings include that sexual education as an area of expertise exists both consciously and unconsciously in dance education and the subject of dance. Furthermore, the informants do not understand sexuality as something important in teaching dance, in spite of that sexuality as a subject is present in the discussions. The result of the study proved that norms about sexuality, body and gender cooperate with the dance education and the dance teachers daily encounters with their students. The most important conclusion in the study was that dance teachers should have an understanding of how sexual education as an area of expertise can be expressed through dance teaching to be able to encounter students with an including education.

<p>Jag vill i den här uppsatsen beskriva hur sexualitet och genus konstrueras, befästs och utmanas i Margareta av Navarras verk <em>Heptameron</em>. Jag utgår från Judith Butlers och Thomas Laqueurs queerteoretiska perspektiv och visar hur de olika maktdiskurserna kristendom, aristokrati, patriarkalism och nyplatonism påverkar och påtvingar olika konstruktioner av sexualitet<strong> </strong>och genus, och kan konstatera att alla dessa diskurser bygger på<strong> </strong>en normerande och<strong> </strong>normaliserad heterosexualitet som ständigt för tillbaka avvikelserna från denna norm, hos såväl devisanterna som i de två noveller jag studerat, till en binär könskategorisering. Huvudfokus ligger på tvetydigheten hos begrepp som man, kvinna, och fullkomlig kärlek. Jag menar att just avsaknaden av slutgiltiga definitioner av sådana begrepp i verket visar på att det inte går att finna något essentiellt ursprung eller någon slutgiltig definition av dem. Det är just därför den heterosexuella normen måste iscensättas gång på gång.</p><p>Jag menar dock att man kan konstatera att det finns en skillnad i fråga om de bakomliggande diskursernas gestaltning i ramberättelse där de slås fast och i novellerna där de problematiseras, vilket också påpekats av Bernard. Det finns med andra ord ett större utrymme för avvikande från sexualitets- och genusnormer i <em>Heptamerons </em>noveller, medan ramberättelsens funktion tycks vara att föra dem tillbaka till ordningen. Likväl sker en ständig upprepning av den heterosexuella normen både hos devisanterna och i novellerna, en upprepning som tyder på att heterosexualiteten inte är vare sig given eller naturlig utan iscensatt.</p> / <p>In this study I am analyzing how categories of sexuality and gender are represented in Marguerite de Navarre’s <em>Heptameron</em>. I have narrowed the object of study down to two of the seventy-two novellas; number forty-seven and forty-three, and to four of the ten devisants; Oisille, Parlamente, Hircan and Dagoucin. The theoretical frame<strong> </strong>is taken from Judith Butlers <em>Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity</em> (1990) and <em>Undoing Gender</em> (2004) and from Thomas Laqueurs <em>Making Sex. Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud</em> (1990). Butler’s aim is to deconstruct terms such as feminine and masculine, which function as imagined normalization categories due to power relations. In <em>Undoing Gender </em>she asks: “If I am a certain gender, will I still be regarded as part of the human? Will the ‘human’ expand to include me in its reach? If I desire in certain ways, will I be able to live?” These questions are of great importance for my study, which presents how the categories of sexuality and gender can be negotiated in the equalized frame Marguerite de Navarre creates for her ten devisants and novellas. At the same time I assess how every attempt to go beyond the boundaries of norms fails due to a norm of heterosexuality, which constrains the binary categories of man and woman.</p><p>There are four main discourses by which the heterosexual norm is internalized by the devisants in <em>Heptameron</em>: the Christian, the aristocratic, the patriarchal and the neo-platonic. I suggest that each of the four devisants that I have studied represents one of these discourses. Since there are no definitive lines or definitive conclusions reached in the discussions among them it would be more correct to say that all the discourses effect all of the devisants to some extent, but<strong> </strong>that all the devisants act through a main discourse when he/she express his/her individual opinions.</p><p>When the devisants in the frame leave it to the reader to come to a conclusion about right or wrong behavior for men and women, they are still rather set in their own opinions and, also, quite unforgiving. It is my contention that the novellas create more room for negotiations of the sexual and gender roles than the frame. In novella forty-three a woman acts within the role of the active, hence masculine, part of a love affair, and novella forty-seven tells the story of a <em>parfaicte</em> <em>amytié</em> between two men. But it is also obvious that these attempts to stress and break the norms of sexuality and gender are unsuccessful, once again due to the fixed norm of heterosexuality which constrain the binary categories of man and woman. In the novellas these very failures put the norms under stress, since they point out the very problem with the determination of sexual and gender categories which were prevalent during the Renaissance.</p><p>I conclude my results by returning to Butler’s question above; “If I desire in certain ways, will I be able to live?” In <em>Heptameron </em>one can always find a chance to try a different way, but in the end only the heterosexual desire in which man and woman are in dichotomy survives.</p>

Jag vill i den här uppsatsen beskriva hur sexualitet och genus konstrueras, befästs och utmanas i Margareta av Navarras verk Heptameron. Jag utgår från Judith Butlers och Thomas Laqueurs queerteoretiska perspektiv och visar hur de olika maktdiskurserna kristendom, aristokrati, patriarkalism och nyplatonism påverkar och påtvingar olika konstruktioner av sexualitet och genus, och kan konstatera att alla dessa diskurser bygger på en normerande och normaliserad heterosexualitet som ständigt för tillbaka avvikelserna från denna norm, hos såväl devisanterna som i de två noveller jag studerat, till en binär könskategorisering. Huvudfokus ligger på tvetydigheten hos begrepp som man, kvinna, och fullkomlig kärlek. Jag menar att just avsaknaden av slutgiltiga definitioner av sådana begrepp i verket visar på att det inte går att finna något essentiellt ursprung eller någon slutgiltig definition av dem. Det är just därför den heterosexuella normen måste iscensättas gång på gång. Jag menar dock att man kan konstatera att det finns en skillnad i fråga om de bakomliggande diskursernas gestaltning i ramberättelse där de slås fast och i novellerna där de problematiseras, vilket också påpekats av Bernard. Det finns med andra ord ett större utrymme för avvikande från sexualitets- och genusnormer i Heptamerons noveller, medan ramberättelsens funktion tycks vara att föra dem tillbaka till ordningen. Likväl sker en ständig upprepning av den heterosexuella normen både hos devisanterna och i novellerna, en upprepning som tyder på att heterosexualiteten inte är vare sig given eller naturlig utan iscensatt. / In this study I am analyzing how categories of sexuality and gender are represented in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron. I have narrowed the object of study down to two of the seventy-two novellas; number forty-seven and forty-three, and to four of the ten devisants; Oisille, Parlamente, Hircan and Dagoucin. The theoretical frame is taken from Judith Butlers Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) and Undoing Gender (2004) and from Thomas Laqueurs Making Sex. Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (1990). Butler’s aim is to deconstruct terms such as feminine and masculine, which function as imagined normalization categories due to power relations. In Undoing Gender she asks: “If I am a certain gender, will I still be regarded as part of the human? Will the ‘human’ expand to include me in its reach? If I desire in certain ways, will I be able to live?” These questions are of great importance for my study, which presents how the categories of sexuality and gender can be negotiated in the equalized frame Marguerite de Navarre creates for her ten devisants and novellas. At the same time I assess how every attempt to go beyond the boundaries of norms fails due to a norm of heterosexuality, which constrains the binary categories of man and woman. There are four main discourses by which the heterosexual norm is internalized by the devisants in Heptameron: the Christian, the aristocratic, the patriarchal and the neo-platonic. I suggest that each of the four devisants that I have studied represents one of these discourses. Since there are no definitive lines or definitive conclusions reached in the discussions among them it would be more correct to say that all the discourses effect all of the devisants to some extent, but that all the devisants act through a main discourse when he/she express his/her individual opinions. When the devisants in the frame leave it to the reader to come to a conclusion about right or wrong behavior for men and women, they are still rather set in their own opinions and, also, quite unforgiving. It is my contention that the novellas create more room for negotiations of the sexual and gender roles than the frame. In novella forty-three a woman acts within the role of the active, hence masculine, part of a love affair, and novella forty-seven tells the story of a parfaicte amytié between two men. But it is also obvious that these attempts to stress and break the norms of sexuality and gender are unsuccessful, once again due to the fixed norm of heterosexuality which constrain the binary categories of man and woman. In the novellas these very failures put the norms under stress, since they point out the very problem with the determination of sexual and gender categories which were prevalent during the Renaissance. I conclude my results by returning to Butler’s question above; “If I desire in certain ways, will I be able to live?” In Heptameron one can always find a chance to try a different way, but in the end only the heterosexual desire in which man and woman are in dichotomy survives.