Framkallning: Skrift, konsumtion och sexualitet i Karin Boyes Astarte och Henry Parlands Sönder
2013 (Swedish)Doctoral thesis, monograph (Other academic)Alternative title
Developing : Writing, Consumption and Sexuality in Karin Boye’s Astarte and Henry Parland’s To Pieces (English)
Abstract [en]
This thesis is a comparative study in two novels which both try to understand modern life. The novels were both written between 1929 and 1930 as entries for the same major Nordic novel contest – Astarte in Sweden by Karin Boye, Sönder [To Pieces ]in Finland by the Finno-swedish author Henry Parland.
This analysis tries to determine what is at stake in these novels by, apart from investigating them as novels in their own right, examining the complex interaction between a specific moment in history and the representation of that moment as literary text. The novels are examined as events in a specific historical situation; that is, how they write what is contemporary into themselves, trough answering the question about the historical moment that they themselves formulate. Four issues are fundamental to the study: The function of consumption and the commodity form in the novels. The way in which these novels render sexuality and desire. How other media forms function as aesthetic technologies for the novels. Lastly, aesthetics, writing and allegory: how the novels reflect on the possibility of representing this societal moment in history.
A focus in the analysis is how woman is called forth as golden statue and photography, how she by letting herself be consumed as sexual symbol elicits male speech – thereby also making the speaker into author, and man. The economic side to this is the way in which men and women take on the form of commodities amongst themselves. It is in this sexual economy that they become men and women. The transformation of the sexed object into the systematic status of a sign, signifying its value, implies the simultaneous transformation of human relations into consumer relations: You consume or get consumed.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm & Göteborg: Makadam Förlag, 2013. , p. 360
Keywords [en]
writing, commodity, consumption, media analysis, gender, sexuality, Karin Boye, Henry Parland
Keywords [sv]
skrift, varuform, konsumtion, medier, genus, sexualitet, Karin Boye, Henry Parland
National Category
Languages and Literature
Research subject
Literature
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-96100ISBN: 9789170611384 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-96100DiVA, id: diva2:663399
Public defence
2013-12-20, Auditorium 215, Humanistvillan, Frescativägen 24, Stockholm, 10:00 (Swedish)
Opponent
Supervisors
Projects
Allegori, genus, samhälle: funktioner och skrivsätt i svensk 1900-talslitteratur (delfinansierat av Vetenskapsrådet)
Funder
Swedish Research Council2013-11-282013-11-112022-02-24Bibliographically approved