Anna Bohlin

 

Presentation

My research concerns the intervening space between literature and politics, primarily in Swedish modern literature from the 1850s to the 1920s. Gender theory, queer theory and postcolonial studies are the theoretical backgrounds that I find most interesting in studying ideas of women’s emancipation, the meaning of public voice in relation to corporeality and the notion of citizenship, as expressed in literary texts. The PhD thesis investigates the notion of voice, elaborated in literary texts of the 1920s by prominent Swedish feminist writers, in relation to women’s suffrage, finally granted to Swedish women in 1921.

Publications

Röstens anatomi. Läsningar av politik i Elin Wägners Silverforsen, Selma Lagerlöfs Löwensköldtrilogi och Klara Johansons Tidevarvskåserier, diss. Umeå, Bokförlaget h:ström – Text & Kultur: Umeå 2008

 

  • Bohlin, A. (2010). Att synliggöra: Representation i "En negerstat i staten". Tidskrift för genusvetenskap, Malmö: Studentcentrum, Malmö högskola. ss. 96-100 [More information]

Contact

Anna Bohlin

 PhD, university lecturer, project leader for Culture – Democracy – Citizenship

Department of Literature

Box 632
SE-751 26 Uppsala
Sweden

Phone: +46-(0)18-471 61 97
E-mail: anna.bohlin@littvet.uu.se

Works in Progress

Anna Bohlin

Fredrika Bremer and the Beauty of Society

(Fredrika Bremer och det sköna i samhället)

The Swedish world famous author Fredrika Bremer (1801–1865) made late in her life two extensive travels, one to America, related in The Homes of the New World (English edition in 1853), and one to South Europe and Palestine, related in Life in the Old World (Lifvet i gamla verlden 1860–1862). Together with Bremer’s novel on women’s emancipation, Hertha (1856), these travel books constitute Bremer’s legacy, her studies of politics, religions and women’s participation in society in different countries and her final political vision. The notion of beauty works as an organizing node for this vision; beauty assumes qualities beyond the purely aesthetical – beauty reveals God’s plan for world history and humankind. Beauty will therefore serve as starting point for an examination of Bremer’s political vision.

 

The Children’s Book Citizen

Medborgaren i barnboken

This project aims at an historical study of the notion of citizenship conveyed by literature that has been read by entire generations of Swedish children from The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson to the Harry Potter series. What notions of democracy have influenced children’s ideas of their roles as citizens in a society?