Events and seminars
The CGF and GEXcel higher seminars featuring invited guests as well as researchers at Karlstad University with a bearing on gender scientific issues. All presentations will be given in English (if not mentioned otherwise).
2024
Ageing & Intergenerational encounters in Roald Dahl’s ‘The Landlady’
Co-hosted by the Centre for Gender Studies, Sociology and KUFO, KAU
Leva Stončikaitė (Pompeu Fabra University Barcelona, Spain)
June 10, 9.30 - 11.30
Campus room: 3A 340
This lecture is divided into two parts. In the first part, I will introduce my primary field of research — cultural & literary gerontology. I will briefly explain the evolution of this discipline within gerontological scholarship and will outline the main objectives and purposes. The second part will be focused on the representation of female ageing and intergenerational encounters in a popular short story written by Roald Dahl ‘The Landlady.’ This aim is to demonstrate how cultural & literary gerontology can be applied to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of growing older and intergenerational relationships. We will also delve into the horror genre that helps explore the dynamics of ageing, sexuality, dementia, fears of old age, and the uncanny and dark aspects of humanity, as portrayed in Dahl’s macabre narrative.
Dr. Ieva Stončikaitė holds a PhD, which focused on the intersection of ageing, sexuality, body politics, and the literary creation in the works of Erica Jong. Ieva is a member of the research group GrupDedal-Lit (U of Lleida, Spain) in collaboration with the SIforAGE project, and a member of the ENAS Advisory Board. She is also affiliated with the TCAS (Trent U, Canada) and ACT (Concordia U, Canada). Her current research interests include cultural gerontology, leisure and sexual tourism, and social innovation related to active and healthy ageing. Ieva has also co-taught as assistant lecturer at the Department of English and Linguistics at the U of Lleida.
Mini-Symposium “Singlehood, Sex and Gender”
Centre for Gender Studies, Karlstad University
May 22, 13 – 16.00
Hybrid seminar
Campus room: Fryxell (1B306)
Kinneret Lahad, Tel Aviv University
Towards an affective reading of female singlehood: some suggestions for a new research agenda
This presentation explores singlehood as an ongoing affective and sensorial process. Taking my cue from affect and non-representational theory, I propose a new theoretical framework which entails critical reappraisal of some of the prevailing ontological and epistemological considerations of singlehood studies. Whereas sociocultural researchers employ mostly a constructionist and discursive mode of inquiry, which privileges narratives, discourses, and social meaning making, here singlehood is conceptualized as an assemblage of forces and capacities which affect and are affected by different kinds of human and non-human bodies. Moreover, turning away from an overreliance on a unified and bounded individual subject, this line of inquiry provides new conceptual opportunities in which the connectivities and potentialities along the indeterminate and amorphous path of singlehood can be explored. To exemplify this approach, I revisit my earlier studies on female singlehood and loneliness and consider how these conceptual pathways allow us to address the more-than-human and more-than-representational dimensions of solo living.
Lena Gunnarsson and Evelina Johansson Wilén, Örebro University
The pain of long-term Involuntary singlehood: at the interface of norms and needs
Long-term involuntary singlehood and/or celibacy has lately gained increased attention due to the online ‘incel’ community, consisting of involuntarily celibate men who explain their condition with an anti-feminist and misogynist world-view. In this presentation we discuss some preliminary results from an ongoing research project that is focused both on the online incel community and on involuntary singlehood in a wider heterosexual population, including men as well as women. A key impulse of the project is to take the vulnerability and powerlessness of involuntary celibates and singles seriously, even when such vulnerability is expressed in misogynist ways.
In this presentation we draw on interviews with long-term involuntary singles to discuss their vulnerability in a two-fold manner: firstly, in terms of loneliness, of not having one’s basic needs for human connection fulfilled and, secondly, in terms of the social stigma of singlehood in a couple norm society. We claim that while norms about intimacy mediate feelings of loneliness, the pain of singlehood cannot be reduced such norms but must also be understood as related to basic human needs for connection.
Andreas Henriksson and Ulf Mellström, Karlstad University
The (im)possibility of transformation: how migrant bachelors imagine routes to future coupledom in European borderscapes
The transformative encounter that requires openness is a significant idea that is sometimes associated with Western notions of romance. While far from describing how couples really meet, the imaginary of the transformative encounter is central to how many single people understand themselves and others. How is this imaginary taken on by single migrant men, as they seek to understand their singlehood between cultures, in borderscapes and as racialized and marginalized individuals? Is it perceived as a hinderance or an asset as their singlehood is shaped? And what are the alternative ways in which they imagine meeting a future partner (if at all)? We draw on 12 interviews with Syrian single men in Sweden. Our results show that the men to a significant extent identify the ideal of transformative encounters with the West. While some embrace it as liberating, others see it as less relevant for their situation. In particular, experiences of discrimination and rejection lead some of the men to question the ideal’s importance to them. We discuss how these considerations inform their understanding of singledom.
WHEN THE PERSONAL BECOMES THE UNPOLITICAL
Co-hosted by Media and Communication Studies, Karlstad University and the Centre for Gender Studies, Karlstad University
May 8th, 13 – 15.00
Higher Seminar
Room: Fryxell
Maria Jansson and Jono van Belle
“Well, now when we talk about it, I can see that it is about racism”: Audiences’ negotiations of identities and values in the series Lupin (Netflix, 2021).
Departing from an intersectional approach we discuss audiences’ reactions to the popular Netflix series Lupin (2021). The series presents a heist-story interwoven in a critical assessment of racism and class-differences in contemporary France. The protagonist is a (rather) nuanced character, portraying a black self-made gentleman thief, challenging the stereotypical white portrayal of this kind of persona. However, the women in the series are portrayed as either (good) mothers, or as unreliable, upper-class, white, and sexualized and promiscuous. Discussing this series in focus groups with different demographic groups, such as white, young women, queer women, second generation immigrants and 45+ white Swedes, we have found substantial differences in identification and reception. Our tentative conclusion is that representations of different groups are important. However, only when these representations challenge stereotypes audiences perceive them as possible to identify with. Participants who identified as racialized could identify with the protagonist even if they were women. However, nobody – neither women nor men – identified with the female characters, despite the fact that they were important to the story.
Jono Van Belle is a postdoctoral researcher on the project Digiscreens and senior lecturer in the department of Media- and Communication Studies at the School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. She earned her joint PhD in Communication and Cinema Studies at Ghent University and Stockholm University in 2019.
Maria Jansson, professor of gender studies and associate professor of political science at Örebro University. Her research concerns women's conditions in society, how politics contributes to shaping and changing these conditions, and how women themselves through political actions contribute to change. She has also been interested in issues of equality and learning for a long time. She is currently leading the Swedish team in the Digiscreens project.
Inställt:
Johanna Sjöstedt: Feminist philosophy: Time, history and the transition of thought.
February 28, 2024
Time: 15.15 - 16.45
Room: 5A 308C
In this seminar, the new anthology Feminist philosophy: Time, history, and the transformation of thought (Södertörn studies in intellectual and cultural history 2023) will be presented by one of the editors, Johanna Sjösedt.
The publication is based on a four-year network, the aims of which were to a) research the philosophical roots of feminist theory; b) emphasize the importance of time and history as analytical concepts for feminist theory; c) scrutinize philosophy from a feminist perspective, yet insist on the importance of philosophy for feminist theory and the feminist movement today d) create a forum where these concerns were at the center, not the margin of inquiry.
Although feminist philosophy is now a recognized field in the institution of philosophy, a tension between the terms feminism and philosophy still seems to persist. From the perspective of philosophy, feminist philosophy might seem too committed to political change; from the perspective of feminism, the practice of philosophy might seem too far removed from the pressing concerns of injustice in ordinary life.
Feminist theory understood as an interdisciplinary tradition of texts that interrogates gender, sexuality, and other similar categories in critical perspectives, has a rather paradoxical relationship to time and history. If philosophy generally takes an omnipresent ahistorical point of view, feminist theory rather tends to stress what Donna Haraway calls “situated knowledges”: the historical, the local, which are first and foremost concerned with questions of transformation. However, the emphasis of historical situatedness is not necessarily accompanied by an awareness of or interest in the historicity of the concepts that are employed in making such claims. Rather, with the aim of changing oppressive conditions feminist theory runs the risk of overemphasizing the present and the future at the expense of the past.
This anthology argues that feminist theory needs the modes of reflection developed in the humanities in general and in disciplines such as philosophy, the history of ideas and literary studies specifically.
During the seminar the ideas behind the network and experiences from the seminars will be presented, together with the anthology based on it.
The anthology is available OA:
https://bibl-app.sh.se/pub.../home/publication/diva2_1762191
Johanna Sjöstedt holds double MA-degrees in History of Ideas and Gender Studies from the University of Gothenburg. Specializing in the history of feminist philosophy and theory, she is interested in how notions of gender, time, and history intersect in feminist theory and how feminist theory transforms modern notions of temporality and change. Her work has appeared in NORA, Slagmark, and Ideas in history. She is also the editor of the anthology Vad är en kvinna? Språk, materialitet, situation (Daidalos, 2021).
Global South Perspectives on Feminist Foreign Policies of the Global North
Ekatherina Zhukova:
January 31, 2024,
15.15 - 16.45
Room: 5A 308C
Introduced first by Sweden 2014, Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) has soon been adopted by other countries. FFP aims to mainstream gender equality in all of its levers of influence such as aid, trade, defense, and diplomacy. Since the majority of FFP countries represent the Global North, where liberal feminism is dominant, and a number of them explicitly focus on development cooperation this presentations looks at how countries in the Global South understand what FFP is and whether and how it is of relevance to their own contexts.
Based on 40 interviews conducted with diplomats, practitioners, and academics from 19 countries of the Global South (primarily small postcolonial states, not regional powers, on different continents - 9 in Latin America, 6 in Africa, 3 in Europe/Eurasia, 3 in the Middle East, and 5 in Asia) and from 6 Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) countries of the Global North, the presentation explores FFP’s challenges and possibilities of practicing cultural humility, respecting local agency, giving room to local feminisms, engaging the state in feminism, going beyond projectification in aid and foreign policy, and other aspects of cross-border engagement. It argues that by including the voices and knowledge of the Global South in the process of drafting and implementing the foreign policies of the Global North in a participatory manner might carry a potential to build a more just world.
Bio:
Ekatherina Zhukova is Senior Lecturer in Intercultural Studies at Karlstad University. She is a member of CGF and KuFo at KAU. She is working on a RJ-funded project on external perceptions of Feminist Foreign Policy and on Formas-funded project on the influence of renewable energy on gender equality in Yemen’s conflict.