Contemporary Swedish Feminist Comics as Medium for Political Activism and Critique

Feminist comics have come to play a prominent role in Swedish cultural debates, serving as political satire, social commentary and a medium for activism. The aim of the project is to examine the explosion of feminist comic art in Sweden, popularized by creators such as Liv Strömquist, Nina Hemmingsson, and Sara Granér, among many others. Works by these and other comics artists encompass a multitude of forms, from fiction and autobiography to satire and collage.

The project is based on multidisciplinary perspectives and interdisciplinary analyses. The research questions are:

  1. In what ways can the comics medium be used to express feminist politics thematically, visually and linguistically?
  2. How can verbal and visual expressions of humor, satire and irony function politically?
  3. How are constructions of identity, such as gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, religion or ability called into question or renegotiated by the affordances of the comics medium?

As a multidisciplinary team, the project members adopt approaches from literary studies, art history and visual studies, gender studies, and linguistics. With individual and collaborative projects in English and Swedish, this three-year project will explore new approaches and lay a foundation for continued work in this largely understudied field.

This project is funded by the Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2018-01165)

 

Participants

Margareta Wallin Wictorin, KuFo, Senior lecturer in Cultural Studies, Reader in Art History and Visual Studies

Anna Nordlund (PI/project leader), Reader in Comparative Literature, University of Gothenburg

Kristy Beers Fägersten, Professor of English, Södertörn University

Mike Frangos, PhD in English, Södertörn University

Maria Margareta Österholm, PhD in Comparative Literature, postdoc in Gender Studies, Stockholm University