Wibke Straube

Many years of trans and feminist activism in and outside of academia led to writing my PhD in Gender Studies with the focus on trans representation and transfeminist utopian imaginaries in mainstream cinema. I received my Phd from Linköping University (2009 – 2014) and my thesis is entitled Trans Cinema and its Exit Scapes: A Transfeminist Reading of Utopian Sensibility and Gender Dissidence in Contemporary Film.

My current research interest takes my investment into studies of intersectional, trans and queer embodiments and visual culture into the field of environmental humanities and new feminist materialism. I’m in particular interested in intimacies between human and more-than-human "others" and audio-visual representations in art and film.

My research is motivated by a focus on intersectional analysis of trans and queer embodiment, affective methodologies and a strong investment into discussing the affinities of different socially marginalised bodies and their forms of survival and possibilities to create zones of livability.

My perspective on teaching is mainly formed by an understanding of mutual learning and activist formed understandings of knowledge exchange. Teaching students in the field of intersectional feminist studies as well as transgender and queer theory allows to fully engage in the strong exchange between activism and knowledge production with the aim to support student to learn critical thinking, thinking complexitites and self reflexivity.  

I teach  in the fields of trans studies, feminist methodologies including new feminist materialims and environmental humanities with a strong focus on intersectionality, ethics and affect theory as well as methods of visual analysis.

I am the co-founder of the Nordic Network for Transgender Studies and affiliated member of the Posthumanities Hub (KTH, SE). Together with Signe Bremer (Lund University, SE) we co-cordinate the research strand “Transgender Studies” in GEXcel International Collegium for Advanced Transdisciplinary Gender Studies.

• Since 2015 Senior Lecturer and Research Coordinator for GEXcel International Colleagium at the Centre for Gender Studies / Centrum för Genusforskning, Karlstad University
• 2014 PhD from the Department of Thematic Studies/ Unit of Gender Studies, Linköping University, Sweden. Thesis title: Trans Cinema and its Exit Scapes. A Transfeminist Reading of Utopian Sensibility and Gender Dissidence in Contemporary Film.
• 2002 Master of Arts in Gender and Media Studies from the University of Sussex, UK.

Peer-reviewed articles and chapters

Straube, Wibke, Forthcoming. ”Toxic kinships. Ticks, trans bodies and ethics of response-ability in feminist art and activst writing” Evnironmental Humanities (special issue “Toxic Embodiment”), edited by Olga Cielemecka and Cecilia Åsberg.

Straube, Wibke. Forthcoming. “Posthuman Ecological Intimacy, Waste, and the Trans Body in Nånting måste gå sönder (2014).“ In: Douglas Vakoch (ed.), Transgender Ecology. Transecology: Transgender Perspectives on Environment and Nature.

Straube, Wibke, 2011, “If you can dream it... – Trans* Gender als Counter-Narrativ im populären Kino". In: Patrick Farges, Cécile Chamayou-Kuhn, Perin Emel Yavuz (ed.) Le Lieu Du Genre. La Narration Comme Espace Performatif Du Genre. Paris: Presse Sorbonne Nouvelle, p. 181-196.

Monograph

Straube, Wibke, 2014, Trans Cinema and its Exit Scapes. A Transfeminist Reading of Utopian Sensibility and Gender Dissidence in Contemporary Film. (Dissertation). Linköping: Linköping UP.

Edited Issues and editorial

Gottzén, Lucas & Wibke Straube (eds.), 2016, “Trans masculinities” (special issue). NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies 11 (4).

Gottzén, Lucas & Wibke Straube, 2016, “Trans masculinities”. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies 11 (4), pp. 217–24.