Wibke Straube

As a Senior Lecturer I work as a reseacher and teacher at the Centre for Gender Studies and as a research coordinator for GEXcel International Collegium. GEXcel is a network of three Swedish Gender Studies Centres including Linköping University and Örebro University. Here I mainly organise research residencies, conferences and our lecture series for the Centre and in collaboration with the partner universities.

My research focusses mainly on the intersection of embodiments that move away from birth assigned sex and naturalised binary norms as well as questions of environmental pollution and the material-semiotic discourses of nature and naturalness.

I am currently working in two research projects. One focussing on trans cultural production and links to my research interest on environmental pollution and trans representation. The project is funded by Kone. The other one has a focus on trans healthcare structures and mental wellbeing of care-seekers. It is funded by Region Värmland.

In the projected funded by the Finnish Kone Foundation (Helsinki, Finland) I work jointly with 2 researchers and 2 artists, where I chair the research strand “Environmental Crisis”, apart from the other research strands are “Violence” and “Health”. The strand addressing environmental questions is speaking to my research interest on how environmental questions and challenges overlap with trans and queer embodiment, how econormativities, for instance, affect trans bodies and trans cultural producers, and the work-making potential of trans and queer art and in what ways art and cultural production addressed and responds to the envrionmental crisis.

In the project funded by Region Värmland (Swedish region Värmland, regional healthcare organisation), I collaborate with public health researcher Ida Linander and sociologist Andreas Henriksson in order to evaluate the regional trans-specific health care services and care-seekers needs. The service provided by the region is unique in Sweden and can be seen as a “pilot project” aimed at improving wellbeing for the regional trans care-seekers. The project is invested in improving care and psychological support services for trans care-seekers and aims to minimize the debilitating effects of living in a cisnormative society.

Overall, most of my research continues to address questions of liveability for trans and queer bodies and questions of futurity, utopia and worldmaking practices and questions of survival. Something I also addressed in my earlier research work during my PhD at Tema Genus, Linköping University (2009 – 2014) where I did research on a concept I came to call exit scapes in Trans Cinema and focused on utopian imaginaries in mainstream films with trans representation, published under the title Trans Cinema and its Exit Scapes: A Transfeminist Reading of Utopian Sensibility and Gender Dissidence in Contemporary Film.  

Keywords: transgender liveabilities, world-making and survival; utopias; art and cultural production; trans health and wellbeing; environmental crisis and environmental pollution; queer, trans, and more-than-human relations; feminist posthumanities; cultural studies; transgender studies.

I teach a range of courses both on the MA and BA level in transgender studies, feminist methodologies including new feminist materialisms and environmental humanities.

My perspective on teaching is mainly formed by an aim to create a space for collaborative learning and is driven by an activist formed understanding of knowledge creation and exchange. Teaching students in the field of intersectional feminist theory as well as transgender and queer studies allows to create fully engage in knowledge production and reflections that bridge activism and academic practices.

• 2015 – now  Senior Lecturer and Research Coordinator (GEXcel.org) at Centre for Gender Studies / Centrum för Genusforskning, Karlstad University.
• 2009 - 2014 Doctoral Studies, 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.

• 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.

I currently co-supervise two PhD students.

1. Nico Miskow Friborg, PhD project: “Confronting fantasies of Scandinavian progressiveness and queer utopia: Queer and trans organizing in Denmark since 1990”, University of Stavanger, Norway.

2. Utu-Tuuli Jussila, PhD project: "Extra/ordinary – norms and utopias in the visual representations of non-binary genders", University of Helsinki, Finland.

I am affiliated with The Posthumanties Hub (Linköping University/Kunglika Tekniska Högskolan), Sweden.

I am also a member of the Karlstad University-based Research Group for Culture Studies (KuFo) as well as the Centre for Research on Sustainable Societal Transformation (CRS).

Since 2004 I am associated member of Centre for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies of Humboldt-University of Berlin, Germany.