Kristina Fjelkestam
Biography
B. 1967. PhD 2002 from Stockholm University in Comparative Literature, with dissertation Ungkarlsflickor, kamrathustrur och manhaftiga lesbianer: Modernitetens litterära gestalter I mellankrigstidens Sverige. She has participated in two research projects, on “The New Woman” and “The aesthetics of masculinity”, and in 2004 she was a STINT scholar to New York University.
Ongoing research
The project which she will contribute to the program is concerned with the institutionalization of aesthetics as an academic discipline, from a gender-theoretical and critical perspective. The study will focus on the central concept of the sublime, as first articulated by Burke and then developed by Kant. More specifically it will look at how it can initially be said to imply a “colonization of the other” (as suggested by Freeman 1995, cf also Battersby). But through a sequence of examples from 19th century literature, it will demonstrate how it also obtains an emancipatory function, e.g., as in de Staël’s Corinne, where it is both an ethical and political notion, meant to inspire revolutionary action. Also, in the novel Jenny by Fanny Lewald the opression of the Jewish people is shown as articulated by a sublime voice, by means of which the non-representable other is suddenly represented, in an ambiguous movement of absence and presence. The expected entertainment is transformed into an experience of irrepressible and almost haunting truth, the return of the repressed through literary and aesthetic expression. Through its sublime aesthetical representation, the voice and aspiration of the repressed return to inhabit the awareness of the audience. The role of literary narrative will be explored in its role both of shaping and representing, and thus ultimately strengthening marginal voices and groups within general historical consciousness.
Selected bibliography
- Det sublimas politik. Emancipatorisk estetik i 1800-talets konstnärsromaner (Göteborg/Stockholm: Makadam 2010)
- "Den sentimantala romanen och kampen för medborgarskap. Rousseaus Julie och Staëls Delphine", i Sjuttonhundratal: Nordic Yearbook for Eighteenth-Century Studie 2009.
- “Estetik som politik. Moderniteten, sublimiteten och medborgaren som man”, TFL 2008: 3-4.
– “Allegorizing Modernity. The New Woman and the Metropolis as Matonymies in Djuna Barnes 'Nightwood'”, The New Woman and the Aesthetic Opening, ed. E. Witt-Brattström (Stockholm: Södertörn Academic Studies, 2004)
– Ungkarlsflickor, kamrathustrur och manhaftiga lesbianer: Modernitetens litterära gestalter I mellankrigstidens Sverige (Stockholms Universitet, 2002, diss.)
– “Historicitet”, Kvinnovetenskaplig tidskrift 1999: 4.
B. 1967. PhD 2002 from Stockholm University in Comparative Literature, with dissertation Ungkarlsflickor, kamrathustrur och manhaftiga lesbianer: Modernitetens litterära gestalter I mellankrigstidens Sverige. Currently employed as research assistant at Umeå University, Center for Gender Studies. She has participated in two research projects, on “The New Woman” and “The aesthetics of masculinity”, and in 2004 she was a STINT scholar to New York University.
The project which she will contribute to the program is concerned with the institutionalization of aesthetics as an academic discipline, from a gender-theoretical and critical perspective. The study will focus on the central concept of the sublime, as first articulated by Burke and then developed by Kant. More specifically it will look at how it can initially be said to imply a “colonization of the other” (as suggested by Freeman 1995, cf also Battersby). But through a sequence of examples from 19th century literature, it will demonstrate how it also obtains an emancipatory function, e.g., as in de Staël’s Corinne, where it is both an ethical and political notion, meant to inspire revolutionary action. Also, in the novel Jenny by Fanny Lewald the opression of the Jewish people is shown as articulated by a sublime voice, by means of which the non-representable other is suddenly represented, in an ambiguous movement of absence and presence. The expected entertainment is transformed into an experience of irrepressible and almost haunting truth, the return of the repressed through literary and aesthetic expression. Through its sublime aesthetical representation, the voice and aspiration of the repressed return to inhabit the awareness of the audience. The role of literary narrative will be explored in its role both of shaping and representing, and thus ultimately strengthening marginal voices and groups within general historical consciousness. Fjelkestam will participate in the work and meetings of the program, but she will not need funding as she is supported from Umeå University. Her result will be published in the form of a monograph in Swedish, and two articles in English.