Queering Norway
The articles in this collection indicate the still powerful role of queer theory in questioning the political, social, cultural, institutional hegemony of heterosexuality in culture and society at large as well as in academic research institutions. Written from the perspective of the northern European periphery, Queering Norway specifically reflects the challenges queer theory poses for ways of thinking about sexuality and identity in Norway. At the same time, the questions raised in the articles have wide relevance. From within their various fields (sociology, anthropology, ethnology, archeology, linguistics, psychology, media studies and religious studies) the writers attempt to develop a language enabling them to recognize the multiple social relations possible in contemporary societies, a language in which neither queer nor homosexual ousts the other, but in which the goal is to work, read, and write in the in-between spaces where no single difference is elevated above any other.
This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Homosexuality.
Pl Bjrby is Associate Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. He has written extensively on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Scandinavian literature, feminism, gay and lesbian issues, and queer theory. He has also edited a number of books and special issues of literary and cultural journals.
Anka Ryall is Associate Professor of English at the University of Troms, Norway. Her publications deal primarily with British travel writing, gender and nonlicity. She has served on the program committees for two Norwegian gender research programs, Gender in Transition: Institutions, Norms, Identities (19972002) and Gender Research: Knowledge, Boundaries, Change (20012007).
First published 2009 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2009 Edited by Pl Bjrby and Anka Ryall
Typeset in Times by Value Chain, India
Printed and bound in the United States of America by IBT Global
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN10: 1-56023-798-8 (h/b)
ISBN10: 1-56023-799-6 (p/b)
ISBN13: 978-1-56023-798-3 (h/b)
ISBN13: 978-1-56023-799-0 (p/b)
GUEST EDITORS
Pl Bjrby, PhD, is Associate Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. He has written extensively on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Scandinavian literature, feminism, gay and lesbian issues, and queer theory. He has also edited a number of books and special issues of literary and cultural journals.
Anka Ryall, MA, is Associate Professor of English at the University of Troms, Norway. She is the author of Odysseys i skjrt. Kvinners erobring av reiselitteraturen (Odysseus in skirts: Womens appropriation of travel literature) (Oslo 2004) and several articles, mainly on nineteenth-century Scandinavian and British travel writing.
AUTHORS
Agnes Bols, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She has published When Women Take: Lesbians Reworking Concepts of Sexuality in Sexualities (2001) and Orgasm and Lesbian Sociality in Sex Education (2005). Her current research project is on heterosexualitys need to explain itself.
D.. Endsj, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of the History of Religions, University of Bergen, is presently working on resurrection and physical immortality. His most recent publications are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights and the Relativism of Human Rights in Human Rights Review (2005) and To Control Death: Sacrifice and Space in Classical Greece in Religion (2003).
Heidi Eng, PhD, Associate Professor, Diakonhjemmet University College, Oslo, is currently working on a project titled The Queer Turn. Among her recent publications is How to Transcend Heteronormative Sexualities in Sport and Sports Settings in Moving Bodies (2004). Queer Athletes and Queering in Sport is forthcoming in Queer Theory and Sport ed. by J. Caudwell (Routledge, 2006).
Tor Folger, MA, Research Fellow, Department of Cultural Studies and Art History, University of Bergen. His two areas of current research are the queering of families and Norwegian transsexuals and their genders.
Tone Hellesund, PhD, Researcher at the Stein Rokkan Center for Social Studies, University of Bergen. She has published Kapitler fra sin gellivets historie (Chapters in the history of single life) (Oslo, 2003) and is working on projects on gender deviance and sexuality. Her current research deals with lesbian and gay adolescents and suicide.
Ole Ringdal Johnsen, MA, Research Fellow at the Center for Womens and Gender Studies, University of Bergen, from 1997 to 2001. Since 2002 he has been a writer for the Danish LBG magazine, Panbladet.
Hans Wiggo Kristiansen, PhD, Researcher at the Department of Criminology, University of Oslo. He is the author of Narrating Past Lives and Present Concerns: Older Gay Men in Norway in Gay and Lesbian Aging: Research and Future Directions (New York, 2004) and is writing a study of gays and lesbians in Norway in the period 19201980.
Wencke Mhleisen, PhD, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Womens Studies and Gender Research, University of Oslo. She has published Kjnn og sex p TV. Norske medier i postfeminismens tid (Gender and sex on TV: Norwegian media in the era of post-feminism) (Oslo, 2003) and articles on the aesthetics of pornography and sexual violence in films. She is currently involved in a research project titled The Queer Turn.
Willy Pedersen, PhD, Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Oslo. Among his publications are Sexual Satisfaction in Young Adulthood: Cohabitation, Committed Dating, or Unattached Life? with M. Blekesaune, in Acta Sociology (2003), Sexual Debut Age: Poor Resources, Problem Behavior or Romantic Appeal? A Population-based Longitudinal Study, with S.O. Samuelsen, in Journal of Sex Research (2004). His latest book is Nye Seksualiteter (New sexualities) (Oslo, 2005).
Brit Solli, PhD, Professor in Medieval Archeology at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. She is the author of Narratives of Vey. An Investigation into the Poetics and Scientifics of Archeology (Oslo, 1996) and
