Två världar - ett universitet : Svenska skönlitterära universitetsskildringar 1904-1943 : en genusstudie

Sammanfattning: This thesis is a gender study of Swedish-university fiction, novels and short stories, published in bookform by female and male authors between 1904 and 1943. Authors such as Ellen Landquist, Paul Rosen-ius,Axel Wändahl, Ragnar Josephson, Lydia Wahlström, Gustaf Hellström, Artur Möller, Margit Palmær,Ingeborg Björklund and Fritiof Nilsson Piraten examine the difficult relationship between young under-graduatesor graduates and the university. The main purpose of the thesis is to find both similarities anddifferences between women and men writers' way of depicting the university. Methodologically, thisstudy can be seen as reading the novels as a kind of a 'dialogue', or a discourse, where the authors andnarrative voices complete, confirm or contradict each other. The novels are analyzed by using both ShirleyArdener's theory of gender models and power and Jürgen Habermas' categories of 'public' and 'private'.Most of the authors deliver critical descriptions of the university and of the student's disappointmentwith it. The protagonists often search for values and goals others than those proposed by the academy.The most significant difference between the women and the men authors consists in the way of treatingthe private sphere of the university. Women authors often make attempts at discussing the idea of the'new woman', of sexuality and gender. Men authors are particularly concerned about depicting a malestudent's relationship to the official sphere of the university.The stories usually follow an uncomplicated narrative pattern, where the protagonist's disillusionmentwith the university gradually increases and often ends with a break with the existing system of educationand its values.