Ett flicklaboratorium i valda bitar : Skeva flickor i svenskspråkig prosa från 1980 till 2005

Sammanfattning: Girlhood is a recurring theme and problem in contemporary Swedish and Finland Swedish literature. The writings of Monika Fagerholm, Mare Kandre and Inger Edelfeldt and many other authors are full of girls not wanting or not being able to be Proper Girls.This dissertation, its thinking and writing, is inspired by a wide range of feminist, queer and aesthetic theory, focusing on femininity. A crucial point of departure is the collaboration between literature and theory and especially how literature can be seen as theory and a way of creating knowledge. The dissertation explores some of the notions of femininity in literature from 1980 to 2005, using a variation, hybrid and/or translation of queer - skev in Swedish. The word skev draws on the original meaning of queer, strange or twisted; its coinage was influenced by Norwegian and Danish attempts to translate queer. Skev illuminates forms of normativity not strictly tied to sexual desire – taking queer one step further but also back to the original meaning of the word. The term gurlesque is another way of thinking about and beyond proper girlhoods. Gurlesque is a mix of feminism, femininity, the cute, the disgusting and the grotesque.The literary girls are opening up spaces for trying to think femininity beyond the heteronormative order, about girls comparing, desiring, and twisting each other and other forms of girlhoods. Skev is not a category or a label you can easily put on a literary girl. Even the girls that seem to be proper and behave accordingly turn out to be uncomfortable and rebellious in many senses.