Gender - Power - Text: Nordic Culture in the Twentieth Century (Norvik Press Series)

The Nordic countries are often imagined by the outside world to be a haven of sexual equality and exemplary gender relations. This book presents a more nuanced picture to the English-speaking world, interrogating the constructions, negotiations and transformations of gender and power in a diversity of texts and textual practices. GENDER theory informs all sixteen essays in this volume, and a productive and provocative juxtaposition of boundaries is in evidence throughout. POWER and its distribution in society are analysed both as a problem central to the construction of the nation-state, and as a dynamic underlying cultural texts. TEXT is understood in this volume in a wide sense, encompassing painting, handicrafts, film, photography and installations, as well as poetry, the novel, and drama. The texts explored by the contributors belong to the Danish, Finnish, Finland-Swedish, Norwegian, Sami, and Swedish traditions.