Debates in Nordic Gender Studies

Celebrating more than two decades of feminist theory and gender research, this book provides an essential overview of current theoretical positions, hot topics and state-of-the-art perspectives in the field of Nordic Gender Studies: an area currently facing the challenges of internationalization and destabilized well-fare states, intersectionality, materiality, and academic transformation. Forming an overview, the introductory texts collected here are intended for Nordic and international students and teachers specializing in gender studies or related areas of interdisciplinary humanities and social sciences. With vibrant contributions from Nordic and international key scholars, think pieces and position papers culled from NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, are in fact essential reading for anyone in need of accessible yet condensed guidance on key discussion points such as post-constructionism and new materialism, neo-liberal academia and interdisciplinarity and the role of critical gender theory and posthumanism. The volume also looks at the differences within Nordic Gender Studies of today. This book is made up of material that was previously published in various issues of NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research.

Cecilia Åsberg, is Associate Professor in Gender Studies (Tema Genus) at Linköping University, Sweden. She is one of the Co-Directors of the permanent three-university centre for gender excellence, GEXcel International Collegium for Advanced Transdisciplinary Gender Studies. First to defend a dissertation in Gender Studies in Sweden, she has since published widely in the areas of feminist cultural studies, gender and science studies and environmental humanities. During 2010-2012 she was the editor, together with Malin Rönnblom, of the scholarly peer-review forum NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. She is the Founding Director of The Posthumanities Hub at Linköping University, Sweden. Malin Rönnblom is Associate Professor in Political Science and Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at Umeå University, Sweden and Karlstads University, Sweden. Her research mainly focuses on critical policy analysis, urban studies and feminist methodologies.

1. Introduction Timing Social Constructionism in Gender Studies 2. The Untimeliness of Feminist Theory 3. The Timeliness of Post-Constructionism 4. The Timeliness of a Social Turn in Feminist Studies 5. Bainwashing: Taking Another Turn with Biology Politics of Representation After the Welfare State 6. -I only need her uterus -: Neo-liberal Discourses on Transnational Surrogacy 7. Sweden after the Recent Election: The Double-Binding Power of Swedish Whiteness through the Mourning of the Loss of "Old Sweden" and the Passing of "Good Sweden" 8. Neo-Liberalism meets the Nordic Wellfare State - Gaps and Silences 9. Grossly Inadequate: Feminist figurations, neo-liberal gouvernmentality, and Comic Culture Debating New Materialisms, Feminist Others and Possible Posthumanities 10. Unnamed Others: How can Thinking about "Animals" Matter to Feminist Theorizing 11. Beyond the Humanist Imagination 12. New Materialisms, Old Humanisms, or, Following the Submersible 13. The New Materialist 'Always Already': On an A-Human Humanities Reflecting on the Feminist Scholarship 14. On Collaboration 15. Turning like a femme: Figuring Critical Femininity Studies 16. Feminist theory and that Critical Egde 17. The Elephant in the Room: Heterosexuality in Critical Gender/Sexuality Studies 8. Criticality, not Paranoia: A Generative register for feminist social research