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.
1. Introduction: Queer Theory in a Norwegian Context (Pål Bjørby and Anka Ryall)
PART I: QUEER MARGINS
2. The Queer Periphery: Sexual Deviancy and the Cultural Understanding of Space (D. Ø. Endsjø)
3. Queering the Spinsters: Single Middle-Class Women in Norway, 1880-1920 (Tone Hellesund)
4. The Politics of Lesbian Specificity (Agnes Bolsø)
PART II: HETERONORMATIVITY AND SUBVERSION
5. Homosexual Experience, Desire and Identity Among Young Adults (Willy Pedersen and Hans W. Kristiansen)
6. Doing Sexuality in Sport (Heidi Eng)
7. Queer Nuclear Families? Reproducing and Transgressing Heteronormativity (Tor Folgerø)
PART III: PERFORMING QUEER
8. “He’s a Big Old Girl!” Negotiation by Gender Inversion in Gay Men’s Speech (Ole Ringdal Johnsen)
9. Staging Gender and Sexuality in Experimental TV Entertainment (Wencke Mühleisen)
PART IV: QUEERING THE GODS
10. Queering the Cosmology of the Vikings: A Queer Analysis of the Cult of Odin and “Holy White Stones” (Brit Solli)
Biography
Pål Bjørby 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 Tromsø, Norway. Her publications deal primarily with British travel writing, gender and nordicity. She has served on the program committees for two Norwegian gender research programs, "Gender in Transition: Institutions, Norms, Identities" (1997–2002) and "Gender Research: Knowledge, Boundaries, Change" (2001–2007).
