Konferensartikel

Spectacular Queens and the Morals of Excessive Femininity

Cecilia Åsberg
Gender Studies, Utrecht University, Holland / Linköping University, Sweden Linköping University, Sweden Linköping University, Holland/Sweden

Ladda ner artikel

Ingår i: Inter: A European Cultural Studies : Conference in Sweden 11-13 June 2007

Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 25:69, s. 687-705

Visa mer +

Publicerad: 2007-11-27

ISBN:

ISSN: 1650-3686 (tryckt), 1650-3740 (online)

Abstract

Popular history is the stuff of connection; belonging and citizenship. It offers us imagined community (Anderson 1983); and more precisely; a shared historical imaginary (Dawson 1994; Elsaesser 2000). Through new and old media; imagined communities stretch beyond national borders and provide us with both opportunities for understanding ourselves; for mirroring and critical reflection; as well as for creative interventions. As expressed in for instance film; books; journals and websites; popular history seems increasingly popular in the North European context. In this paper I will tentatively approach a select range of popular versions of historical queens; like Queen Christina of Sweden and Marie Antoinette of France. Both are in the historical imaginary connected with excessive life styles; with arbitrary and wasteful ways that came to abrupt ends (abdication and decapitation). But their distinct and well-known personas have also provided a source of pleasure as they have echoed powerfully throughout contemporary popular culture as well as within a feminist imaginary of alternatives. In magnified proportions these queens; in two different ways of doing their gender; open up a space for consumerist; ruthless; exaggerated and anything but natural versions of femininity. In this paper I will explore the appeal of such performances today in relation to issues of cultural citizenship and subject positioning; history in public and the morals of excessive femininity.

Nyckelord

Inga nyckelord är tillgängliga

Referenser

“Antoinette and other things”, Pajama Empress; blogg at http://pajama-empress.blogspot.com/2007/05/antoinette-and-other-things.html (last accessed 2007-09-24).

Aronsson, Peter (editor): Makten over minnet. Historiekultur i förändring. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2000.

Bal, Mieke, Crewe, Jonathan & Spitzer, Leo (editors): Acts of Memory. Cultural Recall in the Present. Hannover, London: Dartmouth College, 1999.

Berlant, Lauren: The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.

Black, Jeremy: Using History, London: Hodder Arnold, 2005.

Bloom, Lisa (editor): With Other Eyes. Looking at Race and Gender in Visual Culture University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, London, 1999.

Borgström, Eva: ”Manlighetsmotivet i drottning Kristinas självbiografi”, in Makalösa kvinnor. Könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (ed. Eva Borgström), Alfabeta, 2002.

Boym, Svetlana: The Future of Nostalgia, New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Buckley, Veronica: Kristina. Sveriges Drottning [Original title Christina - Queen of Sweden], Uddevalla: Albert Bonnier, 2004.

Burke, Peter: Eye witnessing. The Use of Images as Historical Evidence London: Reaction Books, 2001.

Burke, Peter: What is cultural history? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004.

Butler, Judith: Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Coppola, Sofia: Marie Antoinette, Film DVD, 118 min, Pathé Distribution, 2006.

Dawson, Graham: Soldier heroes. British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities, Routledge: London & New York, 1994.

Doane, Mary Ann: Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, 1991.

Englund, Peter: Silvermasken – En kort biografi over Drottning Kristina. Uddevalla: Albert Bonnier, 2006.

Franklin, Sarah, Lury, Celia & Stacey, Jackie: Global Nature, Global Culture Sage: London, 2000.

Frasier, Antonia: Marie-Antoinette, Stockholm: Forum 2001. [English title: Marie Antoinette – The Journey].

“Frossa och frottera” Untfredag.se: All tom nöjesliv i Uppsala, article by Paola Langdal, at http://www.untfredag.se/avd/1,1786,MC=15-cat=248-AV_ID=575616,00.html (last accessed 2007-09-24)

Gregory, Philippa: I drottningens närhet [English title: The Queen’s Fool] Viborg: Damm, 2006.

Gregory, Philippa: Jungfruns älskare [English title: The Virgin’s Lover] Viborg: Damm, 2007.

Hamann, Brigitte: The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Knopf, 1986.

Haraway, Donna: Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Re-Invention of Nature, New York: Routledge, 1991.

“Hela topplistan – Sveriges regenter”, website by “btt” at Passagen: http://debatt.passagen.se/show.fcgi?category=3500000000000014&conference=6000000000000081&posting=19500000003305778 (last accessed 2007-09-24).

Jones, Amelia (editor): The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, New York: Routledge, 2003.

“Kostymdrama för 2000-talets publik“, film review by Alexander Dunefors at Moviezine; http://www.moviezine.se/filmsidor/marie_antoinette.shtml (last accessed 2007-09-24).

Lindquist, Herman: Historien om alla Sveriges Drottningar. Från myt och helgon till drottning i tiden. Stockholm: Norstedts, 2006.

“Marie Antoinette. The Movie – The Official Site” at http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/marieantoinette/index.html (last accessed 2007-09-24).

“Marie Antoinette-Material Girl” at You Tube, by director “mpavsweet” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Un-kxjBCw (last accessed 2007-09-23).

McClintock, Anne: Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, New York: Routledge, 1995.

McRobbie, Angela: In the Culture Society: Art, Fashion and Popular Music, Routledge, London, 1999.

Mamoulian, Rouben: Queen Christina, Film DVD, 97 min, 1933.

Mulvey, Laura.1999. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. In Visual Culture: the Reader, edited by J. Evans and S. Hall. London: Sage Publications. [Orginally published 1975].

“Paris Hilton and Marie Antoinette”, Mick La Salle’s blogg at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/mlasalle/detail?blogid=38&entry_id=17267 (last accessed 2007-09-24).

Radway, Janice: Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature. London: Verso, 1987.

Riviere, Joan: “Womanliness as Masquerade”, in Formations of Fantasy edited by Victor Burgin, James Donald and Cora Kaplan. London and New York: Methuen, 1986, pp. 35-44. [Orginally published 1929].

“Sissi - Elisabeth of Wittelsbach (1837 - 1898)” (anonymous) at the website Austrian Culture Personalities, http://www.aboutaustria.org/personalities/wittelsbach.htm (last accessed 2007-09-20).

“Sissi – Forever My Love” at VideoMediaOnline (anonymous): http://www.videomediaonline.com/sissiforevermylove.html (last accessed 2007-09-24).

Smelik, Anneke: “Feminist Film Theory” in Pam Cook and Mieke Bernink, (eds), The Cinema Book, second edition. London: British Film Institute, 1999, pp 353-365. See also: http://www.let.uu.nl/womens_studies/anneke/filmtheory.html (last accessed 2007-09-24).

Springer, Kimberly: “Unexpected: Women, Sources, and Histories” in Journal of Women’s History, 16.4 (2004), pp. 28-33.

Stacey, Jackie: Star Gazing – Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship, London: Routledge, 1994.

Stacey, Jackie: “Masculinity, Masquerade, and Genetic Impersonation: Gattaca’s Queer Visions”, in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol 30, 2005, pp. 1851-1877.

Michael Warner: Publics and Counterpublics. New York, London: Zone Books, 2002

Åsberg, Cecilia & Axelsson, Bodil: ”Digital performances of Gendered Pasts”, in Cyberfeminism in a Nordic Light: Digital Media and Gender in a Nordic Context. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, eds. Malin Svenningsson Elm & Jenny Sundén, 2007.

Åsberg, Cecilia: Genetiska föreställningar. Mellan genus och gener i populär/vetenskapens visuella kulturer. Linköping Studies in Arts and Science, 2005.

Citeringar i Crossref