Boundaries Of Propriety Research Articles

Groteska kroppar i folkhemmets sverige

Grotesque bodies in the Swedish folkhem: Improper aesthetic and rhetoric in the magazine PUSS 1968–1974
 In an analysis of the Swedish satirical magazine PUSS (1968–1974) this article explores what is considered as improper rhetoric and aesthetic in the public sphere. It draws on theories of representation and the culture of carnival laughter and the grotesque as well as research on the Swedish folkhem and satire and democracies. I coin the concept demogrotesque-atic in order to capture how PUSS, by using comics, grotesque bodies and carnivalesque, improper rhetoric and aesthetics, makes visible fundamental challenges to democratic societies. I argue that the magazine’s representational practices highlight the function of what is often considered ‘filth’ in the public sphere and the central role the grotesque body plays in upholding – and breaking – boundaries of propriety. I interpret this as important democratic work, and demonstrate that while the satire in PUSS is situated in a specific time and place, it is also part of a longstanding literary and artistic tradition.

What’s Hidden in Gravity Falls: Strange Creatures and the Gothic Intertext

What’s Hidden in Gravity Falls: Strange Creatures and the Gothic Intertext

KITTENS AND KITCHENS: FOOD, GENDER, ANDTHE TALE OF SAMUEL WHISKERS

With the publication ofThe Tale of Mr. Tod(1912), Beatrix Potter articulated her impatience with “goody goody books about nice people” (Linder 210) and declared her intention “to make a story about two disagreeable people” (Potter,Tale of Mr. Tod7). Yet although the subjects of the story, Tommy Brock and Mr. Tod, might be the most viciously disagreeable protagonists in Potter's children's stories, her readers were already acquainted with characters who challenged the boundaries of propriety, graciousness, and respectful deference to authority. Throughout her oeuvre, many such characters are not entirely punished for their trespasses, a pattern which often surprises modern readers who blithely assume that the daintily-illustrated books about woodland critters and barnyard creatures affirm conservative Edwardian conventions of behavior and standards of decorum.

Women's Mobility, Changing Gender Relations and Development in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

This paper investigates the relationships between mobility and the constitution of gender relations and subjectivities of rural-urban female migrants in Indonesia. Employing an ethnographic approach, my research explores meanings of space and changing relationships for migrant subjects. A specific group of migrants — teachers and nurses from the outer islands of Eastern Indonesia — working in urban centers elaborate on their stories of migration. The reasons and consequences of their migration reflect intricate and shifting gender relations, as boundaries of propriety are redefined through spatial movement. This kind of mobility suggests that women migrate for multiple reasons requiring various scales of analysis. Migrants reveal shifting subjectivity and changing relations with family and local communities whilst participating in political and economic spaces.