This book explores how ideas of nature and the nonhuman play an important part in literary depictions of same-sex desire in twentieth-century Norwegian literature. Critically probing dichotomies such as pastoral/urban and human/animal, the chapters show how literary fiction constructs, represents, and interprets experiences of same-sex love and attraction, traditionally conceived as "unnatural." Providing in-depth studies of a variety of texts, this book demonstrates the merits of bridging the gap between the "de-naturalizing" project of gender and queer theory on the one hand, and, on the other, the ecocritical centering of material, nonhuman environments.
Chapter 1: Sexualities and Environments in the Norwegian 20th Century.- Part 1: Love between Women as Challenge to the Othering of the Nonhuman.- Chapter 2: Elusive Sapphism.- Chapter 3: Urban Environments in the Lesbian Canon.- Part 2: The Gay Male Pastoral.- Chapter 4: The Political Ambiguity of Pastoral.- Chapter 5: Re-Claiming the Nonhuman.- Chapter 6: Queering the Environment
Per Esben Svelstad is Associate Professor of Norwegian in the Department of Teacher Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
