Den sinnliga uppmärksamheten: Materiellt ekokritiska läsningar av svensk prosa i antropocen

Abstract

The present study investigates literary representations of relationships between the human and the more-than-human in Swedish prose written during the second half of the twentieth century. In this compilation thesis works by various authors are explored through six articles and chapters, and a summary article serves as an extended introduction to the study’s background and result, as well as a theoretical and methodological discussion. Three of the authors occur more frequently within the different contributions; Stig Dagerman (1923–1954)), Birgitta Trotzig (1929–2011) and Mare Kandre (1962–2005). They were all active as writers during a time in geological history where the Anthropocene is understood to accelerate and thus provide a chronograph for my selection of primary material. Human understanding of the relationship between humans, the earth and the more-than-human were, and still are, affected by climate change, which also leave traces in cultural and aesthetic forms of expressions. The main aim is to study literature as a source of knowledge and portrayer of the more-than-human, and to investigate what consequences such a reading generates for the notions of subjecthood, becoming, and agency. The study shows how literature can perceive and illustrate the world in ways that challenge an anthropocentric perspective, and how literature can be understood as carrier of more-than-human narratives. The theoretical framework consists of combined fields and concepts within posthumanism, new materialism, indigenous knowledge, and material ecocriticism. The main theoretical approach, material ecocriticism, is an eclectic and curious field that combines studies of literature with concepts from biology, philosophy, and geology. By directing my attention to the more-than-human, I conduct a reading practice inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s and Daniel R. Wildcat’s notion of attentiveness, which I combine with metaphor analysis. The most important recurring concepts in the thesis are agency, intra-action, storied matter, becoming and porosity, which all contribute to the readings by illuminate different approaches to more-than-human and matter as creative. This creativity is traceable in the metamorphic relationship between the human and the organic as well as non-organic surroundings when studied through a material ecocritical perspective.

Keywords: agency, air, Andrzej Tichý, becoming, being of the world, Birgitta Trotzig, colonialism, indigenous knowledge, intra-action, landscape, Mare Kandre, matter, material ecocriticism, metaphor, more-than-human, new materialism, plants, porosity, sand, Sara Stridsberg, sensuous attention, Stig Dagerman, stone, storied matter, water