Kristina Fjelkestam

My research profile is generally based in feminist cultural theory with a historical focus. I am currently interested in the research field of queer temporality, which involves studies of alternative notions of time. It has resulted in articles in English an recently also a monograph in Swedish, which can be translated as "Desiring the Past. Retrophilia and Queer Temporality in the History Boom of the New Millennium" (Makadam 2025). I have conducted research on this subject for instance within the research programme Time, Memory, Representation: On Transformations in Historical Consciousness, funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, and have previously pursued studies of cultural memory (i.e. what and how a society chooses to remember) as well as applied various research perspectives on the theory and practice of historiography.

As of 2015 I am back at Stockholm University, where I once completed my PhD in comparative literature with the thesis “Ungkarlsflickor, kamrathustrur och manhaftiga lesbianer: modernitetens litterära gestalter i mellankrigstidens Sverige” [Bachelor Girls, Companionate Wives and Mannish Lesbians: Representations of Modernity in Interwar Sweden] (Symposion 2002). By studying now-forgotten literature, I wanted to problematise literary historiography’s consecration of a literary canon. In my second book, “Det sublimas politik: emancipatorisk estetik i 1800-talets konstnärsromaner” [The Politics of the Sublime: Emancipatory Aesthetics in 19th Century Artist Novels] (Makadam 2010), I wanted to continue to problematise historiography in practice, this time by analysing the political consequences of the history of aesthetics. In “Ta tanke: feminism, materialism och historiseringens praktik” [Taking Thought: Feminism, Materialism and the Practice of Historicizing] (Sekel 2012), I continue to reflect on issues relating to the philosophy of history. The book title alludes both to taking the right to think and to the concrete materialisation of insights in a more theoretical sense. In line with this, I choose to consider literary works as responses to contemporary aesthetic and political issues, and as social practices rather than static objects. Thus, in my readings, a novel such as Djuna Barnes’ “Nightwood” becomes an allegorical representation of the Other in traditional historiography.

In addition, I have published articles in national and international journals, edited the anthologies “Reflektionens gestalt” [The form of reflection] (2009) and “Kvinnorna gör mannen: maskulinitetskonstruktioner i kvinnors text och bild 1500-2000” [The women make the man: constructions of masculinity in women’s texts and images] (2013, with Helena Hill and David Tjeder), and participated in various research projects as part of my previous employment at Södertörn University, Umeå University and Linköping University. For a more complete list of my publications, see the SwePub link to the right.