Stockholm university
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Maria TrejlingResearcher

About me

PhD in Literary Studies.

Member of the international research network Histories and Futures of French Travelling Concepts.

Initiator of the research network Forum Modernism.

Teaching

Ecocritical Perspectives – Humanity, Nature, Literature, 7.5 ECTS (LVGN13)

Literature I: Analyzing and Interpreting Literary Texts, 7.5 ECTS (LVGN01)

Literature I: History of Literature from 1870 to Today, 7.5 ECTS (LV0001)

Literature II: Term Paper, 7.5 ECTS (LV2000)

Bachelor's Course in Literature: Bachelor's Essay, 15 ECTS (LV3000)

 

Research

My primary research concern is the distinctive traits, values, and modes of expression of literature. In my current projects, this is explored in relation to the intersections between philosophy and literary theory. My intellectual influences primarily stem from continental philosophy – especially deconstruction – and psychoanalysis.

 

Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Humanities Research, Arizona State University, June-July 2022.
Visiting Scholar at the School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow, September-December 2021.

 

Dissertation

In March 2025, I defended my dissertation, "Creaturely Metaphors in D.H. Lawrence, H.D., and Virginia Woolf." The thesis addresses a prevalent skepticism against metaphorical readings within animal studies as well as the posthumanities at large. Focusing upon animal metaphors in three modernist novels, I show that this wariness is largely a result of a conception of metaphor as a trope of substitution. Instead, the dissertation proposes an alternative theorization of metaphor, conceptualizing it as a spectral form of figurativity. As such, metaphor offers an invitation to otherness within linguistic artworks.

As part of this theorization, I analyze peripheral animal figures in D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow (1915), H.D.’s Asphodel (written in the 1920s), and Virginia Woolf’s The Waves (1931). These novels exemplify how questions of both animality and metaphor come into particular focus in many texts from the early twentieth century. In their modernist renegotiations of literary conventions, the three works display how the inevitable deferral of final meaning into the future is always haunted by the past, thus destabilizing the presence of what ‘is.’

The study is informed by a trans- and interdisciplinary perspective, primarily influenced by deconstruction, metaphor theory, animal studies, and posthumanism, while also gathering insights from fields such as zoology and ethology. In particular, the project draws upon Jacques Derrida’s hauntology in order to spectralize (or make deconstructive) Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic conception of metaphor as simultaneously stating is and is not, and as a seeing as that invents rather than reports resemblance. This theoretical framework shows how metaphor is creatively alive—animated—but therefore also creaturely vulnerable—mortal.

It is this susceptible creatureliness that constitutes metaphor’s possibility for literarity, for the sake of which the issue of metaphor is an ethical one that reaches beyond the problem of animal representation, toward questions of how to read and translate not just a text, but any other; of the sacrifice necessary for all forms of relationality; and of how the future may be welcomed in its absolute unknowability.

 

Research Interests

Literary Theory, Literature and Philosophy, Deconstruction, Poetics, Tropology, Aesthetics, Modernism.

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • CREATURELY METAPHORS in D.H. Lawrence, H.D., and Virginia Woolf

    2025. Maria Trejling.

    Thesis (Doc)

    Within the field of literary animal studies, there is a prevalent criticism against metaphorical readings of animals. This is largely the result of a conception of metaphor as a trope of substitution, and in effect of literature as a possibility for re-presencing animals within textuality. This dissertation recuperates metaphor for animal studies by conceptualizing it as a spectral mode of figurativity. As such, metaphor offers hospitality to otherness within verbal artworks, a hospitality the project designates as literarity.

    Literarity is explored in relation to peripheral animal figures in D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow (1915), H.D.’s Asphodel (written in the 1920s), and Virginia Woolf’s The Waves (1931). These novels exemplify how both animality and metaphor come into focus in many texts from the early twentieth century. In their modernist renegotiations of literary conventions, the works display how the inevitable deferral of final meaning into the future is always haunted by the past, thus destabilizing the presence of what ‘is.’ They thereby accentuate metaphor’s spectrality and potential for literarity, demonstrating how this figurative mode invites the unknowable stranger.

    The analyzed animal metaphors all have intricate relationships with the texts they inhabit, wherefore each novel is analyzed in one chapter apiece. In addition, the Introduction and a first theoretical chapter address the literarity of metaphor, its status in animal studies and metaphysics, and ways to read animals responsively and responsibly. As a whole, the dissertation demonstrates the necessity to be attentive to creaturely traces in the explication of an animal metaphor, as well as how metaphor constitutes a possibility for creaturely expressivity.

    The study is informed by a transdisciplinary perspective, primarily influenced by deconstruction, tropology, animal studies, and posthumanism, while also gathering insights from fields such as zoology and ethology. In particular, the project draws on Jacques Derrida’s hauntology in order to spectralize (or make deconstructive) Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutic conception of metaphor as simultaneously stating is and is not, and as a seeing as that invents rather than reports resemblance. The theoretical framework shows metaphor’s vulnerable finitude as well as its creative animation.

    This susceptible and mobile creativity constitutes metaphor’s prosthetic possibility for literarity, for the sake of which the issue of metaphor is an ethical one reaching beyond the problem of animal re-presentation. The dissertation thus discusses how to responsibly read and translate not just a text but any other.

    Read more about CREATURELY METAPHORS in D.H. Lawrence, H.D., and Virginia Woolf

  • More Swallows to Follow: Sweeping, Swirling, Wheeling Turns in H.D.’s Asphodel

    2023. Maria Trejling. Modernist Cultures 18 (2), 156-180

    Article

    In comparison with other modernist writers, little has been written on the role of animals in H.D.’s works. This article examines the significations – the significances and the signifying – of the peripheral yet reoccurring swallows in her posthumous novel Asphodel, thus exploring their contribution to the meaning of the text. Since most of these swallows signify metaphorically, the widespread skepticism toward metaphor within animal studies is also addressed. Employing a Derridean perspective with a focus on iteration, metaphor, and irreplaceability, the swallows’ significations are analyzed in relation to the themes, style, and imagery of Asphodel, demonstrating how they repeatedly turn the direction of the narrative around, while also providing a pattern for stylistic turns. This not only shows the role of swallows in Asphodel, but also indicates the importance of peripheral animals to modernist literature.

    Read more about More Swallows to Follow

Show all publications by Maria Trejling at Stockholm University

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