Birgitta Lindh Estelle
Senior Lecturer
Department of Literature, History of Ideas, andAbout Birgitta Lindh Estelle
Presentation
Birgitta Lindh Estelle, Associate Professor in Comparative Literature with a specialization in theatre, is a scholar and a teacher at LIR. Her thesis Befrielsen är nära. Feminism och teaterpraktik i Margareta Garpes och Suzan Ostens 1970-talsteater (2006) dealt with Swedish feminist theatre in the 1970’s, by two successful theatre practioners and women activists. In the more recent research project ‘Emotion and Liberation– sentimental and melodramatic elements in women’s socio-realistic plays of the modern breakthrough’ Lindh Estelle has continued researching feminist stories for the theatre, this time in the late nineteenth century. The result has been published in the monograph Som en vildfågel i en bur. Identitet, kärlek, frihet och melodramatiska inslag i Alfhild Agrells, Victoria Benedictssons och Anne Charlotte Lefflers 1880-talsdramatik (Like a wild bird in a cage: Identity, love, freedom and melodramatic elements in Alfhild Agrell’s Victoria Benedictsson’s and Anne Charlotte Leffler’s plays of the 1880s, 2019). She has also contributed to two collaborative research projects financed by the Swedish Research Council. In both projects Lindh Estelle studied the reception of women’s playwriting. The results are published in Swedish Women’s Writing on Export: Tracing the Transnational Reception in the Nineteenth Century (2019), in Nordic Theatre Studies and in the anthology I avantgardets skugga. Brytpunkter och kontinuitet i svensk teater kring 1900 (In the shadow of the avant-garde: Turning points and continuity in Swedish theatre around 1900). Lindh Estelle is a qualified teacher, with two teacher's degrees. At LIR she teaches Theatre Studies and Comparative Literature. She also writes theatre reviews in Svenska Dagbladet, one of Sweden's major daily papers.
Research Interests
- Theatre historiography and Swedish theatre history (19th and 20th century)
- Aesthetics and ideology
- Theatre and gender
- Analysis of plays and performances
- Reception and theatrical criticism
Current Research
I have continued working with a theatre historical project in which I trace Anne Charlotte Leffler's play Sanna Kvinnor (True Women) (1883) across the European theatrical landscape 1883-1925. Performances at very different venues are included, such as the staging of the play in a gym in a small Swedish town, amateur-performances by a worker’s club in Copenhagen and rehearsals at an avant-garde theater in London: How was the play perceived of in different contexts and what changes were made? How did a play by a female playwright from a minor language area travel? The project aims at writing theatre history from a European fringe and gender fringe perspective. By so doing the picture of European theatre activities and their conditions during the decades around the turn of the 1900s will be broadened.
Furthermore, I am involved in a research collaboration linked to the EU- network “Women Writers in History”. It focuses women writers’ roles as European cultural intermediaries and their contributions to the development of modernity through their works on, in particular, matters of intimacy, such as love, sex, friendship and mother-child-relationships. The European dissemination and reception of their works are also included in our research. The anthology Women Writing Intimate Spaces. The Long Nineteenth Century at the Fringes of Europe (Brill 2022) is the result of this cooperation.
Earlier Research
1. Emotion and liberation – sentimental and melodramatic elements in women’s socio-realistic plays of the modern breakthrough
The aim of the project was to reintroduce Swedish drama of the modern breakthrough, by illuminating how elements of a sentimental and melodramatic theatrical tradition are constructed and evaluated in naturalistic plays on marriage by women playwrights in the 1880’s. How does the emphasis on emotion contribute to ideas of liberation? What discourses on gender and modernity do the sentimental and melodramatic features help generate?
The gender critical dramatic works by Alfhild Agrell, Victoria Benedictsson and Anne Charlotte Leffler were popular at Scandinavian Theatres in the 1880's and generated interest in other parts Europe mainly during the 1880’s and 1890’s. Nevertheless,they have been depreciated because of the sentimental and melodramatic features in their plays and despite the paucity of academic structural analyzes .
A sentimental and melodramatic tradition influenced European theatre throughout the 19th century. Hence, a mode of interpretation that focuses on the function of the sentimental and melodramatic features is important in order to show the distinctive dramaturgical and thematic character of these plays, and to illuminate the role of their authors as cultural intermediaries of ideas abour gender and marriage.
The results have been published in the monograph Som en vildfågel i en bur. Identitet, kärlek, frihet och melodramatiska inslag i Alfhild Agrells, Victoria Benedictssons och Anne Charlotte Lefflers 1880-talsdramatik (Like a wild bird in a cage: Identity, love, freedom and melodramatic elements in Alfhild Agrell’s Victoria Benedictsson’s and Anne Charlotte Leffler’s plays of the 1880s, 2019) The research was financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ)
2. Swedish Women's writing on Export in the 19th century
The research was performed in cooperation with a group of researchers at LIR ( Prof. Åsa Arping, Prof. Jenny Bergenmar, Prof. Gunilla Hermansson and Prof. Yvonne Leffler). It concerns the reception of Swedish women authors in the 19th century. The aim of our common project was to map and analyze Swedish Women authors’ transnational networks and international breakthroughs, and to develop theory and methods for the purpose. The research results have been published in Swedish Women’s Writing on Export. Tracing the Transnational Reception in the Nineteenth Century (2019) My contribution mapped the European reception of Anne Charlotte Leffler’s plays in translations and theatre productions. The research project received funding from the Swedish Research Councils (VR).
3. Turning Points and Continuity: The Changing Roles of Performance in Society 1880-1925
Within the frames of the research project ”Turning Points and Continuity” I investigated how the play Sanna kvinnor (True Women) by Anne Charlotte Leffler was recieved at Scandinavian Theatres and in news paper-reviews in the two laste decades of the 19th century. Methods of dealing with reviews as source material are developed. An analysis of how the affective reactions of the reviewers structure the evalutiaons of the opening night at the Royal Dramatic Theatre is conducted. Another analysis highlights what happened to the feminism of the play when the popular male actor Emil Hillberg made the antagonistic role his bravura performance.
Seven scholars from different disciplines has taken part in the research project ”Turning Points and Continuity”, which was led by Prof. Lena Hammergren at The University of Stockholm. The over all aim was to revisit and re-interpret a period celebrated as the breakthrough of modern theatre by approaching archival material from an appreciative look at the many aesthetic layers that worked in tandem with the emergence of the early avant garde. The research project received funding from The Swedish Research Councils (VR).
4. The thesis Befrielsen är nära. Feminism och teaterpraktik i Margareta Garpes och Suzanne Ostens 1970-talsteater (Liberation is at Hand. Feminism and Theatre Practice in Margareta Garpe’s and Suzanne Osten’s Theatre of the 1970’s)
The thesis appeared in 2006 and deals with three of Garpe’s and Osten’s productions, of which Jösses flickor! Befrielsen är nära (Gosh Girls! Liberation is At Hand 1974) is the most well- known. The thesis illuminates the linkage in these productions between avant-garde theatre and the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970’s. It highlights the manner in which Garpe and Osten used the medium of the theatre to raise consciousness in audiences, creating new patterns of identification for women. It also explores the ways in which the identity politics of the Women’s Liberation Movement influenced and developed the use of theatrical strategies. Structures of communication in the production, the performances and the reviews in daily newspapers are explored. The thesis was part of the research project “The Power of Art: the Texts of the Swedish Women’s Liberation Movement 1970 – 2000”, which was funded by the Swedish Research Council and concluded in 2005.
Networks and cooperation
I participate in the European project Women Writers in History. The primary aim of the network has been to develop a database concerning the reception of women’s literature before the 20th century. Within the network European scholars cooperate in projects on women’s literature, the transnational dissemination and reception of it and on women’s roles as intermediaries of ideas. I am also involved in Nätverket för humanistiska 1800-talsstudier [Network for nineteenth- century studies in the humanities]
Teaching
Since autumn 2006, I have been involved in teaching elementary, advanced and teacher training courses in Theatre Studies and Comparative Literature. In 2011-2012, I was the Director of Studies in Literature and in 2013 I was the Director of Studies in Theatre Studies. During the period 2006–2009 I taught courses in Literature, Creative Writing and Dramaturgy at the University of Skövde in Sweden.
In 2006-2012 I wrote theatre reviews in the Swedish daily paper Svenska Dagbladet and have since 2021 started doing so again.
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A Complicit Reading Strategy: Exposing Censored Themes of Intimacy in Swedish Alfhild Agrell's
Räddad
Birgitta Lindh Estelle
Primerjalna Knjizevnost - 2023 -
Introduction
Birgitta Lindh Estelle, Viola Parente-Čapková, Carmen Beatrice Duţu
Women Writing Intimate Spaces. The Long Nineteenth Century at the Fringes of Europe - 2023 -
Melodramatic Spaces – Intimacy and Emancipation in Swedish Women’s
Playwriting
Birgitta Lindh Estelle
Women Writing Intimate Spaces. The Long Nineteenth Century at the Fringes of Europe - 2023 -
Women Writing Intimate Spaces. The Long Nineteenth Century At the Fringes of
Europe
Birgitta Lindh Estelle, Carmen Beatrice Duţu, Viola Parente- Capková
2023 -
The British, French and German Reception of Anne Charlotte Leffler’s Plays in a Changing Cultural
Context
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Swedish Women's Writing on Export. Tracing Transnational Reception in the Nineteenth Century / Yvonne Leffler, Åsa Arping, Jenny Bergenmar, Gunilla Hermansson & Birgitta Johansson Lindh. - 2019 -
Swedish Women’s Writing on Export: Tracing Transnational Reception in the Nineteenth
Century
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Introduction: Swedish Women’s Writing on Export: Tracing Transnational Reception in the Nineteenth
Century
Yvonne Leffler, Åsa Arping, Jenny Bergenmar, Gunilla Hermansson, Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Swedish Women’s Writing on Export: Tracing Transnational Reception in the Nineteenth Century / Yvonne Leffler, Åsa Arping, Jenny Bergenmar, Gunilla Hermansson & Birgitta Johansson Lindh. - 2019 -
Sanna kvinnor, Emil Hillbergs Pontus Bark och recensenterna. Receptionen av Anne Charlotte Lefflers pjäs Sanna kvinnor (1883) i några nordiska uppsättningar via dagstidningarnas
recensioner
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
I avantgardets skugga. Brytpunkter och kontinuitet i svensk teater kring 1900 / Rikard Hoogland (red.). - 2019 -
Som en vildfågel i en bur. Identitet,kärlek, frihet och melodramatiska inslag i Alfhild Agrells, Victoria Benedictssons och Anne Charlotte Lefflers
1880-talsdramatik
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Jeanette Stjernström (född
Granberg)
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon - 2018 -
Louise Stjernström (född
Granberg)
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon - 2018 -
Recension av Charlott Neuhausers avhandling Fruktansvärd, ospelad och nyskriven. Kriser och konflikter kring ny svensk dramatik, Stockholm: Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för kultur och estetik
2016
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Samlaren : tidskrift för svensk litteraturvetenskaplig forskning - 2017 -
Affective Economies in the Tug of War between Idealism and Anti-idealisms Reviewers' reactions to Anne Charlotte Leffler's Sanna kvinnor (True
Women)
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Nordic Theatre Studies - 2017 -
Women’s experience as feminist resistance in
late-19th-century-plays
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Feminist Research Group vid International Theatre researchers’ (IFTR) konferens vid Stockholms Universitet 13-17 juni 2016 - 2016 -
Interpretative Contexts and Evaluation. The reception of the Swedish playwright Anne Charlotte Leffler in the Moral and Social Conflicts of the Late Nineteenth
Century
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Cultural Encounters Through Reading and Writing: New Approaches to the History of Literary Culture , HERA-projektet Travelling Texts, Glasgow Women’s Library, Glasgow 9-11 juni 2016 - 2016 -
Political Theatre
1945-2000
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Nordic Culture - 2016 -
Att frigöra kvinnors dramatik från traditionell historiografi och
kanoniserade läsningar. Protagonistens position, sedlighet och teaterns konventioner i Alfhild
Agrells, Anne Charlotte Lefflers och Victoria Benedictssons moderna
genombrottsdramatik
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Det moderna genombrottets kvinnliga offentlighet vid Senter for Ibsenstudier, Oslo universitet, 12 mars 2015. - 2015 -
"Som en vildfogel i en bur": Gestaltningen av kvinnlig erfarenhet i Anne Charlotte Lefflers
Elfvan
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
LIR.journal - 2015 -
Women Playwrights in the Transition and Change of the Modern
Breakthrough. The Case of the Swedish Playwright Alfhild
Agrell
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
International Federation of Theatre Researcher’s conference ”Theatre and Stratification”, University of Warwick, Warwick, United Kingdom, 28. July -1. August 2014 - 2014 -
Skådespelerskans konstnärskap och iscensättningen av genusidentiteter i Victoria Benedictssons Romeos
Julia
Birgitta Johansson
Liv, lust & litteratur: Festskrift till Lisbeth Larsson / red.: Kristina Hermansson, Christian Lenemark & Cecilia Pettersson - 2014 -
Recensionen av Att skapa en framtid – Kulturradikalen Anne Charlotte
Leffler. Red. David Gedin & Claudia Lindén. Rosenlarvs förlag. Årsta
2013
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Samlaren : tidskrift för svensk litteraturvetenskaplig forskning - 2013 -
Barn och barndom i 1880-talets
äktenskapsdramatik
Birgitta Johansson
Arche - 2013 -
Känslor, erfarenhet och politiskt ställningstagande i Anne Charlotte Lefflers drama Hur man gör
godt
Birgitta Johansson Lindh
Nätverket för 1800-talsstudier fjärde årskonferens i Helsingfors 26–27 januari - 2012 -
”Känslor och frigörelse; Melodramatiska inslag i Alfhild Agrells, Anne Charlotte Lefflers och Victoria Benedictssons
dramatik”
Birgitta Johansson
Dette skrev kvinner. Lene T. Teigen red. - 2012 -
"Feminist Performance Practices in Two Cultural Climates: The Politics of Jösses flickor - Befrielsen är nära (Jeez Girls - Liberation is at Hand, 1974) and Jösses flickor- Återkomsten (Jeez Girls -The Return,
2006)
Birgitta Johansson
The politics of Being on Stage, red. Anja Klöck - 2012 -
Balancing on the Edge of Indecency – Melodramatic strategies in Alfhild Agrell’s Räddad (Saved) and Anne Charlotte Leffler’s Sanna kvinnor (True
Women)
Birgitta Johansson
Nordic Theatre Studies - 2010 -
Melodramatiska inslag och äktenskapskritik i Alfhild Agrells
Räddad
Birgitta Johansson
Nordisk drama. Fornyelser og transgressioner (Nordic Drama. Renewal and Transgression - 2010 -
Absurdistiskt språkspel och psykologiskt bråddjup i Kristina Lugns
Idlaflickorna
Birgitta Johansson
Dikten som mötesplats. Festskrift till Eva Lilja, red. Sissel Furuseth & Lisbeth Stenberg - 2008 -
"Frihet och fångenskap – den olösliga motsättningen i Henrik Ibsens Hedda
Gabler"
Birgitta Johansson
Kritikens dimensioner. Festskrift till Tomas Forser - 2008 -
Att ’omsluta sin publik’. En retorisk analys av inledningsscenen i Margareta Garpes och Suzanne Ostens
Tjejsnack”
Birgitta Johansson
Den litterära textens förändringar. Studier tillägnade Stina Hansson, red. Stefan Ekman, Mats Malm & Lisbeth Stenberg - 2007 -
Recension av Toril Moi, Henrik Ibsen and the Birth Of
Modernism
Birgitta Johansson
Tidskrift för Litteraturvetenskap - 2007 -
Befrielsen är nära. Feminism och teaterpraktik i Margareta Garpes och Suzanne Ostens
1970-talsteater
Birgitta Johansson
2006 -
Om filmens teknik och kvinnopolitisk kritik i Kärleksföreställningen. Möjligheter och
motsättningar
Birgitta Johansson
Litteratur och visuell kultur red. Dagny Kristjansdottir - 2005 -
Visionen om en fri kvinna. Kvinnoidentitet i Margareta Garpes och Suzanne Ostens Jösses flickor! Befrielsen är
nära
Birgitta Johansson
Vision och verklighet: Humanistdagboken, Göteborgs Universitet - 2004 -
Recension av Mona Lagerströms avhandling Dramatisk teknik och könsideologi. Anne Charlotte Lefflers tidiga kärleks- och
äktenskapsdramatik
Birgitta Johansson
Kvinnovetenskaplig tidskrift - 2001 -
Recension av Cristine Sarrimos avhandling När det personliga blev politiskt. 1970-talets kvinnliga bekännelse och
självbiografi
Birgitta Johansson
Feministiskt perspektiv - 2000 -
Kritikens sagoberätterska. En receptionsstudie av Selma Lagerlöfs
90-talsverk
Birgitta Johansson
Anthin, Bergenmar och Johansson om Lagerlöf, Meddelandeserien, Litteraturvetenskapliga institutionen vid Göteborgs universitet - 1998