Pernilla Myrne
Senior Lecturer
Department of Languages andAbout Pernilla Myrne
Researcher, docent
Background
I completed my PhD at the University of Gothenburg in 2008 with a thesis on early Arabic-Islamic biographies on women. After having worked as a teacher for some years, I obtained a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Swedish Research Council, which allowed me to spend 2011 and 2012 at New York University, where I examined gender and pleasure in premodern Arabic erotic literature. I have worked as a senior lecturer at the University of Gothenburg since January 2015. 2020–2021 I am a research fellow at Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, where I prepare a critical edition of the tenth-century erotic manual Jawāmiʿ al-Ladhdha.
Research
My research interests include the representation of women in pre-modern Arabic literature, attitudes to sexuality in the medieval Islamic world, as well as women as creative agents. I am also interested in social history, in particular the role of women and slaves in society. One of my research interests is Islamic manuscript culture, and I am currently mapping the manuscript traditions of medieval Arabic sex advice manuals, a hitherto unexplored primary source material.
Research Projects
2018–2020: Medieval Arabic sex manuals; manuscript tradition and reception (funded by the Swedish Research Council).
In this project, I examine Arabic-Islamic sex manuals and their reception by means of mapping the manuscript traditions and examining manuscript evidence. This genre flourished for centuries and, though always positive to matrimonial sexual pleasure, the authors adopted different approaches to more contentious issues, such as same-sex desire, extramarital affairs, and women’s sexual agency. By investigating the spread and readership of the different books, the project seeks to identify the variety of attitudes towards sexuality across time and space in the premodern Arab-Islamic world.
2015–2018: Love, Body, and Desire: Attitudes to Erotic Love and Women’s Sexuality in Premodern Arabic Literature (funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation).
A main aim of this project was to investigate how the intellectual climate during the Abbasid Caliphate contributed to attitudes to erotic love and women’s sexuality. The project resulted in the monography Female Sexuality in the Early Medieval Islamic World, published by IB Tauris in 2020.
2012–2015: Eloquent women: Genre, rhetoric and gender in early Arabic literature (funded by the Swedish Research Council).
In this project, I examined the words of women were represented in Early Arabic literature. Women were marginalised in the early written Arabic culture, as they did not learn to read and write to the same degree as men. Nevertheless, the classical Arabic literature is full of portrayals of eloquent women, whose words are quoted with admiration. They often used their rhetorical skills to help their families, or simply to highlight their own qualities.
Teaching
I have taught Arabic and Middle Eastern history since 2005. I also teach Arabic and Arabic literature and I lecture on various aspects of Arabic-Islamic history and culture.
-
Arabic Women’s
Medicine.
Pernilla Myrne
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Medieval Women's Writing in the Global Middle Ages / Sauer, M.M., Watt, D., McAvoy, L.H. (eds.) - 2022 -
Gender and Sexual Rights in Early
Islam
Pernilla Myrne
Islamology: Journal for Studies of Islam and Muslim Societies - 2021 -
Sällsynta ord och säregna uttryck: från ordglädje till erotik i tidig arabisk
litteratur
Pernilla Myrne
Bøygen - 2021 -
Female Sexuality in the Early Medieval Islamic World: Gender and Sex in Arabic
Literature
Pernilla Myrne
2020 -
Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 661–1257. Taef el-Azhari (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019). Pp. 449. ISBN:
9781474423182
Pernilla Myrne
International Journal of Middle East Studies - 2020 -
Liefde tussen vrouwen in middeleeuwse Arabische
literatuur
Pernilla Myrne
ZemZem: Tijdschrift over het Midden-Oosten, Noord-Afrika en islam - 2020 -
Words of Advice and Desire: Women as Erotic Experts and Advisers in Premodern Arabic
Erotica
Pernilla Myrne
Frédéric Lagrange & Claire Savina (eds.), Les mots du désir: la langue de l'érotisme arabe et sa traduction - 2020 -
Organizing, Presenting, and Reading Sexual
Knowledge: The Abbasid Context of
Jawāmiʿ al-ladhdha
Pernilla Myrne
Journal of Abbasid Studies - 2020 -
Slaves for Pleasure in Arabic Sex and Slave Purchase Manuals from the Tenth to the Twelfth
Centuries
Pernilla Myrne
Journal of Global Slavery - 2019 -
Ronny Ambjörnsson & Mohammad Fazlhashemi: Visdomens hus. Muslimska idévärldar 600–2000. Stockholm: Natur & Kultur, 2017. 362 s. ISBN 978-91-27-15291-5,
inb.
Pernilla Myrne
Lychnos - 2019 -
Women and Men in al-Suyūṭī’s Guides to Sex and
Marriage
Pernilla Myrne
Mamluk Studies Review - 2018 -
A Jariya's prospects in Abbasid
Baghdad
Pernilla Myrne
Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. Matthew Gordon, Kathryn Hain - 2017 -
Pleasing the Beloved: Sex and True Love in a Medieval Arabic Erotic
Compendium
Pernilla Myrne
The Beloved in Middle Eastern Literatures: The Culture of Love and Languishing. Alireza Korangy, Hanadi Al-Samman, Michael Beard (eds.) - 2017 -
Of Ladies and Lesbians and Books on Women from the Third/Ninth and Fourth/Tenth
Centuries.
Pernilla Myrne
Journal of Abbasid Studies - 2017 -
Husband
Pernilla Myrne
Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God / Coeli Fitzpatrick and Adam Hani Walker, eds. - 2015 -
Who was Ḥubbā
al-Madīniyya?
Pernilla Myrne
Arabic and Semitic Linguistics Contextualized. A Festschrift for Jan Retsö / edited by Lutz Edzard - 2015 -
Discussing ghayra in Abbasid literature: Jealousy as a Manly Virtue or Sign of Mutual
Affection
Pernilla Myrne
Journal of Abbasid Studies - 2014 -
När slavpoesin frodades i
Bagdad
Pernilla Myrne
Svenska Dagbladet - 2014 -
Kärlekens
spikar
Pernilla Myrne
Dragomanen - 2014 -
Genre och genus: Att närma sig texter om kvinnor i den äldsta arabisk-muslimska
litteraturen
Pernilla Myrne
Theorising textuality. Theorising reading. Om vetenskaplig teoribildning inom kultur/ och litteraturforskning - 2011 -
Narrative, Gender, and Authority in Abbasid Literature on
Women
Pernilla Myrne
2010 -
Narrative, gender and authority in ‘Abbãsid literature on
women
Pernilla Myrne
2008 -
Arīb, Women’s Speech and the Language of Sexual Relations in Early Arabic
Literature
Pernilla Myrne
Current Issues in the Analysis of Semitic Grammar and Lexicon II - 2006 -
Den demoniska kvinnan - den andra i berättelser om islams
begynnelse
Pernilla Myrne
Dom – och vi. Humanistdagboken - 2006 -
Slöjans metamorfoser i klassisk arabisk litteratur – bakom myten om den skylda
kvinnan
Pernilla Myrne
Under ytan. Humanistdagboken - 2005