Margit Abenius som forskare och litteraturkritiker. Några teoretiska perspektiv på kön, klass och gränsöverskridanden i akademin
MARGIT ABENIUS AND THE MAKING OF A FEMALE CRITIC. DIFFERENT THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO GENDER AND IDENTITY IN STUDIES OF THE INTELLECTUAL. The aim of this article is to discuss some of the most important feminist approaches to Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of culture and the way in which they make possible new interpretations of gender and identity. Feminist readings of Bourdieu, from Toril Moi 1991 to very recent contributions, have developed a new concept of gender as a part of the general social field and of a “gender habitus”. These theoretical, non-essentialist standpoints can be combined both with intersectional analysis and with quite recent feminist concepts of “women” as “social class” (Lovell) and “women” as “seriality” (Young). Here I use my own study of the Swedish literary critic Margit Abenius (1899–1970) to exemplify how these different theoretical approaches can be brought together. A possibility of combining feminist readings of Bourdieu with Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of identity is also discussed in relation to contemporary debate on the concepts of subjectivity and identity.
Keywords: Pierre Bourdieu, gender studies, sociology of culture, Margit Abenius.