Ulrika Dahl
The Fulbright Commission in Stockholm, Sweden, announced in 2010 that Gustavus Adolphus College and Harvard University had received the two Hildeman Grant’s for the 2011-12 academic year, providing for each institution to welcome a Swedish scholar to their campus for a semester long fellowship.
Gustavus is privileged to have Ulrika Dahl on campus this fall as its Fulbright Hildeman Fellow and visiting professor in Scandinavian Studies. Dahl is teaching a course titled “Gender and Sexuality in Scandinavia” this semester.
“The class will offer both historical and contemporary perspectives, and introduce students to Scandinavian feminist scholarship as well as a wide range of topics drawing on popular culture, film and theories of gender,” Dahl said. “I also look forward to working with students and faculty interested in European postcolonial feminist theory, queer theory, Scandinavian social movements, femininities, and other topics related to my areas of expertise.”
Dahl holds a bachelor’s degree from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Currently, she is Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and has just completed a four-year term as Chair of her home department at Södertörn University in Stockholm. Her research has been funded by the Wenner-Gren foundation, the Baltic Sea Foundation and the Bank of Sweden’s Tercentenary Fund.
An anthropologist by training, Dahl says that she began her research career as an undergraduate with an interest in U.S. culture. Her dissertation made her return ‘home’ to study European integration, regional identity, and gender politics in rural northern Scandinavia, and she has also published work on heteronormativity and Swedish gender equality policy, on experiences of globalization in the northern margins, and on feminist ethnography.
Dahl speaks to her Gender and Sexuality in Scandinavia class.
Dahl is, however, perhaps best known for her work in intersectional queer studies and she currently studies the politics of femininity in both Scandinavian and international feminist theory. The author of the widely reviewed book Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Femininities, Dahl has also written numerous articles on the figure of the femme, feminist theory, queer fashion, queer and lesbian community making, in addition to earlier work on homophobia and hate crimes as well as queer reproductive politics. A regular contributor to Scandinavian feminist debate, she is also senior editor of lambda nordica, Scandinavia’s leading journal of LGBTQ studies and serves on the advisory board of several scientific and popular feminist and antiracist journals.
In addition to her teaching duties, Dahl will be offering several public lectures to the Gustavus community during the fall semester on topics related to her current research.
“It is an honor to be a Fulbright Hildeman Fellow and a real pleasure to be at Gustavus working with this community” Dahl said. “I’ve always had a piece of my heart in the Midwest and my partner and I have been very warmly welcomed by colleagues and students in Scandinavian studies and by the college as a whole.”
The Hildeman Grant was established to commemorate Nils-Gustav Hildeman, Swedish diplomat and former Fulbright board member, and is designed to promote Scandinavian area studies in the U.S.
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