The Barn and the Beast: The Queerness of Child-Animal Figurations in Scandinavian Literature and Culture By Ida Moen Johnson A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Scandinavian Language and Literature in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Mark B. Sandberg, Chair Professor Karin Sanders Professor Anne Nesbet Spring 2020 ABSTRACT This dissertation takes as its starting point my own fascination, as well as a broader cultural fascination, with what I call child-animal figurations. I use the phrase “child- animal figurations” to refer to the range of relationships and associations between children and animals that are as prevalent in art and literature as they are in everyday life. Though these figurations are often considered “natural,” this dissertation argues that child-animal figurations can be highly charged sites for testing the limits of development, subjectivity, power, and species. I make this argument through analysis of several examples of Scandinavian literature and a Finnish documentary film. Scandinavian literature and culture offer a rich context in which to test hypotheses about child-animal figurations, not least because children and “nature”—including animals—enjoy special statuses in the Nordic countries, both in the figural traditions and in contemporary social realities. Drawing on scholarship in children’s literature, childhood studies, animal studies, and queer studies, this dissertation suggests that Scandinavian child-animal figurations provide new and critical insight for how we interpret narratives, including the all- important narrative of how—or whether—to grow up. The first chapter considers the critical relationship among childhood, animals, and citizenship in two canonical Scandinavian children’s texts. Drawing on Kathryn Bond Stockton’s notions of the “the child queered by innocence” and “sideways growth,” I argue the protagonists in these texts can be understood as queer child figures whose non-normative development, facilitated by the animal, presents a surprising deviation from the nation-building agendas otherwise laid out in the texts. The second chapter examines autobiographical works about childhood by three twentieth-century Norwegian authors, whose texts suggest that animals are not only good to think with but to remember with as well. I argue that the autobiographical child can be understood not only as a figure of the author’s interior or of her past, but also as a version of “sideways growth” (Stockton) in the form of a text. The third and final chapter engages with examples that test the limits of species and subjectivity, including Tove Jansson’s Moomin series, which I read through a posthumanist lens (against the grain of the humanism that dominates Jansson scholarship), and the documentary film Hobbyhorse Revolution, in which I read the Finnish girl on her hobbyhorse as a cyborg in the sense put forth by Donna Haraway. In concluding the dissertation, I argue that the common notion of the “competent child” does not go far enough in explaining what makes the Nordic child a fascinating figure, and I propose the figure of the Nordic queer child as a necessary complement to the “competent” or “autonomous” child. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii INTRODUCTION Child-Animal Figurations in Context iv CHAPTER ONE Girls and Bears and Boys on Gooseback: Child-Animal Figurations in Scandinavian Nation Building 1 CHAPTER TWO Remembering with the Animal in Twentieth Century Autobiographies of Childhood 28 CHAPTER THREE Children and Animals Beyond Encounter: Queer Species, Animal Drag, Horsey Cyborgs 63 CONCLUSION “Beyond the Competent Child”: The Nordic Queer Child and the Child-Animal Figuration 112 WORKS CITED 117 i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A dissertation is a baby and a beast. I am grateful to many who have supported me in bringing this project to fruition. My thanks go to the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study for the Birgit Baldwin Fellowship, which funded my research in Norway during the 2018-19 academic year. During that time I had the pleasure of working at the Norsk Barnebokinstitutt, led by Kristin Ørjasæter, where I had access to their excellent library as well as to the National Library next door. I am also thankful for many friendly lunches with the Institute’s employees. To Nina Goga and the Nature in Children’s Literature and Culture (NaChiLitCul) working group at Høgskulen på Vestlandet in Bergen, I owe thanks for feedback on my project as well as for the small conference they organized on ecocriticism and Nordic children’s literature, which was well-timed and inspiring for my work. My thanks also go to Svenska Barnbokinstitutet, which granted me a stipend for travel and research at their library, where I examined key sources for my first and third chapters. I am also thankful to Professor Elina Druker and her graduate seminar students at the University of Stockholm for hosting me and offering feedback on work. My thanks go to the Graduate Division at UC Berkeley for a Dissertation Completion Fellowship, which funded my final year of writing. I have had a remarkably positive experience as a graduate student. This is thanks in large part to the excellence and professionalism within the Department of Scandinavian at UC Berkeley. Linda Haverty Rugg encouraged my interest in children’s literature from the start and has offered important insight for my work on the authorship of Tove Jansson. As both a teacher and member of my dissertation committee, Karin Sanders has been the source of a number of collaborative and energizing conversations that have enriched my scholarly life. Her questions and comments regarding my work always reveal her dynamic thought processes and her generosity. Beyond my home department, I am grateful to Anne Nesbet for serving on my dissertation committee. Her input helped me to make concrete revisions, as well as to think in some new and nuanced ways about how I distinguish what is interesting in a text. My greatest professional thanks are owed to Mark Sandberg, my primary advisor throughout the PhD program, including on my dissertation. In addition to being an outstanding scholar and teacher, Mark is generous with his time and feedback. In many one-on-one conversations, Mark pushed me forward as a thinker and writer. Specifically, Mark has helped me to become a better historical thinker, which has enriched my understanding of why and how art matters. He has also been an excellent coach in helping me to shape an argument, to see and to say what is important, and to communicate what is at stake. Mark has held me to high expectations and has supported me in meeting them. I am grateful for his kindness, respect, and good humor. I am also grateful to friends in and beyond the Bay Area. Oakland friends Rachel and Tak Katsuura and their children Iwao and Yuumi have been a source of both grounding and uplift. My friends Rigel Massaro and Dennis Maloney played a special role in my life in Berkeley, not least granting me the role of auntie to their ii daughters, Zora Crow and Sidra Heron. My gratitude also goes to Emily Waterman, Alison Hwong, and Meredith Reiches—women I love and admire for their good work, great minds, and wild hearts. Thanks go to my friend Liisa Punkka, who has shared many sources on Finnish hobbyhorses and Tove Jansson over the years, and who gave Tom and me a great tour of Turku. My greatest thanks go to my family. My parents, Clark and April, and my sister, Alena, are my lifelong champions. I am grateful for their love, insight, and humor. I am especially grateful that I met, and married, Tom Haas. I met Tom shortly before my MA exams and he has been with me through every step of the dissertation process, including a yearlong stay in Norway. Tom shows up for me everyday, in big ways and small, and makes my life richer and subtler and sillier. Tom also brought into my life his (and now our) dear feline friend, Roscoe, who reminds us daily that it is good to be an animal. A final word of thanks goes to my late grandfather, Horace Johnson, who built a cabin in the woods of Minnesota, inspired by one he saw at the Norwegian pavilion of the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco in 1939. That cabin provided a happy home for Tom and me while I finished writing my dissertation. iii INTRODUCTION Child-Animal Figurations in Context This dissertation takes as its starting point my own fascination, as well as a broader cultural fascination, with what I call child-animal figurations. I use the phrase “child- animal figurations” to refer to the range of relationships and associations between children and animals that are as prevalent in art and literature as they are in everyday life. From children’s love of their pets and stuffed animals to “The Ugly Duckling” and Disney films, these figurations are so common as to seem “natural,” so pervasive that they are often rendered invisible. As this dissertation will show, however, child-animal figurations can be highly charged sites for testing the limits of development, subjectivity, power, and species. I make this argument through analysis of several examples of Scandinavian literature and a Finnish documentary film. Scandinavian literature and culture offer a rich context in which to test hypotheses about child-animal figurations, not least because children and “nature”—including animals—enjoy special statuses in the Nordic countries, both in the figural traditions and in contemporary social realities. Drawing on scholarship in children’s literature, childhood studies, animal studies, and queer studies, this dissertation suggests that Scandinavian child-animal figurations provide new and critical insight for how we interpret narratives, including the all-important narrative of how—or whether—to grow up.