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Accepted Paper:
"They did something to each other that I'd rather not write about": queer space and time in three Icelandic 19th century diaries
Þorsteinn Vilhjálmsson
(University of Iceland)
Paper short abstract:
In the years 1881-1884, three classmates from the Reykjavík Latin School held diaries in which they described lives that may be called queer. Using the perspective of queer theory, this paper will interrogate the queer space and time which appears in the diaries.
Paper long abstract:
Between 1881 and 1884, three young classmates from the Reykjavík Latin School held diaries that have been preserved in archives in Iceland and Denmark: The naturalist and folklorist Ólafur Davíðsson, the historian Bogi Th. Melsteð, and Gísli Guðmundsson, who committed suicide in 1884. These diaries narrate not only the overlapping events of the writers' lives, but also a time and space that may be called queer: A state of exception that allowed for queer relationships between Latin School students, both in Reykjavík and Copenhagen.
This paper will introduce these diaries and tease out the queer threads that connect them, focusing on the queer time and space inhabited by the writers. The paper will ask: What is the place of the diary in queer historiography? Does the diary stand in a special relation to time and space? What did queer space and time look like in late 19th century Reykjavík? What did it look like in Copenhagen for 19th century Icelanders? And could this collection of diaries point the way to further discoveries for Icelandic queer history?