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Accepted Paper:
Home and free. The queer life of Agnes Mathilde Wergeland 1857-1914
Tone Hellesund
(University of Bergen)
Paper short abstract:
In 1914, the first Norwegian woman with a doctorate degree died in Larmie, Wyoming. The story of how dr. Wergeland ended up there is a story of symbolic homelessness, the lifelong search for a physical home, and the queer relationship as such a home.
Paper long abstract:
The paper will present the life journey, and the physical journeys, of dr. Wergeland, and discuss the relationships between the intimate, social and public. The main conceptual lens will be home and practices of home-making beyond the heteronormative ideal (Cook 2014, Gorman-Murray et.al. 2014, Nash 2005, Vider 2021). This perspective offers an approach to the framing of domesticity and home that opens for contextual and divergent definitions and practices. What understandings of ‘home’ emerge in this source material - as real-world shelter, as narrative metaphor linked to desires to belong, as intimacy, kinship, and romantic relationships? And how is ‘home’ defined and described as a material structure and specific location? The paper will also explore the tensions between conventionality and respectability on the one hand, and transgression and queerness on the other. The story of dr. Wergeland also raises interesting questions regarding the timelines and blurry boundaries between romantic friendships and more modern understandings of homosexuality.