Mikela Lundahl

Museion
Lecturer
Coordinator of Museion
Director of Studies

About

• 2005 - Ph D in history of ideas on the thesis What is a Negro? Negritude, essentialism, strategy
• Coordinator of Museion
• Director of Studies of the Master in Global Studies
• Coordinatortor of the Heritage Studies

Areas of interest

My theoretical perspectives are postcolonial, translation, whiteness, gender and queer studies.

Current research

I am now doing research funded by the Swedish research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) on translation of African literature into Swedish. It is a part of a bigger project about how fiction from »far away« is translated into Swedish, and how it contributes to construct »fiction on far away«.

How does reception contribute to construct whiteness, Swedishness, and what kind of Swedishness is it that is the outcome? How does benevolence, the will to be good interfere in this reception?

I use postcolonial theory, ideology critique (Zizek), post feminist and queer theory to understand the Swedish benevolent discourse that becomes visible in and through the publishing of this literature in Sweden. In my case it is mostly literature from West Africa, but my colleagues study literature from Arabic speaking countries, and from Latin America.

I am about to start a study on whiteness in museums where my main questions is if and how whiteness predict and determine museums even if their objective is to be inclusive, integrative etcetera.

Teaching and tutoring