Surrealism and Feminine Difference
This project explores the intersection of two major feminist traditions that emerged in the 1970s – one intellectual and the other aesthetic. Intellectually, this decade witnessed the rise of French poststructuralist feminist theory, a body of work that sought to understand, theorize, and symbolize that which was seen to have been repressed by the “phallocentric” linguistic order. Aesthetically, while the end of the surrealist movement had been officially declared in the late 1960s (with the death of its founder, André Breton), the 1970s saw the consolidation of women surrealist artists’ and writers’ projects to represent the unconscious in feminine and feminist terms. This project maps the convergences between these two traditions and demonstrates that they were contingent on each other in ways not previously explored. By examining the shared intellectual, political, aesthetic, and methodological approaches of these two bodies of work, the project shows how surrealist principles are inscribed in the very emergence of poststructuralist feminism in the early 1970s. The terms and concepts elaborated by this latter group in turn leave traces in surrealist women’s art and writing from the 1970s onwards. In addition to evidencing these sites of connection, the project, which will result in a monograph titled Surrealism and Feminine Difference, will significantly revise received historiographies of both the surrealist movement and French feminism.
Final report
Background
In 2022 I was awarded an RJ Sabbatical grant (12 months) for the project 'Surrealism and Feminine Difference' (SAB22-0008), which included a one-month research stay at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. The project has resulted in a monograph, two catalogue essays, and several guest lectures.
Halfway through my intended Sabbatical year (2023) I moved from Linköping University to Uppsala University, which resulted in me having to suspend my Sabbatical funding for 12 months (August 2023–August 2024) in order to take up teaching duties at my new institution. I resumed my Sabbatical in August 2024 and concluded the project in December the same year.
Results
The aim of this project has been to finish the monograph Surrealism and Feminine Difference. The book maps the convergences between so-called 'feminism of difference' and surrealism, from the latter's early 'historical' period (1920s) to the millennial noughts, but with a special focus on the work of women surrealists in the 1970s. My analysis centres especially on the work of surrealist artists and writers Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Leonor Fini, and Ithell Colquhoun, all of whose mid-career oeuvres probe specifically feminist questions and concerns. Indeed, despite being based in different corners of the world – Mexico, the United States, France, and England – these artists and writers produced work that displays remarkable conceptual connections, which coalesce around a central thematic: the politico-aesthetic project of representing 'feminine difference'. This concept, implicit in the work of Jacques Lacan and subsequently appropriated and politicised by feminists of difference, refers neither to socialised gender nor to biological sex, but rather to a space of otherness in relation to the phallocentrically structured symbolic order. The book illustrates the tangible links between this theoretical concept and the mode of symbolisation sought by Carrington, Tanning, Fini, and Colquhoun, and in the process uncovers genealogies running from early surrealism through the emergence of poststructuralist as well as feminist theory and beyond. By examining the shared intellectual, political, iconographic, and methodological approaches of these two bodies of work, the book revises the received historiography of these fields as unique and largely unrelated. I show how surrealist women's production in the post-war era is inscribed in the very emergence of difference feminism, at the same time as surrealist women's art and literature from the 1970s onwards directly engage with concerns elaborated by contemporary feminist theory. These links are not one-directional but rather locked in dynamic dialogue, which signals an allegiance to surrealism at the heart of feminism of difference, as well as a germinal feminist poetics in historical surrealism – one that would come to full fruition in the 1970s.
I have signed a contract for Surrealism and Feminine Difference with Oxford University Press. The book, which has been selected for inclusion in OUP's Open Access pilot project Oxford Scholarship Online: Commit to Open, is scheduled for publication in spring 2026.
Research Stay Abroad
I spent February–March 2023 in London, UK, affiliated with the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), which was extremely fruitful. In addition to giving an open lecture at the Courtauld Research Forum, I was provided opportunities to discuss my work with specialists in several intersecting fields. The lecture, which was open to the public, recorded, and subsequently posted online, extended my research network considerably, resulting in new contacts both in the UK and internationally.
My stay in London also gave me access to the national repositories and archives at the British Library at Tate Britain, which turned out to be crucial for the way in which the book manuscript developed. This library access proved so important that I applied for (and received) additional funding from Birgit och Gad Rausings stiftelse för humanistisk forskning to spend 3 more weeks at the British Library during the autumn of 2024, as I was finalising the manuscript.
Collaboration and Dissemination of Results
In addition to the public lecture at the Courtauld Research Forum, I have given invited presentations about the project's findings at Enköpings konstmuseum (January 2023), The Freud Museum, Vienna (March 2023), The Harn Museum at the The University of Florida (March 2024), and The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice (October 2024). I also presented material from the project at the International Society for the Study of Surrealism's annual conference in Paris, October 2024.
Additionally, the project has resulted in invitations to contribute to the catalogues of two major art exhibitions: 'Surréalisme' at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (4 Sept 2024–13 Jan 2025) and 'Io Sono Leonor Fini' (I Am Leonor Fini) at the Palazzo Reale in Milan (26 Feb–22 June 2025).
In 2022 I was awarded an RJ Sabbatical grant (12 months) for the project 'Surrealism and Feminine Difference' (SAB22-0008), which included a one-month research stay at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. The project has resulted in a monograph, two catalogue essays, and several guest lectures.
Halfway through my intended Sabbatical year (2023) I moved from Linköping University to Uppsala University, which resulted in me having to suspend my Sabbatical funding for 12 months (August 2023–August 2024) in order to take up teaching duties at my new institution. I resumed my Sabbatical in August 2024 and concluded the project in December the same year.
Results
The aim of this project has been to finish the monograph Surrealism and Feminine Difference. The book maps the convergences between so-called 'feminism of difference' and surrealism, from the latter's early 'historical' period (1920s) to the millennial noughts, but with a special focus on the work of women surrealists in the 1970s. My analysis centres especially on the work of surrealist artists and writers Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Leonor Fini, and Ithell Colquhoun, all of whose mid-career oeuvres probe specifically feminist questions and concerns. Indeed, despite being based in different corners of the world – Mexico, the United States, France, and England – these artists and writers produced work that displays remarkable conceptual connections, which coalesce around a central thematic: the politico-aesthetic project of representing 'feminine difference'. This concept, implicit in the work of Jacques Lacan and subsequently appropriated and politicised by feminists of difference, refers neither to socialised gender nor to biological sex, but rather to a space of otherness in relation to the phallocentrically structured symbolic order. The book illustrates the tangible links between this theoretical concept and the mode of symbolisation sought by Carrington, Tanning, Fini, and Colquhoun, and in the process uncovers genealogies running from early surrealism through the emergence of poststructuralist as well as feminist theory and beyond. By examining the shared intellectual, political, iconographic, and methodological approaches of these two bodies of work, the book revises the received historiography of these fields as unique and largely unrelated. I show how surrealist women's production in the post-war era is inscribed in the very emergence of difference feminism, at the same time as surrealist women's art and literature from the 1970s onwards directly engage with concerns elaborated by contemporary feminist theory. These links are not one-directional but rather locked in dynamic dialogue, which signals an allegiance to surrealism at the heart of feminism of difference, as well as a germinal feminist poetics in historical surrealism – one that would come to full fruition in the 1970s.
I have signed a contract for Surrealism and Feminine Difference with Oxford University Press. The book, which has been selected for inclusion in OUP's Open Access pilot project Oxford Scholarship Online: Commit to Open, is scheduled for publication in spring 2026.
Research Stay Abroad
I spent February–March 2023 in London, UK, affiliated with the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), which was extremely fruitful. In addition to giving an open lecture at the Courtauld Research Forum, I was provided opportunities to discuss my work with specialists in several intersecting fields. The lecture, which was open to the public, recorded, and subsequently posted online, extended my research network considerably, resulting in new contacts both in the UK and internationally.
My stay in London also gave me access to the national repositories and archives at the British Library at Tate Britain, which turned out to be crucial for the way in which the book manuscript developed. This library access proved so important that I applied for (and received) additional funding from Birgit och Gad Rausings stiftelse för humanistisk forskning to spend 3 more weeks at the British Library during the autumn of 2024, as I was finalising the manuscript.
Collaboration and Dissemination of Results
In addition to the public lecture at the Courtauld Research Forum, I have given invited presentations about the project's findings at Enköpings konstmuseum (January 2023), The Freud Museum, Vienna (March 2023), The Harn Museum at the The University of Florida (March 2024), and The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice (October 2024). I also presented material from the project at the International Society for the Study of Surrealism's annual conference in Paris, October 2024.
Additionally, the project has resulted in invitations to contribute to the catalogues of two major art exhibitions: 'Surréalisme' at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (4 Sept 2024–13 Jan 2025) and 'Io Sono Leonor Fini' (I Am Leonor Fini) at the Palazzo Reale in Milan (26 Feb–22 June 2025).