Anna Bark Persson is a postdoctoral researcher in English at the Department of Language Studies, doing research on feminist and queer speculative visions of Mars and futurity.
Anna Bark Persson is a postdoctoral researcher in English at the Department for Language Studies. She is currently working on the project “Reimagining the Red Planet: Feminist and Queer Speculative Interventions” with the purpose of examining feminist and queer visions and depictions of Mars in relation to futurity. The aim of the project is to challenge male-dominated narratives on Mars and space exploration in the mainstream and analyze feminist and queer alternatives.
In her recently published dissertation, Steel as the Answer? Viking Bodies, Power, and Masculinity in Anglophone Fantasy Literature 2006–2016, she examines the Viking as a popular motif in contemporary fantasy literature in relation to masculinity, embodiment, power, gender, and sexuality. Additionally, she has published on female masculinity in feminist SF and queer perspectives on worldbuilding and medievalism in fantasy. Her main research interests include speculative fiction, queer reading, (queer) masculinities, temporality, and popular culture.
Bark Persson is also the editorial secretary of lambda nordica, the oldest academic journal for interdisciplinary queer, trans and LGBTQ+ research in the Nordic region. In 2021 she published a collection of essays on science fiction and fantasy for a general audience in Swedish: Annorstädes [Elsewhere].