Maria Andersson

Maria Andersson is a Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor at Stockholm University's Department of Culture and Aesthetics, where she maintains an office in Room A 460. Her research bridges literary analysis, gender studies, and cultural aesthetics with a particular focus on children's literature and representation.

Her research interests center on gender representation across literary periods, with notable expertise in Scandinavian children's literature. She examines how cultural narratives shape understandings of gender, sexuality, and multiculturalism, particularly in educational contexts. Her work reveals evolving societal attitudes toward reproduction, family structures, and minority representation through historical analysis of children's books and educational materials.

Andersson's publications demonstrate a consistent thematic trajectory exploring the intersection of gender, literature, and cultural transmission. Her recent works have increasingly focused on multicultural perspectives in youth literature while maintaining her foundational research on gender representation. The analysis of Western literary classics through gender lenses remains a throughline in her scholarly contributions.

As an active researcher, she leads the project "Saga of Saga. The Editorial Practices of a Children's Book Publisher," examining how Svensk Läraretidnings förlag maintained dominance in Swedish children's publishing for seven decades.

Her academic contributions span both monographs and edited volumes, with particular attention to how literature functions as cultural mediation in multicultural societies. Her doctoral thesis "Att bli människa" established her research framework analyzing discourses of children, morality and gender in late 19th and early 20th century literature.