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Vestiges of the horse-whisperer: gendered knowledge: Borders, liminality and generational aspects in horse stories
Luleå University of Technology, Department of Health, Education and Technology, Education, Language, and Teaching.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4382-132X
2025 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Marie-Louise Rudolfsson’s series about Maria and the Blue Prince (1969–1979) confirms the male tradition of horsemanship – knowledge about and the handling of the horses are mainly the prerogative of male characters. Maria’s grandfather has a large farm with horses and employs the traditional male horse groom and stable manager Persson, whose knowledge when it comes to horses in unparallelled. Although sometimes grumpy among humans, he appears to be a vestige of the old ideal of the horse-whisperer. Hugo, an older boy at the riding school, is also an important male role model to Maria. However, these men do not adhere to the military discipline or the idea that horses need to be subdued with violence, as the male tradition sometimes dictates (Hedenborg 2013). Instead, they seem more connected to the norm of horse whisperers, with attention to the horses’ bodies and signals for communication (Donovan 2017; Haraway 2008; Roberts 2017). In addition, Maria’s non-confrontational, soft attitude towards horses is appreciated by them. She is depicted as a valued heir to their teachings, all the while bringing her own touch to the equation. For Maria, the stable offers an alternative to the traditional femininity that reigns outside the equestrian culture (cf. Asklund 2013), but the narratives seem out of synch with today’s gender roles. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the ways in which borders are upheld and transgressed, how the characters move through phases of liminality and how the notion of generations work according to gendered structures.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025.
National Category
General Literature Studies
Research subject
Language, Litterature and Education
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-113918OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ltu-113918DiVA, id: diva2:1979075
Conference
27th Biennial International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) Conference, Salamanca, Spain, June 21-25, 2025
Available from: 2025-06-30 Created: 2025-06-30 Last updated: 2025-06-30Bibliographically approved

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Manderstedt, Lena

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