Anton Juul

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I'm particularly interested in the intersection between literary writing, desire and sexuality. I'm a PhD-fellow at the Centre for Gender, Sexuality and Difference, where I do research on literary representations of homosexuality. 

Current research

PhD-project: Sex after AIDS: Sexuality and queer masculinity in contemporary Danish literature.

(09/01/22 - 08/31/25)

Supervisor: Michael Nebeling Petersen

My research revolves around literary represenations of the gay man as a figue and homosexual desire as a motif in Danish literature from the 90's to today, with a focus on depictions of sexual promiscuity. I read works by authors such as Tomas Lagermand Lundme, Nikolaj Tange Lange, Bjørn Rasmussen, Niels Henning Falk Jensby and Mads Ananda Lodahl.

Firstly, my projects tries to make a historical argument about HIV/AIDS-epidemic as an on-going legacy in the way that it epitomized a connection between sexual promiscuity and self-destruction, and thus sex and death, that psychoanalysis has conceptualized as the death drive “beyond the pleasure principle.” If the HIV/AIDS-epidemic made public an image of the gay man as someone willing, in the words of Tim Dean, “to risk death for a good fuck,” how does this image “haunt” the literary configurations of male homosexuality, even in a time when HIV/AIDS has gone from outright death sentence to a manageable chronic condition? What interests me is not so much whether or not this is 'true' for all gay men, but more that this image of the gay man as a risk seeking and promiscuous figure circulates in the broader cultural consciousness, and is an imagine that frames a broader cultural understanding of the gay man's homosexual desire. It is precisely this image that the novels can be said to reconfigure in different ways.

Some of the central research questions in my project are:

• How is homosexual promiscuity represented?
• What feelings and affects stick to homosexual promiscuity?
• And how are we to understand the negative and destructive affects that the novels articulate in relation to the representation of the gay man and his homosexuality? What would it mean to identify with and practice a 'hopeless' homosexuality?
• For whom are negativity and selfdestructiveness a viable vehicle for sexual subjecthood? Who and what do they say something about?

These questions become interesting to ask in a historical context where the homosexual increasingly has been incorporated into the Danish welfare state, secured and protected by law, as a viable social category and a positive image of sexual liberation and democratic freedom, as something worth of protecting. What do the more hopeless descriptions of homosexuality, that I locate in the novels, say about that narrative of legal and moral inclusion into the nation state?

Primary fields of research

promiscuity, the history of the HIV/AIDS-epidemic, queer masculinities, queer temporalities and negative affect. Queer theory, affect theory, feminist theory, gender studies, sexuality studies, comparative literature.

Queer theory, affect theory, feminist theory, gender studies, sexuality studies, comparative literature

Selected activities

1. Aids-krisens danske kulturhistorie

   Nebeling Petersen, Michael (Lecturer), Juul, Anton (Lecturer), Eriksen, Camilla Bruun (Lecturer) & Wung-Sung, Tobias de Fønss (Lecturer)

   23 Feb 2023

   Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution

2. The Cultural History of AIDS in Denmark: Explorations of Danish Politics, Activism, Media and Lived Experiences in Denmark

   Nebeling Petersen, Michael (Lecturer), Larsen, Bolette Frydendahl (Lecturer), Juul, Anton (Lecturer), Eriksen, Camilla Bruun (Lecturer) & Wung-Sung, Tobias de Fønss (Lecturer)

   18 Nov 2022

   Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution

3. Nordic Queer History Workshop

   Nebeling Petersen, Michael (Speaker), Bissenbakker, Mons (Speaker), Juul, Anton (Speaker) & Wung-Sung, Tobias de Fønss (Speaker)

   2 Feb 2023 → 3 Feb 2023

   Activity: Participating in an event - types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course

4. Dansk kønsforsknings indre og ydre rammer

   Juul, Anton (Participant)

   2022

   Activity: Participating in an event - types › Organisation of and participation in conference

5. AIDS-krisens kulturhistore

   Nebeling Petersen, Michael (Lecturer), Wung-Sung, Tobias de Fønss (Lecturer) & Juul, Anton (Lecturer)

   3 Nov 2022

   Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution