The Autonomy of Disgust : A Study of Autonomy and Autobiographical Aesthetics in Katarina Frostenson’s K

In this study, I analyse how Katarina Frostenson in her work K (2019) uses her changed position of utterance – which followed from the accusations against her and her husband, Jean-Claude Arnault, during the Swedish “Metoo” – aesthetically. The changed position is thematised in K to affect the question of literary autonomy, and the performative use of the biographical facts that surrounds Frostenson after Metoo creates a position of disgust towards her. With help of theoretical perspectives of Jon Helt Haarder and Sara Ahmed I show how Frostenson uses the feeling of disgust to bring the reader in an unpleasant experience of proximity. At the same time, she tries to save her old aesthetics in the new position, which leads to that both K and Frostenson’s previous works becomes abject. I also argue that the threat of abjection potentially becomes a problem for the profession of literary studies.