Primary fields of research

Bolette Frydendahl Larsens' research interests are the history of gender and sexuality, power/knowledge regimes and biopolitics and the history of psychiatry. She is inspired by feminist queer and crip theories and new cultural history. 

In her PhD-project she investigated of psychiatric knowledge and institutional practices at Danish reform schools for girls during the 20th century. The thesis shows how psychiatric diagnosis and practices were increasingly mobilized to explain the problem of so-called ’difficult young girls’ during the 20th century and how diagnoses such as moron and psychopathy were mobilized to draw boundaries between young girls. A key result of the project is the documentation of how the diagnosis ”psychopathy” evolved in this context and how its functions and effects at both the institutional and individual level changed during the interwar years.

Teaching

From 2014-2021 Bolette Frydendahl Larsen has taught at the Department of Gender Studies at Lund University. For instance she has taught the courses "Gender and Law"; "Gender, Social Change, and Modernity in Sweden/Scandinavia" and "Introduction to Gender Studies" and supervised BA and MA students. During her PhD studies she also taught and supervised BA students at the Department of History at Lund University. For instance she developed and taught a course in the history of childhood in collaboration with her colleague Martin Ericsson.

Before Frydendahl Larsen became affiliated at Lund University, she taught and supervised students at the department of communication at Roskilde University.