Comparative History of Nordic Literary Cultures

General Editors Steven P. Sondrup and Mark B. Sandberg

wru I N THE COURSE of the last year, considerable progress has been made on the Comparative History of Nordic Literary Culture both in terms of planning as well as work on specific volumes. In terms of logistic and organizational issues, we have held four editorial board meetings that proved very productive: they involved fewer colleagues than in the past and more specific work could be done. The most important of these was organized by Finn Hauberg Madsen at Copenhagen University in late

November 2009 and involved primarily European members of the editorial board although North

American scholars were well represented. Brief reports were given on the progress volumes 1 and 2 but the primary emphasis was on working out the details of the logic for volumes 3 and 4. The two editors of volume 3—Karin Sanders and Linda Rugg—were both the in attendance and presented the most comprehensive and intellectually sophisticated outline for volume 3 dealing with figurative nodes that we have yet seen. Their outline makes abundantly clear that they have moved away from the problem that has proved most troubling to the Coordinating Committee, i.e. of singling out exclusively character stereotypes types—although some of the particularly fruitful still remain— and have rather begun dealing with richer and more complex configurations with a distinctly Nordic cast that broadly cross international borders and have a considerably clearer links to the central organizing principle of conceptual dominants. Invitations to potential contributor to volume 3 have not yet been issued, but it is anticipated that they will be made during October and November 2010.

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Volume III. Configurations (590 pages)

I. Figural Nodes: Theory and Relationship to Conceptual Dominants (30 pages)

A. Figuration understood theoretically:

1. Distinct ways in which characters, locales, and motives (including states of mind) have

been represented in Nordic literature (closely linked and cross-referenced to the

praxes of Volume 2.

2. A mapping of the dynamic changes in the figurations as they over time establish new

and differing relationships to the conceptual dominants.

B. Figuration of Character

1. Both inwardly and outwardly: motives vs. praxis shifting among conceptual

dominants as foci

2. In contrast to similar typologies in proximate regions

C. Figuration of Place

1. Cross-reference to Volume II and concentrating on the narrative and lyric

techniques for constituting a sense of place in varying relationship to conceptual

dominants

2. Deriving feature internal to works in which place plays a central role rather than actual

geographies

D. Figuration of Lack or Longing and the Contrast of Abundance and Fulfillment

1 The North is an area in which the rigors of a harsh climate and relatively few

natural resources (until recently) have been internalized and manifest themselves

in the pervasive sense of lack as well as longing or desire for something else. See Page 3 of 22

C.J.L. Almqvist's "The Meaning of Swedish Poverty" ("Svenska fattigdoms

betydelse")

2. This series of figural nodes will often be adduced in terms of negative

relationships with the conceptual dominants in that the lack will present itself as a

loss or significant diminution in the orienting power of one or more of the

dominants although their power of referentiality will never entirely disappear.

II. Figuration of Character (200 pages)

A Figuration of the [Strong] Nordic Woman

1. Sagas

2. Nora and Hilde Wangel (Ibsen)

3. Karen Blixen (Miss Nat og Dag and the Prioress

4. Kristen Lavrensdatter

5. Sara Sabina Lans (Kerstin Ekman Häxringarna)

B. The autonomous child

1. Egil

2. In H.C. Andersen

3. Vesaas's Siss

4. Pippi Langstrumpf

5. In works of Tove Jansson

6. Ingmar Bergman's My Life as a Dog

7. Lagerkvist: Gäst hos verkligheten

8. Eyvind Johnson: Romanen om Olof Page 4 of 22

C. Student or Pupil

1. Erasmus Montanus

2. Bondestudenter

3. Protest Literature of 1968

4. Ruth in Sonja Hauberg's Syv Aar for Lea

5. M-L studenter in Solstad's ArildAsnes

D. Figurations of the (abusive) teacher

1. Blomme in Det forsomte Foraar

2. Caligula in Sjoberg's film Hets

E. The Laborer

1. Farmhands in sagas

2. Ivar Lo-Johannsen

3. Harry (and Moa) Martinson

4. Sara Lidman

5. Nexø

6. Pontopidan

7. Kirk

F. Figuration of the stranger

1. The Sámi

2. Nagel in Hamsun's Mysterier

3. Den Okande in Till Damaskus

4. The Dane in Faroese Literature Page 5 of 22

5. The European in Sámi and Inuit oral and written traditions

6. The Russian in Finland

III. The Figuration of Place (200 pages)

A. Internal and External Colonies

1. Viking Land-Taking and Colonization (cf. Vol. II)

2. African Slave Trade and Caribbean Colonization

3. Marginalization of Sámi and Sámi culture

4. Denmark and Icelandic Colonization

5. Denmark and Greenlandic Colonization

6. Norway, Sweden and Finland and Colonization of Sápmi

7. Denmark and the Faroes

8. Denmark and Norway

9. Sweden and Finland

10. Sweden and Norway

11. Norway and the Kvem

B. Figuration of the People's Home (Folkhemmet)

1. Per Albin Hansson, Marquis Child

2. Villy Sørensen

3. National and Nordic Solidarity (Pan Scandinavianism of the nineteenth

century)

4. Figurations of the Scandinavian Model

C. Figurations of Utopias Page 6 of 22

1. Valhalla

2. Olof von Dalin Saga omErik hin Gotske angående fåfängen af yeninbillade

3. The Scandinavian Emigrants America

a. Rølvaag

b. Eyvind Johnson

c. Halldór Laxness (Paradísar heimt)

d. Per Wästberg's trilogy

D. Figurations of Dystopias

1. Niels Klim's underworld

2. Peer Gynt's "Gyntiana"

3. Karin Boye's Kallocain: Roman om 2000

4. P.C. Jersild's Efter floden

IV. Figuration of Lack or Longing (160 pages) A Longing to be Away

A. Figurations of metaphysical or religious longing

1. St. Birgitta

2. Obstfelder

3. Edith Södergran ("Landet som icke är")

4. Gunnar Ekelöf

5. Östen Sjöstrand

B. Figurations of Geographic Longing

1. Oehlenschläger (Aladain)

2. H.C. Andersen Page 7 of 22

3. Karlfeld

4. Obstfelder

C. Longing for sustenance (food) of as sign of socialization

1. Hamsun's Sult

2. "Babette's Feast" as contrast of lack and abundance

3. Longing for drink (mostly alcoholic)

a. Mead

b. Bellman

c. Tegnér

d. Stagnelius

e Sandmøse

5. Longing for Melancholy

a. Stagnelius "Till forruttnelsen"

b. Edith Södergran

c. Eino Leino

d. Tove Ditlevsen

6. Longing for the beautiful death

a. Saga death

b. Hedda's suicide

c. H.C. Andersen

d. C.J.L. Almqvist

7. Longing for the erotic in nature of seduction Page 8 of 22

a. Bellman

b. "Diary of a Seducer"

c. Hamsun (Pan)

d. Lars Gyllensten: I skuggan av Don Juan

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The progress on the fourth volume was equally encouraging. The two editors—Finn Hauberg Mortenson and Andrew Nestingen—have worked out a very rich and engaging model for presenting the dissemination of Nordic literature not only to the Nordic region, but throughout the rest of the world as well. We are very fortunate that the outline has already been worked out in considerable detail because we recently received the sad news that our colleague Prof. Mortensen has inoperable and thus terminal brain cancer. He, though, the remains lucid and interested in the project and has been making suggestions for areas of further development and refinement to Karin Sanders, a very close friend of many years, who has been on sabbatical leave in Copenhagen for the last year. Mark Sandberg will also accept his invitation for some detailed discussion in early August. Andrew Nestingen, the other volume editor, is very well versed in not only the overall plan for volume 4, but also the particular details that contribute to its depth, innovation, and uniqueness in the field of Nordic literary history. We have not wanted to proceed with undue (or unseemly)haste in recruiting another editor out of respect and profound regard for our highly esteemed colleague as well as a result of the fact that call for papers for volume 4 will probably be made during the summer of 2011.

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Volume IV. The Life of Literature: Nodes of Transformation and Dissemination. (Volume Editors: Finn

Hauberg Mortensen, University of Copenhagen Andrew Nestingen, University of Washington) (540 pages)

I. Production, Reception, and Changing Relations to Cultural Dominants (80 pages)

A. Writing

1. Author's: Function, role, and anonymity

2. Social, economic, and ideological position of authors

3. Gender

4. Demographics: Small city to urban center

5. Education

6. Censorship

B Reading

1. Kinds and variety of literacy

2. Changing extent of literacy

3. Reading practices and strategies (needs and powers of reading: religion and

cultural capital)

4. Accessibility to print culture

5. The publics

C. Literary Artifact

1. Concept of the work: Codification and dismantling of "the work"

2. History of the book

3. Media history Page 10 of 22

4. Printing technologies

5. Publishers and the book trade

6. Newspapers, journals, periodicals

D. Influence and culture

Impact of circulation and reception on authors/artists and readers/publics; (dannelsel

culture, i.e. deepened understanding of human experience/condition).

II. Transmission and Transformation of the Literary Artifact in Relation to Cultural Dominants

280 pages.

A. Temporal dimensions (80 pages)

1. Institutions and associations for defining and normalizing languages and

language usage.

2. Libraries: Book collection, royal and episcopal collections, royal, national and

other libraries (e.g. Arnamagnæan), modern public and multi-media libraries

3. Royal, regional, and municipal theaters and amateur theater groups

4. Academic and learned societies in their aesthetic and literary-critical context

5. Literary salons and cafés: Aristocracy and bourgeoisie

6. Revues (satirical and student)

7. Folkloristic associations and museums

8. Reading circles and use of literature in family life

9. National and inter-Nordic radio and television

B. Mechanisms of National Canon Formation (30 pages)

1. Literary Histories Page 11 of 22

2. University departments of national and Nordic literature

3. Literary criticism and intellectuals

4. Popular movements (e.g.Grundtvigianism), and organizations

C. Discourse Communities (80 pages)

1. Language: One or several national languages

2. Age: The specification of literary systems for children, young people, and older

persons as part of cultural diversity

3. Oral discourse communities

4. Class-based discourse communities

5. Gender-based discourse

6. The ethnic margins

7. Emergence of discourse communities

8. Immigrant discourse communities

9. Virtual discourse communities

D. Spatial Dimensions (Internal vs. External) (180 page)

1. Inside/Outside the North: minorities and majorities inside the Nordic region

(e.g. Creolization of modern urban culture)

2. The North seen from inside different Nordic countries: reception between

Nordic countries

3. Centers and Peripheries

a. From south to north: (e.g. the Catholic tradition: St. Birgitta; Nicolas

Steno, Johs. Jørgensen; North as construction by Nazism) Page 12 of 22

b. From east to west: the Vikings seen from Europe and North America

c. From west to east: The North in Asian (particularly Japanese) culture

d. From north to south: Modern Breakthrough as a new European

movement

4. Translations

a. Nordic authors writing in European languages

b. Dynamics of Translation from Nordic languages

c. Foreign institution promoting Nordic literature abroad

5. International life of specific literary artifacts

a. Sagas

b. Niels Klim

c. Nils Holgerson

d. A Doll House

e. Other texts

6. Narratives of authorship in circulation

a. Scientific contributions (e.g. E.v. Linné)

b. Swedenborg

c. H.C. Andersen

d. Søren Kierkegaard

e. Henrik Ibsen

f. August Strindberg

g. George Brandes Page 13 of 22

h. Translation leads to rediscovery (Undset)

i. Once internationally famous, now forgotten (Bjørnson)

j. Political misappropriation (Knut Hamsun)

k. National writers (Selma Lagerlöf, Vaino Linna)

1. Fame abroad leads to impact at home (Karen Blixen)

m. Niche impact becomes broad impact (Astrid Lindgren, Tove Jansson)

E. Dynamics of transformation (130 pages)

1. Textual genres

a. Drama

b. Fiction

c. Poetry

e. Essay

f. Non-fiction

2. Adjacent discourse system: Media modalities and the arts

a. Literature and theater

b. Literature and music

c. Literature and the visual arts

d. Literature and film

e. Literature and radio and television

f. Literature and the Internet: New media, interactivity

3. Other modes of transformative discourse

a. Natural history (Brahe, Linné, Ørsted, Bohr) Page 14 of 22

b. Archeology

c. Psychology

d. Anthropology

e. Sociology and Politics (e.g. Solstad)

III. Self-Reflection on Comparative History of Nordic Literary Cultures (40 pages)

A. Literary history: Theory and Practice

B. Our choices: Comparative History of Nordic Literary Cultures

1. Volume as a mode of circulation

2. Meta-Commentary and reflection on the project and its theories

C. Findings of the Project

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In September, a smaller gathering involving four Europeans—from Norway, Denmark, and

Finland—and four North American contributors assembled at Brigham Young University to work specifically some of the most challenging nodes in volume 1. General discussion was augmented by the efforts of smaller working groups that streamlined the structure of some of the nodes and made specific writing assignments, many of which have now been completed. Similar meetings were held at UCLA in

December and in Seattle in conjunction with the meeting of the Society for the Advancement of

Scandinavian Study in early May. For the latter Dan Ringaard (Aarhus University), one of the co-editors of volume 2 had organized several sessions dealing with the various scapes and praxes that make up volume 2, but regrettably many of those scheduled to participate were unable to make their way to Seattle because the North-Atlantic travel ban occasioned by the now famous but not unpronounceable Page 15 of 22

Eyjafallajökull. Although the interaction among colleagues that we had anticipated was, thus, not possible, the gathering nonetheless proved productive, and several contributions profited from the reactions of those who were able to be present. (It seemed curiously ironic that the eruption of a volcano should interfere with the discussion of spatial nodes.)

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Outline of Volume 2

We have chosen to organize the places in terms of scapes and praxes. The scapes deal with various kinds of places, the praxes with different uses of place.

I. Introduction (10 pages)

A) Our writers will be asked to come up with ideas for particular places and particular

literature on the basis of

1) The general definitions above,

2) Our definitions of theocentrism, anthropocentrism and technocentrism

(additionally Foucault's "spatial history" in "Of Other Spaces"),

3) On the following descriptions of the scapes and a suggested title.

B) Within each of the scapes, five will be on Nordic places (also as seen from outside of

Norden) and the last one will be on a foreign place (as seen from Norden). The double

slash in the list (//) marks the "foreign place" essay:

II. The Cultural Geography of the Nordic Region (20 pages)

III. Scapes (250 pages)

A) Landscapes (six 10-pages essays + 2 12 -page introduction)

Nordic landscapes may be mountains, hills, fields, valleys, forests, but also heaths, bogs, Page 16 of 22 or tundra and not the least islands. The landscapes may be almost wild nature or extremely cultured. The differences within the region are considerable, especially between the north and the south. A landscape is expansion, depth and horizon; it has its particular visual and natural rhythms, and it consists of various natural and architectural elements.

It provides the conditions of life, it forms and is formed by ways of life, it may be gazed upon and bodies may move through it. Landscapes contain memories and myths, ideas of belonging or not belonging, of nation and identity, images of hardships and bliss.

Literature provides landscapes with all these symbolic forms infusing literary commonplace with historical place. As landscape becomes more and more inhabited it turns into cityscape, as island or coast landscape literally borders to seascape. Landscape is probably the most general of the scapes.

Six 10-page essays: Vertical Worlds / Among the Fields / Inland Mysteries / Islands / In

Passing // The Exotic: Deserts and Tropics

B) Seascapes (four 10-pages essays + 2 12 -page introduction)

Nordic seascapes may be lakes, fjords, rivers, creeks, bays and of course the ocean, including the Baltic Sea. The ocean is what has held the countries and areas of the region together, but it has also opened the region towards the world. The Nordic region is a region of farmers and nomads but also of sailors and fishermen. The ocean is the uncertain region that lies beyond the safe havens of the land, a place of movement and metamorphosis. The fjords shelter and provide reasonable conditions of life, but a shelter may also isolate its inhabitants from whatever lies beyond it. Rivers on the other hand provide infrastructure and energy; lakes seem to have their own bucolic as well as Page 17 of 22 demonic energies. Functions as well as the symbolic meanings of a particular seascape vary considerably throughout the region because of the geographical differences.

Four 10-page essays: Tales of the Lake / In the Bottom of the Fjord / Seafarers //

C) Lightscapes (four 10-pages essays + 2 ½ -page introduction)

Nordic lights are changing lights, the long transformations of dusk and dawn and the huge differences between summer and winter, it is the event of Midsummer, the

Northern phenomenon of the midnight sun and the aurora borealis, or the multiple gray shades of the South and the West. But lightscapes are more than that. It is irrevocably connected to the whole subject of climate, the differences of temperature, the rain and the snow, the winds, the mild and the rough. It has to do with atmosphere, changing moods, it evokes memories and reveries, and we attach symbolic meanings to whatever form it may take; it is the conditions of life that we try to master and change and the consequences of that. A lightscape is whatever is in the air.

Four 10-page essays: The Sense of Snow / Arctic Travels / As Dusk Comes // Italian Lights

D) Cityscapes (six 10-pages essays + 2 12 -page introduction)

The Nordic region has no metropolis, only major cities that are also centers of state power. Throughout history this has been Stockholm and Copenhagen, later Oslo and

Helsinki. From this point of view it is a provincial region. The orientation of these major cities differ, opening the region in different directions, making them part of other regions, or it may, as present day Reykjavik, be of a more global orientation. The rise and life of the major cities as well as the shift from the countryside to the urban environment are of course of central significance. So is the interchange of power and knowledge Page 18 of 22 between the two. Being a creature of the nineteenth century the transition of the protagonist from the countryside to the capital is a constituent of the Nordic novel, and the urban experience becomes a central theme in modern prose as well as poetry. As we move on to the countryside the cultural element of the cityscape gets intertwined with the natural element of the landscape in the villages and the farms in their particular historical forms.

Six 10-page essays: Center and Periphery / City and Modernity / Village Life / Mansions,

Monasteries and other Microcosms / Global Cities // Off to the European Metropolis

F) Wordscapes (two 10-page essays)

Any investigation of spatial nodes must take into account the spatiality of literature itself.

One might argue (as George Perec in Especes d'espaces) that the description of a place in literature always begins with the space of the blank page, and no one can dismiss that the space created in literature are distinct from other forms of art. Apart from these ontological considerations two subjects seems to be crucial for any exploration of space in literature. The first has to do with the places that does not exist, imagined worlds as in science fiction or like Moomiland, the other has to do with the literal space of the book, the page and the letter, including the reluctance of literature to become a transparent medium for, among many other things, places. These are kinds of literature and kinds of places that we may otherwise easily overlook.

Two 10-pages essays. Imaginary worlds / Literal Places ) Cyberscapes (two 10-page essays)

Any investigation of spatial nodes must also take into account the kind of spatiality that is currently shaping our point of view. Distance and actual place seems to be overtaken by Page 19 of 22

time-space compression and place-polygamy. This trait of globalization is particular

evident in the realm of technology. Therefore we should investigate the places where we

meet in cyberspace, the branding and distribution of places there, and the virtual places

that are being developed there. We often meet in writing in cyberspace, often in

connection with visual representation, and there is a high degree of remediation in and

out of literature. It all changes literature as well as our sense of place.

Two 10-pages essays. Virtual Worlds / Remediating Places

IV. Praxes (245 pages: 5-page introduction and 60-page sections under each heading)

A) Introduction (one 5-page essay)

As a parallel to the overarching scapes, the praxes are grouped into a set of four principal

acts—traversing, conquering, dwelling, and sacralizing—each deeply resonant within

Nordic literature through the centuries, and each influenced in different ways by

theocentric, anthropocentric, and technocentric conceptual dominants. These four

principal praxes can be viewed as two pairs of other opposed activities: traversing, the

temporally restricted movement across space, often figures as a key contrast to dwelling,

the seemingly permanent residence within a certain locale. So, too, the processes

suggested by the term "conquering" suggest very different attitudes toward place than

those implied under the rubric "sacralizing." In many cases, however, as the essays will

reveal, these seeming contrasts disappear in textual practice as the lines between

traversing and dwelling become obscured, and the contrasts between conquering and

sacralizing erased. The four praxes, then, are intended simply to help essay writers focus Page 20 of 22 on particular themes which are likely to transect and blend with other essay in the volume. Within each broad praxis, we identify distinct sub themes that are the foci of the included essay themselves. Again these sub themes are not intended to be exhaustive, rather they seek to illuminate kinds of actions implied by the overarching rubrics.

B) Conquering

1) Colonizing

2) Technologizing

3) Discovering, Mapping

4) Subduing

C) Dwelling

1) Nationalizing

2) Domesticating

3) Settling, Land-Taking

D. Sacralizing

1) Ecologizing

2) Liminality (or experiencing liminality)

3) Memorializing

E.Traversing

1) Touristing, Pilgrimage

2) Migrating

3) Taking to the Road

4) Trading Page 21 of 22

F. Conclusion

While some essays fall squarely within a single overarching rubric, others have been

chosen specifically because they mediate or breakdown the boundaries between two or

more of the rubrics themselves. Where, for instance, "Taking the Road" explores textual

actions that fall easily into the framework of Traversing, the essay "Trading" can be seen

as mediating between Traversing and Conquering, and bears a close relationship to the

essay "Colonizing." Likewise "Touristing and Pilgrimage" is closely related to the article on

"Memorializing: under the Sacralizing rubric.

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Of greater interest, however, is the tangible progress that has been made on volumes 1 and 2. In late

March and early April of 2009, selected colleagues were invited to contribute papers dealing with a specific aspects of one of the 19 nodes in volume 1. The contributors were given one year during which to write their papers. Early in 2010, the submission of papers began. As is invariably the case, some collaborators in the course of preparing their material withdrew from the project for variety of personal reasons. On the positive side, however, we have some of the contributions for all of the nodes and in several case all of them. We are waiting for correspondence from the new contributor we have selected to undertake work on those portions of the volume regrettably abandoned by earlier contributor. We are stressing the need for immediate attention to the writing and relatively rapid delivery of the paper.

The essays that have been contributed are in the process electronic standardization , copy editing, and source checking. The standardization is well under way and copy editing—including the requests for revisions from the authors—began in late May. I have received a $20,000 grant to help the editorial costs and am apply for another grant from sources in Iceland. I have extraordinarily capable, experienced, and attentive student help. I am sure the questions on the mind of many members of this Committee is when Page 22 of 22 this volume will be ready to be sent to readers. Many of entire editorial processes of what we now have in hand should be complete by the end of the calendar year, but the great variable is how quickly we can fill in the gaps with either the work out new contributors or with our own research in the area. We are hoping to be able to submit a manuscript by the end of next summer.

The invitation to submit papers for volume 2 went out in the late on out 2009. Volume editors have been working diligently with the contributors to their volume, and at this point approximately one half of the papers have been received. As is typically the case, these contributions are of uneven quality.

Editorial work on the contributions to volume 2 has not yet begun in earnest but will begin in early in the autumn. What is particularly gratifying about volume 2 in comparison to volume 1 is that contributors to the latter seem to have developed a better sense off the nontraditional approach to literary history that is being taken. One of the problems we still face with contributions to volume 1 is that too many remain largely informed by traditional approaches to literary history and in need considerable editing to bring them into alignment with the strategies upon which we have agreed. Although the fallback on traditional modes of thinking is not an entirely an unexpected surprise, I had hoped that our detailed descriptions and extensive nodal prompts would have stimulated more original and innovative thinking. These deficits, however, can be made up by tactful but in some cases extensive editorial intervention and carefully crafted introductory essays.

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