NORDIC NARRATIVES OF NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
First Workshop of the Ecocritical Network for Scandinavian Studies (ENSCAN)
Date: 2-3 December 2016
Venue: Mid Sweden University, Campus Sundsvall, L-Building, Lecture Hall L111
Conveners: Reinhard Hennig (Mid Sweden University), Anna-Karin Jonasson (Mid Sweden University), and Peter Degerman (Mid Sweden University)
Perceptions and representations of nature and the environment – e.g. in literature, film, and other forms of cultural expression – are always embedded in specific cultural, social and historical contexts. While many environmental risks and the global environmental change occurring today may be unprecedented in the history of human life on earth, the images and narratives by which humans relate to such phenomena nevertheless build upon and make use of established cultural tropes and narrative models. The first workshop of the Ecocritical Network for Scandinavian Studies focuses on how specifically Nordic cultural, social and historical contexts influence the construction of images and narratives of nature and the environment.
Download the Program (PDF)
Download the CFP (PDF)
Friday 2 December
9.00 Welcome and Introduction
9.30 The Ecocritical Network for Scandinavian Studies – Background and Objectives
10.00 Coffee Break
10.30 Jenna Coughlin (University of California, Berkeley)
Of Wildflowers and Butterflies: Interrogating Species Names from the National Romantic to the Anthropocene
11.00 Lauren E. LaFauci (Linköping University)
Narratives of Nordic Safety: Preparing for the “Long Emergency”
11.30 Martin Gregersen (Aalborg University)
Trans-Materiality – Literature in the Light of the Anthropocene
12.00 Lunch Break
13.00 Linda Haverty Rugg (University of California, Berkely)
Two Brothers in a Wood
13.30 Kari Haarder Ekman (Stockholm University)
Scandinavian Wilderness: Two Women Writing about Sápmi/Lapland 1907-1915
14.00 Frederike Felcht (Goethe University Frankfurt)
The Nature of Hunger: Karl August Tavastjerna’s Hårda tider
14.30 Coffee Break
15.00 Jørgen Bruhn (Linnæus University)
Climate Guilt
15.30 Anna Sofia Rossholm (Linnæus University)
Climate Change in Imaginaries of the Nordic Mountain: Hanna Ljung’s I Am a Mountain to Measure
16.00 Johannes Riquet (University of Zurich)
Arctic Ache: Greenland, Climate Change, and the Poetics of Water
16.30 Coffee Break
16.45 Hanna Samola (Stockholm University)
Bluebells, Cotton Grass, and Chilli. The Importance of Flowers and Plants in Dystopian Fiction
17.15 Jørn Riseth (University of Caen, Normandy)
Losing Collective Knowledge About the Natural Environment: Fragile Memories of Plants and Animals in the Novel Twilight Country (1974) by Knut Faldbakken
18.30 Conference Dinner
Saturday 3 December
9.00 Discussion: The Ecocritical Network for Scandinavian Studies – Next Steps and Long-Term Development
10.30 Coffee Break
11.00 Nina Goga (Bergen University College)
Confronting an Anthropocentric Perspective – Advocating an Ecocentric Perspective
11.30 Lykke Guanio-Uluru (Bergen University College)
Ecocentric, Bio-Semiotic and Anthropocentric Perspectives on the Norwegian Children’s Narrative “Kubbe Makes Shadow Theatre”
12.00 Lunch Break
13.00 Toni Lahtinen (University of Tampere)
A Flood in a Bird’s Nest: The Myth of Great Deluge in Risto Isomäki’s Sands of Sarasvati
13.30 Pia Maria Ahlbäck (Åbo Akademi University)
The “Ghost” at Sköldvik Manor: Notes on a Petrified Place
14.00 Coffee Break
14.30 Katharina Nagy (University of Greifswald)
Johannes V. Jensen’s ‘Myter’ from an Ecocritical Perspective
15.00 Beatrice G. Reed (Volda University College)
Naturalization as Trope and Strategy in Stina Aronson’s Late Prose
15.30 Irene Bordignon (University of Milan)
A Norwegian Perception of Nature Through Bergljot Hobæk Haff’s Literary Production: The Case of the Symbolist Novel Bålet
16.00 Closing Remarks
ENSCAN 