Networked Novels. Spatiality in Contemporary Finland-Swedish Literature. In Conversation with Kristina Malmio

nordlitt – Skandinavistische Literaturforschung im Gespräch

Kristina Malmio, University of Helsinki, shares her research on local and global tendencies in Finland-Swedish literature with the help of two complex novels by Monika Fagerholm (The American Girl) and Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo (In Transit). We muse about the status of a privileged minority literature and discuss the shifting locations of centers and peripheries. We explore in-between-spaces and other metaphors of literary spaces and look at movements of novels and their characters between countries, continents and cultures. Finally, we are encouraged: Trust yourself! Literature takes you everywhere.

Timestamps:

(00:00:31) Kristina Malmio’s Way to Literature Studies and Scandinavian Studies

(00:05:00) The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland

(00:09:21) Historical and Contemporary Finland-Swedish Literature

(00:18:10) Minor Literature and World Literature

(00:23:02) Introducing Monika Fagerholm and The American Girl

(00:30:45) Postmodern Literature and Kaleidoscopic Collaging

(00:37:32) Fagerholm’s Constructing of Space

(00:34:48) Reconstructing the Belief in Narration

(00:41:11) The Reception in the US

(00:48:00) The Polycentric and Networked Novel

(01:01:12) Fagerholm on the Scandinavian Literature Scene

(01:04:43) Introducing Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo and In Transit

(01:14:13) The Chronotope of the Road and Bodily Experiences

(01:22:19) Anchoring in Space

(01:24:06) The Image of the North Pole Explorer

(01:29:33) Space in Contemporary Poetry

(01:30:40) Advice to Student Self

(01:31:43) An Announcement

Bibliography, further information, and comments are available on Experiment Geisteswissenschaften.

https://exgeist.hypotheses.org/

Idea and conception: Stefanie von Schnurbein

Cut: Cecilia Falkman

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