Skin-to-sealskin

Transformations between animals and humans in new Danish and Nordic literature

Abstract

This paper examines transformations between animals and humans in Danish and Nordic literature from the 21^st century to explore what human-animal relationship the transformation motif represents and reconfigures today. The transformation motif is analysed in both re-popularized folk tales and modern literature through a twofold theoretical approach of 1) the literary history of the transformation motif in folklore and 2) Literary Animal Studies. The motif is also discussed through comparison with two trends in new Danish literature: writings about skin and human to plant transformations. The paper concludes that the transformations between animals and humans expresses how beings are constituted as human or non-human through an intricate web of bodily situated relations characterised by mixes of violence, care, reciprocity, and inequality. The transformation motif depicts humans in a position of power, able to define other beings, though never without also being changed themselves. Finally, the paper concludes that the motif is popular in the 21^st century following an interest in exploring humans’ possibilities of changing along with their surroundings, an interest possible connected to climate change.