Passage - Tidsskrift for litteratur og kritik

Redaktionelt forord

Redaktionen — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Hvad er litteratursociologi?

Sara Tanderup Linkis, Johanne Gormsen Schmidt — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Since its heyday in the 1960 and 70s, the sociology of literature has been declared dead and gone, yet research related to the field also seems to be reemerging in the first decades of the 21st century. Research relating to the field is scattered across other disciplines, such as literary studies, media studies and cultural studies; indeed, sociology of literature is “everywhere and nowhere”, as James English put it in 2010. But where is it now? Departing from recent perspectives on the sociology of literature by e.g. English, Wendy Griswold, and Johan Svedjedal, the article traces a brief history of the field and discusses future directions for the sociology of literature relating to current trends in literary studies and studies in book culture – including a recent attention towards uses of literature and methodological developments linked to digital methods as well as media-specific analysis and intermedial approaches to books and literature.

“Jeg fatter ikke, hvad jeg laver i denne lorteby”

Christian Steentofte Andersen — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

This article sets out to investigate how contemporary Danish fiction has responded to Copenhagen’s proliferating housing crises. Inspired by the notion within the burgeoning field of ‘literary urban studies’ that literature has a unique micro-sociological perspective to offer on the current urban condition, the article presents analyses of novels by Laura Ringo, Jonas Suchanek and Thomas Korsgaard. On that basis it argues that the novels through their depiction of urban precarisation spurred by the neoliberal housing market can be construed as counternarratives to the ruling discourses about the city’s recent regeneration.

“A Danish Genius of Madness”

Torben Jelsbak — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Within the last decade, the Danish author Tove Ditlevsen (1917-1976) has experienced a remarkable renaissance: her works are massively being reissued and her legacy is taken up by young poets and artists. The “Tove fever” is also an international phenomenon – as most lately witnessed by the inclusion of “The Copenhagen Trilogy” (Childhood, Youth, Dependency, 1969-71) in the Penguin Modern Classics Series in 2021. Subsequently, the trilogy has been sold for publication in 32 countries worldwide. After having been dismissed by the Danish literary establishment in her lifetime as a female author of social realism and “confessional literature”, Ditlevsen is now celebrated as one of the most important and unique voices in 20th century Danish literature and as a precursor of Karl Ove Knausgård, Annie Ernaux, Rachel Cusk. But what are the reasons for this rediscovery? In the perspective of Bourdieusian sociology, the writing up of Ditlevsen may be seen as an instance of the fall of high Modernism and as an example of the constant metamorphosis of literary taste. However, we may also view the case through the lenses of Latourian actor-network-theory. The article tries to combine the two theoretical approaches by offering an outline of the most important actors in the current rediscovery and transmission of Ditlevsen’s work, while also paying attention to the aesthetic judgements and forms of attachment characterizing the “Tove fever”.

Litterär Kvinnokamp, anno 2014

Oscar Janson — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

This article examines the functions of feminism in the critical reception of Kristina Sandberg’s Maj-Trilogy, published 2010-2014. Detailing the evaluative patterns of reviews, it is shown that critics’ increased attention to feminist politics and women’s history in the novels was tied to a de-aestheticizing rhetoric, exemplifying gender hierarchies on the literary field. However, the trilogy’s critical and commercial success is also shown to be based on conception of the women’s cause and feminist writing traditions. Connecting these points, the article argues that a principal function of feminism on the contemporary Swedish book market is to make varying evaluative principles visible, and to bridge the boundaries of cultural, political and social fields.

#forfatterliv #skriveliv

Sarah Mygind — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The number and range of writing communities, schools, courses etc. have been on the rise in Denmark in recent years. In both various local and online communities many writers, especially young people, engage with literature detached from or only loosely affiliated with the traditional, established literary institutions and domains. The contemporary publishing landscape’s traditional as well as virtual, online publics and the literary environments on social media compose important contexts that most authors’ practices relate to today. Based on a media ethnographic approach, this article examines the Danish author Sofie Riis Endahl’s use of Instagram in her author practice thus shedding light on the values and understandings of the literary culture that she is engaged in. The analyses point to Endahl’s dual attachment to online social reading and writing communities as well as the established players of the book market and literary institutions. Endahl takes part in a literary culture that is supported by social capital and where a distinctive author ethos is prevalent; it is an ethos that ascribes value to openness, fallibility, persistence and hard work. At the same time this culture relates to and navigates aspirational in relation to an established literary culture in the way that it celebrates cultural capital in the form of reviews in national newspapers, the state’s art foundation, the big publishers and literary awards.

Litterært feltarbejde

Hans Lind — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Based on the author’s experience in doing fieldwork on three Danish creative writing schools – Testrup Højskole, Gladiatorskolen, and Forfatterskolen – this article shows how ethnographic methods can contribute to the study of literary use. Engaging in the ongoing discussions in literary studies on postcritique, the article argues that the movement’s interest in the multifarious social uses of literature should be matched, methodologically, with the researcher’s own willingness to leave the desk and study literature where it is being used.

Når litteraturfestivalen finner sted

Knut Oterholm, Tonje Vold — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The article presents a qualitative analyses of three Norwegian literary festivals (Litteratursymposiet in Odda, Bergen International Literary Festival and Norsk Litteraturfestival Sigrid Undset-dagene). The analyses build on interviews with central actors of the festivals and participating observations at the festivals, during 2021 and 2022. We discuss what traditions the festivals build on, and take particular interest in the varied ways these three festivals build communities in the post-pandemics period, interact with their host cities and with their audiences, and discuss how the festivals’ centripetal and centrifugal forces are in play.

Litteraturen i NRK Fjernsynet 1960-64

Kjell Ivar Skjerdingstad, Åse Kristine Tveit — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

From its start in august 1960 and for thirty years, NRK Television was the only tv-channel in Norway. This placed NRK in a powerful position, having control of cultural and literary dissemination both on the screen an in the broader public sphere. In this study, we have, with the help of program references, metadata from NRK and available programs in NRK's online archive, examined what literary programs or program parts were broadcasted in the first four tentative years, and in what ways this literature was made visible to viewers. Through a tentative categorization of the material, we arrive at a four-space model where we distinguish between performative and informative modes of presenting literature; while at the same time we find that the socio-cultural use of literature can be respectively autotelic or ritual. The categorization and the model are both discussed as possible supplements to the toolbox of the sociology of literature.

Meningen med metoden

Julia Pennlert — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The aim with the article is to trace the use of quantitative methods in literary studies in Sweden. Through the case of Karl Erik Rosengrens’ dissertation from 1968, the articles analyzes the discussions that the thesis generated during the 1960’s and 1970’s regarding questions on how to do literary studies, and how contemporary discussions about methods in sociology of literature can be said to be linked to a wider discussion about the discipline itself.

Litteratursociologi og kvantitative litteraturstudier

Jens Bjerring-Hansen, Sebastian Ørtoft Rasmussen — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

This article builds a case for how literary historiography can be given a crucial sociological perspective through the analytical possibilities offered by digital corpora and methods. Based on a corpus of almost 900 Danish and Norwegian novels published in Denmark between 1870 and 1900, we will test and illustrate how combining a field-analytical approach with more quantitative and data-driven analyses brings new perspectives to traditional literary sociology. Our case is the historical novel and its status and development in a period, the so-called "modern breakthrough" in Scandinavian literature, where, at first sight, it did not belong at all.

Litteratursociologi, topologi og digitale metoder

Jens Lohfert Jørgensen — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

From a general literature sociological point of view that understands literature as source to an investigation of the history of emotions, this article discusses the possibilities offered by digital methods for composing a topology of apathy in Scandinavian literature of Decadence, to investigate the dissemination of the notion in the period.

Orientalismer i tidlig moderne europæisk litteratur

Anne Fastrup, Lis Møller, Carin Franzén, Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Call for papers

Sarah Mygind, Sara Tanderup Linkis, Johanne Gormsen Schmidt — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200