1457.18 - ‘Blue North’. Imaginations on North in North Atlantic Novels (MA)


Course number
1457.18
Title
‘Blue North’. Imaginations on North in North Atlantic Novels (MA)
ECTS
10
Prerequisites
Students must have completed the required core components of the BA in Faroese or other equivalent preconditions. This course can also be taken as an individual course with other prerequisites (please refer to the academic programme in force).
Purpose
To study imaginations characterized by a North Atlantic blues based on readings of Faroese and Icelandic novels. Concepts within the disciplines of Literary Geography and ’Place Studies’ will be applied such as ‘the blues’, ‘imagined geography’, and ‘(ultra)minor literature’. The students will acquire knowledge of how geographical imaginations are being used in novels and other literary genres. Special attention will be paid to imaginations on North connecting most of the geographical motifs.
Content
Works within the novelistic Faroese and Icelandic canon and other texts as well will be analyzed. Articles on key concepts within Literary Geography and Place Studies will be read. Using these tools, imaginations on North Atlantic literary landscapes will be studied with particular reference to ‘scapes’ attached to land and sea. Furthermore the focus will be given on imaginations of how North is being played out within literature in 20th century while at the same time with references to original imaginations of the northern world. The cosmopolitan interaction between the local, the national, the regional, and the global in general will be highlighted.
Learning and teaching approaches
Lectures, presentations by teacher and students, group work
Learning outcomes
Successful students can demonstrate: Successful students can demonstrate: • To convey knowledge about the connection between literature and North Atlantic landscapes (island scapes, sea scapes, water scapes etc.) • To describe different approaches to the concepts of ‘North’, ‘Blues’, ‘Imagined Geography’, (‘Ultra)minor Literatures’ • To use concepts within Literary Geography, Place Studies, and Prose Studies • To read novels with respect to connections between imaginations of North and literature • To analyze and convey connections between the novel/prose and geographical aspects • To analyze connections between literature and geography on the one hand and branding and cultural tourism on the other • Critically put the expansion and differentiation of North in a World Literary context • Critically analyze connections between literature and cosmopolitanism/cultural globalization with respect to placial chains between the local, the national, the regional, and the global
Assessment method
Take home assignment (3 weeks)
Examination
External
Bibliography
3 dissertations and 4 literary works Primer: Nordic Literature. A Comparative History. Vol. 1: Spatial nodes. Thomas A. DuBois, Dan Ringgaard, Mark B. Sandberg, and Steven P. Sondrup, Mark B. (eds.).
Contact
Bergur Rønne Moberg