Heidi Hansson - Böcker

As a setting for juvenile literature, the Arctic has traditionally been a space for adventure, the exotic and the fantastic. More recent works have used the Arctic setting to explore a dystopian future, often related to climate change. The aim of the present volume is to examine themes in Arctic juvenile fiction from the early nineteenth century until today. The deceptive image of the Arctic as geographically uniform seems to promise a cultural coherence, but the collection illustrates the diversity of Arctic literature by critically discussing and comparing works written by visitors and settlers as well as by indigenous peoples. The chapters combine macro- and micro-perspectives to interrogate and illuminate the role of Arctic literature for young readers in creating, maintaining and increasingly challenging Arctic myths and motifs.

As a setting for juvenile literature, the Arctic has traditionally been a space for adventure, the exotic and the fantastic. More recent works have used the Arctic setting to explore a dystopian future, often related to climate change. The aim of the present volume is to examine themes in Arctic juvenile fiction from the early nineteenth century until today. The deceptive image of the Arctic as geographically uniform seems to promise a cultural coherence, but the collection illustrates the diversity of Arctic literature by critically discussing and comparing works written by visitors and settlers as well as by indigenous peoples. The chapters combine macro- and micro-perspectives to interrogate and illuminate the role of Arctic literature for young readers in creating, maintaining and increasingly challenging Arctic myths and motifs.

Ireland and the North is an edited collection of chapters engaging with the relationship between Ireland and the Nordic countries. As a spatial and geographical point of reference for the formation of political and cultural identities in Ireland, the idea of «the North» encourages the identification of overlooked connections between Ireland and the Nordic countries, which, like Ireland, are also small nation states on the periphery of Europe. Importantly, the book employs a double conceptualisation of «the North» to include Northern Ireland. Moving beyond the nation state as a key framework for analysis of human activity, this collection engages with the transnational and transcultural in a mapping of connectivity and exchange. Relationships explored are imaginary and material exchanges, civic and personal linkages, literary adaptation and appropriation, transfers of cultural artefacts, political institutions and ideas. Chapters are drawn from a wide-ranging field of study that includes art history, literary history and theory, archaeology, antiquarianism, and media studies in addition to political analysis. With three sections on Material Culture, Political Culture and Print Culture, the book moves beyond the predominant literary paradigm in Irish Studies to make a significant contribution to expanding and developing the field.

The eruption of rural distress in Ireland and the foundation of the Land League in 1879 sparked a number of novels, stories and plays forming an immediate response to what became known as the Irish Land war. These works form a literary genre of their own and illuminate both the historical events themselves and the material conditions of reading and writing in late nineteenth-century Ireland. Divisions into ‘us’ and ‘them’ were convenient for political reasons, but the fiction of the period frequently modifies this alignment and draws attention to the complexity of the land problem. This collection includes studies of canonical land war novels, publication channels, collaborations between artists and authors, literary conventions and the interplay between personal experience and literary output. It also includes unique resources such as a reprinted letter by the author Mary Anne Sadlier and a reproduction of Rosa Mulholland’s little-known play Our Boycotting. The book concludes with a detailed bibliography of land war fiction between 1879 and 1916, which should inspire further reading and research into the genre.

Vad är det som är så speciellt med värmlänningar? Varför finns det så många föreställningar om deras egenart och är de verkligen så olika närkingar, skåningar och jämtar? Vad gör Värmland till "en krona bland Svea rikes länder"? När skapas Värmland och hur har föreställningarna om det värmländska förändrats genom historien?En grupp forskare från universiteten i Karlstad, Lund och Umeå försöker i denna bok att ge svar på frågorna. I en rad fristående uppsatser behandlas bl.a. det medeltida Värmlands byar och borgar, landskapets historieskrivare och dess mer eller mindre kända författare, de tidiga reseskildringarnas och landshövdingeberättelsernas Värmlandsbilder samt den okända historien om 1920-talets Radio Värmland.