Knut Hamsun and the Hamsun jubilee 2009 in (inter)national discourse (working title)
This dissertation project deals with the (inter)national media debate surrounding the anniversary celebrations in honor of the 150th birthday of the Norwegian Nobel Prize winner for literature Knut Hamsun, who sympathized with the German National Socialists during World War II and again - even 60 years after his death - became the focus of the (inter)national press because of his political stance. That the debate about Knut Hamsun has not lost its explosiveness until today is among other things due to the fact that it is closely linked to current identity discourses, discussions about the post-war and contemporary history of Norway as well as about strategies of a modern, contemporary (European) culture of remembrance. Thus, in the age of a changing Europe, the anniversary celebrations in honor of the controversial author Knut Hamsun stand in the field of tension between (inter)national coming to terms with the past and national search for identity. These discourse ramifications and dynamics need to be examined, and thus this dissertation project intervenes in these debates relevant to the transnational public sphere from a Scandinavian perspective.
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Susanne Kramarz-Bein, Prof. Dr. Cornelia Blasberg, and Prof. Dr. Silke van Dyk.