Journeys from Scandinavia
Subtitle: travelogues of Africa, Asia, and South America, 1840-2000
By: Elisabeth Oxfeldt
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press; Univ Of Minnesota Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Minneapolis
Language: eng
Number of pages: 328
ISBN-13: 9780816656349; 9780816656356
Description: "Focusing on Danish and Norwegian travelogues, Elisabeth Oxfeldt traces the evolution of Scandinavian travel writing over two centuries using pivotal texts from each era, including works by Hans Christian Andersen, Knut Hamsun, and Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen). Oxfeldt situates each one in its historical and geopolitical context, and her close readings delineate how each travelogue reflects Scandinavia's ongoing confrontation between Self and the non-European cultural Other. A long-overdue examination of travel literature produced by some of Denmark and Norway's greatest writers, Journeys from Scandinavia unpacks the unstable constructions of Scandinavian cultural and national identity and, in doing so, complicates the common assumption of a homogeneous, hegemonic Scandinavia."--P. [4] of cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Part I. Romantic journeys to the Orient: Discovering his inner Turk: Hans Christian Andersen's commodification of the exotic; the hyphenated woman: Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann's juggling categories of gender, nation, and ethnicity; the ironic traveler: danger and identity in Knut Hamsun's Oriental travelogues; title: Part II. Modern primitive travel: savage science: Johannes V. Jensen in the Malay jungle; humor, gender, and nationality: Isak Dinesen's encounter with Africa; the traveler and the tourist: Axel Jensen's desperate frolic in the Sahara; title: Part III. Late and postmodern travel: From the personal to the universal-and back: Carsten Jensen around the world; futile journeys: parody, postmodernism, and postnationalism in Erlend Loe's traveling.