Bøger af Elisabeth Oxfeldt

Cultural differences are often the trigger for conflict – whether politically motivated or arising from dissonant understandings of national culture. But what we regard as distinctive today in our cultural heritage or day-to-day cultural experience is deeply rooted in the rich diversity of the national currents of the nineteenth century. Culture and Conflict: Nation-Building in Denmark and Scandinavia, 1800–1930 explores the many strands of Danish and Scandinavian culture that helped to shape these cultural identities.The sixteen contributions in this volume analyse how competing national agendas influenced the development of political life as well as literature, the visual arts, and music. A central theme is the cultural conflicts that formed an essential part of nineteenth-century nation-building. Culturally as well as politically, boundaries were drawn up, ideologies were formulated and discussed, and determined attempts were made to suppress divergent cultural voices in the drive to forge strong national or Scandinavian narratives. The results of these conflicts were the enduring cultural struggles that form the subject of this volume.The contributions at hand, by scholars from Denmark, Britain, Norway, the United States, and Germany, bring a broad and interdisciplinary perspective to bear on these distinctively Nordic themes. Aimed both at students and at established scholars, the chapters discuss the many facets of nationalism, its cultures, and its countercultures, as well as revisiting the historiography of the 1800–1930 period with a more pluralistic approach.

For all of the scholarship done on postcolonial literatures, little has been applied to Scandinavian writing. Yet, beginning with the onset of tourism beyond Scandinavia in the 1840s, a compelling body of prose works documents Scandinavian attitudes toward foreign countries and further shows how these Scandinavian travelers sought to portray themselves to uncharted cultures.

»Aladdin er Udgangspunktet for nyere dansk Aandsliv, Grundstenen, over hvilken den Bygning er opført, som udgør dansk Litteratur i dette Aarhundredes første Halvdel.«Sådan skrev Georg Brandes om Adam Oehlenschlägers Aladdin i 1886. Brandes´ citat peger på i hvor høj grad, den orientalske forestillingsverden fik betydning for kunsten, åndslivet og dannelsen af national identitet i det 19. århundredes Danmark og Norge. I Nordic Orientalism behandler Elisabeth Oxfeldt billedet af Orienten inden for en bred kulturel kontekst, men fokuserer på forfatterskaber, der udgør en essentiel del af den nordiske kulturelle arv: Oehlenschläger, H.C. Andersen, Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun m.fl. Orienten stod dog ikke for det samme hos hver enkelt forfatter. Bogen er inddelt i fire kapitler, der behandler, hvordan den nordiske orientalisme udviklede sig i tråd med århundredets modernisering og tiltagende kontakt med ´ægte´ orientalere.