Nordic Contributions

This year's Nordic contributions focus mostly on prose fiction of the 20th and 21st centuries. Finnish scholarship emphasizes ethnic literatures and concentrates solely on prose. The Swedish contributions range from questions of literary influence to ethical criticism and masculinity studies. Norwegian scholarship covers ethnic literature, Southern crime fiction, and comics, and the Danish contributions range from contemporary poetry to immigrant literature, postmodern writers, and a continuous strong focus on Southern fiction.

a. Fiction to the Mid-20th Century

Orm Øverland's "American but Not English: Immigrant Literature in the United States," pp. 767-99 in E. A. Stetsenko and M. M. Koreneva, eds., Literature at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, vol. 5, History of the Literature of the USA (Literatura nachala 20, vol. 5, Istoria literatury USA) (Moscow: Institute of World Literature, Russian Academy of Science), takes its point of departure from the widespread tendency to assume that American literature comprises only literature written in the English language. For example, Øverland notes, American novels written in French are characterized by libraries and literary histories as French literature published abroad. This system reflects a static view of culture and is particularly problematic for an immigrant nation like the United States. In an overview of Norwegian American authors Øverland points to the specific problem immigrant authors faced in gaining inclusion into the wider American literary culture. Even though authors such as Dorthea Dahl and Johannes B. Wist were prominent writers to the growing circle of Norwegian American immigrants, the powerful publishing industries in New York ignored expression in languages other than English. Moreover, these immigrants were also isolated from the Norwegian literary establishment back home. Although written in languages other than English, these are the stories of those who experienced life in the "melting pot" firsthand.

Clara Juncker's "John Dos Passos in Spain" (Miscelanea 42: 91-103) considers Dos Passos's Spanish books Rosinante to the Road Again and Journeys Between Wars as well as his collaboration with Ernest Hemingway. Juncker highlights the "aesthetic ramifications of [Dos Passos's] Spanish experiences." She argues that Spain became "a testing ground for aesthetic experiments, as the young author searche[d] for techniques to articulate his resistance to American systems and narratives." The lack of unity and organization that Dos Passos discerned in Spain supported his artistic vision. Ultimately, Dos Passos found his art, his manhood, and his politics there. Both books "portray Spain through fragmentation, variety and multiplicity and support both formally and thematically an individualist, even anarchist vision of the country." However, Dos Passos's vision is complicated by his quest for a Spanish essence, which suggests "the conservative anarchism of his political stance."

b. Fiction from Midcentury to the Present

In "Direct and Indirect Influence: The Impact of the American Short Story on Swedish Literature" (AmStScan 42, ii: 21-36) Rolf Lundén points out that as a genre the short story does not hold a strong position in Sweden. The article examines two "peak periods" during the last century when the short story experienced an unusual amount of popularity and critical attention, the 1940s and the period 1994-2002. Establishing a distinction between direct and indirect influence, Lundén then argues convincingly that the two main influences—in both direct and indirect form—on the Swedish short story during these periods were Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver. Hemingway was particularly influential because he had an impact on the Swedish scene during both periods. However, many Swedish writers in the 1990s, Lundén observes, seemed not to have been aware of the 1940s indirect influence from Hemingway and other American writers.

Pekka Kilpeläinen's well-researched study In Search of a Postcategorical Utopia: James Baldwin and the Politics of "Race" and Sexuality (Joensuu: University of Eastern Finland) represents the current renewed interest in the works of James Baldwin. By using an elaborate theoretical framework based on Fredric Jameson's theory of the political unconscious, Kilpeläinen presents detailed readings of the idea of utopia in three novels: Go Tell It on the Mountain, Tell Me How Long the Train...