Kaisa Kurikka

Algot Untola ja kirjoittava kone

Olli Löytty

Kukku Melkas

Kertomuksen luonto

Veli-Matti Pynttäri

Tekijyyden tekstit

Kristina Malmio

This open access collection offers a detailed mapping of recent Nordic literature and its different genres (fiction, poetry, and childrens literature) through the perspective of spatiality. Concentrating on contemporary Nordic literature, the book presents a distinctive view on the spatial turn and widens the understanding of Nordic literature outside of canonized authors. Examining literatures by Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish authors, the chapters investigate a recurrent theme of social criticism and analyze this criticism against the welfare state and power hierarchies in spatial terms. The chapters explore various narrative worlds and spacesfrom the urban to parks and forests, from textual spaces to spatial thematics, studying these spatial features in relation to the problems of late modernity.

Contemporary Nordic Literature and Spatiality

Anne Riippa

Juha Raipola

Hanna Mäkelä

Sanna Nyqvist

Kaisa Kaukiainen

Hanna Samola

Elise Nykänen

The essays in this edited volume, written in English and French, tackle the intriguing problems of fear and safety by analysing their various meanings and manifestations in literature and other narrative media. The articles bring forth new, cross-cultural interpretations on fear and safety through examining what kinds of genre-specific means of world-making narratives use to express these two affectivities. The articles also show how important it is to study these themes in order to understand challenges in times of global threats, such as the climate crisis. The main themes of the book are approached from various theoretical perspectives as related to their literary and cultural representations. Recent trends in research, such as affect and risk theory, serve as the basis for the discussion. The articles in the volume also draw from disciplines such as gender studies and trauma studies to examine the threats posed by collective fears and aggression on individuals' lives and propose ways of coping with fear. These themes are addressed also in articles analysing new adaptations of old myths that retell stories of the past. Many of the articles in the volume discuss apocalyptic and dystopian narratives that currently permeate the entire cultural landscape. Dystopian narratives do not only deal with future threats, such as totalitarianism, technocracy, or environmental disasters, but also suggest alternative ways of being and new hopes in the form of political resistance.

Narratives of fear and safety

Kaisa Kurikka

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