0000000000284357
AUTHOR
Unni Langås
showing 12 related works from this author
Om å bære dødens tyngde – Fotografier og visuelle fortellestrategier i Gaute Heivolls roman Himmelarkivet
2012
Author's version of an article in the journal: Edda. Also available from the publisher at: http://www.idunn.no/ts/edda/2012/02/om_aa_baere_doedens_tyngde_-_fotografier_og_visuelle_fortelles Himmelarkivet (2008) by Gaute Heivoll is part of an international trend of fiction concerned with traumatic events from World War II reflecting on the question of how these events should be described and understood. One main narrative device in the work is the use of image-related elements, and the goal of this article is to interpret their significance and effect. On the one hand, the argument is that they work as documents confirming the authenticity of the narrative and, on the other, that these visua…
Urban Space and Gender Performativity in Knut Hamsun’s Hunger and Cora Sandel’s Alberta and Freedom
2018
In this article, I discuss the combination of city life and gender performativity in two Norwegian classics, Knut Hamsun’s Hunger (2016) [Sult, 1890] and Cora Sandel’s Alberta and Freedom (1984) [Alberte og friheten, 1931]. These are modernist novels depicting lonely human subjects in an urban space, the first one featuring a man in Kristiania (now Oslo) in the 1880s, the second one a woman and her female acquaintances in Paris in the 1920s. I interpret and compare the two novels by focusing on their intertwined construction of gender performativity and urban space. Gender norms of the city life are critical premises for how the subjects manage to negotiate with different options and obstac…
Terrorizing Images and Traumatic Anticipation in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours
2020
Unni Langås’s chapter is a reading of The Hours (1998), which echoes not only Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925), but also Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920). From Woolf’s post-WWI novel, Cunningham picks up the motif of trauma-ridden suicide and re-inscribes it into the character of an HIV-positive author at the end of the twentieth century. Cunningham repeats the idea of trauma as a return of images in individuals, but his novel is also a repetition of images, understood as ekphrastic descriptions and intertextual dialogue with literary references. Langås’s reading emphasizes how the acute crisis of the novel’s AIDS context turns the haunting images of the past into t…
"22. juli." Litterære konstruksjoner av et nasjonalt traume.
2016
Following the right wing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik’s terrorist attacks on Norway, July 22, 2011, we observe an instant need for literature. These literary responses may be grouped into four main stages. The first is dominated by a collective use of canonical lyrical texts, sung and performed at public ceremonies and funerals. In the second stage, professional authors write and publish newly written poems in newspapers and on the net addressing the grief and the acute call for words in this shocking situation. The third stage represents a short distance response, including the anthology Respons 22 / 7, where authors publish poems and essays as an immediate reaction to the catastrophe. I…
Det indeksikalske bildet. Erindringsspor i Tua Forsströms diktsamling En kväll i oktober rodde jag ut på sjön.
2016
Artikkelen gir en tolkning av Tua Forsströms diktsamling En kväll i oktober rodde jag ut på sjön fra 2012. Den handler om noe eller noen som er blitt borte, og om minnene om noe som ikke lenger er sansbart til stede. Erindringens spor står i forgrunnen for og motiverer en analyse som legger vekt på det jeg kaller «indeksikalsk bilde». Dette blir for det første forstått som en Peirce-inspirert retorisk figur basert på kausalitet, det vil si at det foreligger et årsak−virkning-forhold mellom tegnet og det betegnede. For det andre er det en Nietzsche-inspirert tankestruktur basert på ideen om den kronologiske omdreining, det vil si at vi ser virkningen før vi vet årsaken eller kilden. Argument…
Between Experience and Representation : Intimacy and Identity in Texts by Vita Andersen and Marion Hagen
2009
Accepted version of an article published in the journal: Scandinavian Studies The article discusses the concepts of postmodern intimacy and identity in two Scandinavian texts. The short story collection "Hold Kæft og vær smuk" or "Shut Up and Be Lovely" by Vita Andersen and the novel "Akt" or "Nude" by Marion Hagen are discussed. The two books are compared in terms of their characters' experiences in a media and consumer society. The relationship of their personal experiences to the media representation of intimacy and identity is discussed in the context of theoretical phenomenology. The verbal structure in classical rhetoric which is called chiasm or chiasmus is mentioned.
Fanget av fortid : tre traumefortellinger av Jon Fosse
2013
Author's version of an article in the journal: Edda. Nordisk tidsskrift for litteraturforskning. Also available from the publisher at: http://www.idunn.no/ts/edda/2013/03/fanget_i_fortid_-_tre_traumefortellinger_av_jon_fosse Focusing on three narratives by Jon Fosse, Naustet (1989), Det er Ales (2004) and Olavs draumar (2012), I argue that a main theme in his work is a recurring concern with human responses to critical experiences of the past. Fosse’s characters often suffer from intrusive images and traumatic memories of shocking and disastrous events, thus being exposed to frequent re-enactments that impair their ability to live normal lives in the present. However, the narrative form is …
Dialogues in poetry: an essay on Eldrid Lunden
2010
Published version of a monography from the publisher Alvheim & Eide. Poetry translations by Annabelle Despard
Nærhed på afstand hos Hanne Ørstavik
2017
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Arkivet som kunstnerisk konsept. Monica Aasprongs Soldatmarkedet.
2017
The Archive as an Artistic Concept. Monica Aasprong's Soldatmarkedet (Soldiers' Market). Nivå1
'Du torkar pannan med en ros och rekommenderar dess törnen.' Nordisk blomsterdiktning på 2000-tallet
2012
Author's version of a chapter in the book: Poesi postmillennium : Lyrikk i første tiåret av 2000-talet. Artikkelen handler om hvordan behov for systematikk er uttrykt i dikt med blomstermotiv hos Pia Paulina Nykänen, Fredrik Nyberg og Øyvind Rimbereid. Diktsamlingene tolkes i lys av botanikkens systematiseringsarbeid og Inger Christensens samling alfabet og hennes tenkning omkring strukturslektskap mellom planteliv og språklig ytring.
Trauma fiction and media images in two Norwegian novels.
2016
Described images may have a number of meanings and functions in a novel. In trauma fiction, narrated images have traditionally often been photographs, and much of the theoretical discussion deals with this text-photo combination. Also my own reflections in the following take the photo-describing narrative as their point of departure, but developments in media and communication technology have changed the situation thereby allowing new and different questions to be addressed. In this article, I will start out with a brief presentation of some approaches to trauma and photography, before I make concentrated analyses of two Norwegian novels, which incorporate descriptions of media images in th…