A new ecocritical network for Scandinavian studies is now in its foundation phase. Ecocriticism has grown rapidly in the past two decades and constitutes today a large and diverse field. Many scholars within Scandinavian studies are conducting high-quality research from an ecocritical perspective. Yet most of these scholars work unconnected from each other and currently little communication about research, teaching and publications is taking place. There is, however, a huge potential for cooperation in this area of research, and being informed about each others’ work, as well as developing and discussing ideas together would be very advantageous for everybody involved in this field.
The planned network will fill in this gap and create an active group of ecocritics connected to each other. The network’s purpose will be to facilitate and intensify international collaboration between scholars in ecocriticism (and even in the environmental humanities in a wider sense) who are working on or are interested in environmental topics related specifically to the literatures and cultures of the Nordic countries. Members of the network will not have to come from the Nordic countries themselves, they will only be expected to take an interest in ecocriticism or closely related fields such as geocriticism, posthumanism, postcolonial ecocriticism, island studies, utopian studies, maritime studies, human-animal studies, urban studies etc in relation to the study of Northern European literatures and cultures.
If sufficient interest into the network is expressed, a website will be launched where scholars can meet researchers with mutual interests and publish information about ecocritical conferences and publications. In addition, workshops and conferences will be organized at which the network’s members can meet in person, introduce their research to each other and develop ideas about ecocritical collaboration. There are even plans to launch a peer-reviewed Nordic journal of ecocriticism that will publish articles, reviews and book-reviews also about studies written in the Nordic languages. Later on, the network might even be developed further into an association.
Those who are interested in joining the network and contributing to its development are encouraged to contact Pia Maria Ahlbäck (pahlback@abo.fi), Reinhard Hennig (reinhard.hennig@miun.se), Toni Lahtinen (toni.lahtinen@uta.fi), Judith Meurer-Bongardt (judithmb@uni-bonn.de) or Juha Raipola (juha.raipola@uta.fi).
