Nordic Utopias And Dystopias

Author : Pia Maria Ahlbäck
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 9027257299
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nordic Utopias and Dystopias written by Pia Maria Ahlbäck and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2022-11-24 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nordic countries have long been subject to certain idealised, even utopian imaginaries, particularly with regard to images of pristine nature and the societal ideals of democracy, equality and education. On the other hand, such projections inevitably invite dissent, irony and intimations of the utopia’s dark underside. Things may yet take, or may have already taken, a dystopic course. The present volume offers twelve contributions on utopias and dystopias in Nordic literature and culture. Geographically, the articles cover the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, as well as the autonomous area of Greenland. Through the articles’ varied subjects — ranging from avant-garde literature and long poems to noir TV-series, young adult fiction, popular historiography, and political discourse in literature outside of Norden — the volume brings forth a historically rich, multi-layered picture of social, cultural and environmental imagination in the Nordic countries. Nordic Utopias and Dystopias is thus of interest not only to specialists in dystopian and utopian research but more broadly to scholars of literature and culture, and the political and social sciences, especially but not exclusively in the Nordic context.

Author : Camilla Brudin Borg
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 1666937894
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Contemporary Ecocritical Methods written by Camilla Brudin Borg and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2024-04-30 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecocriticism has grown into one of the most innovative and urgent fields of the humanities, and many useful ecocritical approaches for addressing our environmental crisis have been developed, discussed, and reconsidered during the last decade. From various perspectives, ecocriticism both adopts and criticizes traditional analytical and theoretical models, resulting in an impressive methodological diversity, pushing the boundaries of the humanities. Contemporary Ecocritical Methods exemplifies this methodological variety and serves as a practical entry into the field. Fourteen chapters, written by scholars from various ecocritical sub-fields of environmental humanities, introduce a rich set of perspectives and their analytical tools.

Author : Kaisa Kaukiainen
Publisher : BoD - Books on Demand
ISBN 13 : 9523590154
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Narratives of fear and safety written by Kaisa Kaukiainen and published by BoD - Books on Demand. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Nima Sanandaji
Publisher : Post Hill Press
ISBN 13 : 163758041X
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Debunking Utopia written by Nima Sanandaji and published by Post Hill Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Left-leaning academics, liberal pop stars such as Bruce Springsteen, and Democrat politicians from Bernie Sanders to Bill and Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama all have one thing in common: they are avid admirers of Nordic-style social democracy. The reason is simple. At first glance, Nordic countries seem to have everything liberals want to see in America: equal income distribution, good health, low levels of poverty, and thriving economies, all co-existing with big welfare states. By copying Nordic policies, many in the American left hope to transform America to a similar socialist "utopia." In Debunking Utopia, Swedish author Nima Sanandaji explains why this is all wishful thinking. Certainly, some aspects of Nordic welfare states, such as childcare provision, merit the admiration of liberals. But overall, it is a unique culture based on hard work, healthy diets, social cohesion and high levels of trust that have made Nordic countries successful. Sanandaji explains how the Nordic people adopted this culture of success in order to survive in the unforgiving Scandinavian climate. He systematically proves that the high levels of income equality, high lifespans and other signs of social success in the Nordics all predate the expansion of the welfare state. If anything, the Nordic countries reached their peak during the mid-twentieth century, when they had low taxes and small welfare states. Perhaps most astonishing are his findings that Nordic-Americans consistently outperform their cousins who live across the ocean. People of Nordic descent who live under the American capitalist system not only enjoy higher levels of income, but also a lower level of poverty than the citizens of the Nordic countries themselves. Sanandaji's previous writings on the roots of Nordic success have gained media attention around the world and been translated into many languages. Debunking Utopia, which expands on this work, should be read by all—liberals and conservatives alike—who follow the debate over the future of American welfare. As Sanandaji shows, there is much Americans can learn from both the successes and failures of Nordic-style social democracy.

Author : Steven P. Sondrup
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 9027265054
Total Pages : 765 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nordic Literature written by Steven P. Sondrup and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 765 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nordic Literature: A comparative history is a multi-volume comparative analysis of the literature of the Nordic region. Bringing together the literature of Finland, continental Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Sápmi), and the insular region (Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands), each volume of this three-volume project adopts a new frame through which one can recognize and analyze significant clusters of literary practice. This first volume, Spatial nodes, devotes its attention to the changing literary figurations of space by Nordic writers from medieval to contemporary times. Organized around the depiction of various “scapes” and spatial practices at home and abroad, this approach to Nordic literature stretches existing notions of temporally linear, nationally centered literary history and allows questions of internal regional similarities and differences to emerge more strongly. The productive historical contingency of the “North” as a literary space becomes clear in this close analysis of its literary texts and practices.

Author : Claudia Nelson
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000984524
Total Pages : 776 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Children's Literature and Culture written by Claudia Nelson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-11-30 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on significant and cutting-edge preoccupations within children’s literature scholarship, The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature and Culture presents a comprehensive overview of print, digital, and electronic texts for children aged zero to thirteen as forms of world literature participating in a panoply of identity formations. Offering five distinct sections, this volume: Familiarizes students and beginning scholars with key concepts and methodological resources guiding contemporary inquiry into children’s literature Describes the major media formats and genres for texts expressly addressing children Considers the production, distribution, and valuing of children’s books from an assortment of historical and contemporary perspectives, highlighting context as a driver of content Maps how children’s texts have historically presumed and prescribed certain identities on the part of their readers, sometimes addressing readers who share some part of the author’s identity, sometimes seeking to educate the reader about a presumed “other,” and in recent decades increasingly foregrounding identities once lacking visibility and voice Explores the historical evolutions and trans-regional contacts and (inter)connections in the long process of the formation of global children’s literature, highlighting issues such as retranslation, transnationalism, transculturality, and new digital formats for considering cultural crossings and renegotiations in the production of children’s literature Methodically presented and contextualized, this volume is an engaging introduction to this expanding and multifaceted field.

Author : Željka Flegar
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1003835082
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Children’s Literature in Place written by Željka Flegar and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-02-29 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Children’s Literature in Place: Surveying the Landscapes of Children’s Culture is an edited collection dedicated to individual, international, and interdisciplinary considerations of the places and spaces of children’s literature, media, and culture, from content to methodology, in fictional, virtual, and material settings. This volume proposes a survey of the changing landscapes of children’s culture, the expected and unexpected spaces and places that emerge as and because of children’s culture. The places and spaces of children’s literature are varied and diverse. By making place studies a guiding principle, this book builds on the impressive body of international research on place in children’s literature, media, and culture to bring together and provide a comprehensive overview of how to study place in children’s and young adult literature. This volume provides a wide range of approaches and international perspectives of place in children’s literature, media, and culture and contributes to this growing and relevant field by showcasing various scholarly aspects and approaches to children’s literature, and the place of children’s literature in the context of international scholarship.

Author : Reinhard Hennig
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498561918
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nordic Narratives of Nature and the Environment written by Reinhard Hennig and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-07-06 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many contemporary environmental risks and global environmental changes occurring today are unprecedented in the history of human life on earth. However, the images and narratives through which humans relate to these phenomena are built on existing cultural tropes and narrative models. Cultural, social, and historical contexts strongly influence how we construct images and narratives of nature and the environment. It is therefore highly important to study such narratives in works of literature, film, and other forms of cultural expression in relation to the specific circumstances from which they arise. Nordic Narratives of Nature and the Environment is the first English language anthology that presents ecocritical research on northern European literatures and cultures. The contributors examine specifically Nordic narratives of nature and the environment, with a focus on the cultures and literatures of the modern northern European countries Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, including Sápmi, which is the land traditionally inhabited by the indigenous Sami people. Covering northern European literatures and cultures over a period of more than two centuries, this anthology provides substantial insights into both old and new narratives of nature and the environment as well as intertextual relations, the variety of cultural traditions, and current discourses connected to the Nordic environmental imagination. Case studies relating to works of literature, film, and other media shed new light on the role of culture, history and society in the formation of narratives of nature and the environment, and offer a comprehensive and multi-faceted overview of the most recent ecocritical research in Scandinavian studies.

Author : Michael A. Livingston
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 110875726X
Total Pages : 167 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Dreamworld or Dystopia? written by Michael A. Livingston and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-16 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nordic Model was originally understood as a compromise between Western and Soviet systems. The Soviet Union has been gone for a generation, but the Nordic Model survives. Much of this has to do with the Model's change from an economic to a largely cultural model. In particular the Model has come to emphasize human (especially women's) rights; environmental consciousness; and cultural innovation. While these each contain an element of fantasy, they retain sufficient substance to provide encouragement to 'progressive' circles in the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries. Important in its own right, the Nordic Model provides a fascinating case study of the transmission of goods and ideas between different regions, and the ability of a small and out of the way region to maintain its own identity in a globalized world.

Author : Anu Koivunen
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429640277
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Nordic Economic, Social and Political Model written by Anu Koivunen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-04-22 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nordic Model is the 20th-century Scandinavian recipe for combining stable democracies, individual freedom, economic growth and comprehensive systems for social security. But what happens when Sweden and Finland – two countries topping global indexes for competitiveness, productivity, growth, quality of life, prosperity, and equality – start doubting themselves and their future? Is the Nordic Model at a crossroads? Historically, consensus, continuity, social cohesion, and broad social trust have been hailed as key components for the success and for the self-images of Sweden and Finland. In the contemporary, however, political debates in both countries are increasingly focused on risks, threats, and worry. Social disintegration, political polarization, geopolitical anxieties, and threat of terrorism are often dominant themes. This book focuses on what appears to be a paradox: countries with low income differences, high faith in social institutions, and relatively high cultural homogeneity becoming fixated on the fear of polarization, disintegration, and diminished social trust. Unpacking the presentist discourse of "worry" and a sense of interregnum at the face of geopolitical tensions, digitalization, and globalization, as well as challenges to democracy, the chapters take steps back in time and explore the current conjecture through the eyes of historians and social scientists, addressing key aspects of and challenges to both the contemporary and future Nordic Model. In addition, the functioning and efficacy of the participatory democracy and current protocols of decision-making are debated. This work is essential reading for students and scholars of the welfare state, social reforms, and populism, as well as Nordic and Scandinavian studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.