About the research group
In our research, we analyse how literature engages with matters of societal relevance, how such matters influence literary production, and how literature, in turn, shapes societies and cultures. The focus of our research is therefore twofold.
On the one hand, our research contributes knowledge that helps us to understand how complex societal processes that are informed by political, economic, religious, environmental, historical and sociocultural factors transform societies and affect individual realities in specific and diverse geocultural contexts.
On the other hand, we investigate how different aspects of literary production, including creativity, literary genres, literary histories, literary circulation, literary markets and translations, shape and are shaped by sociocultural circumstances.
Research in literatures in eleven languages
Forming our group are researchers in literature from eleven languages, namely Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. One of the distinctive features of our group is that our research not only covers a very diverse range of literary and geocultural contexts, but is also characterised by close collaboration. This has produced solid and extensive research informed by methodological and theoretical perspectives that foster the study of how literatures and sociocultural narratives are transformed through cross-cultural interaction.
We actively develop research collaborations and outreach activities that contribute to the dissemination of knowledge about the role of literature in society.
Research clusters
Our research clusters have been formed through collaboration within the research group and highlight specific areas where we can demonstrate our expertise. They also serve to foster collaboration nationally and internationally in these research areas, which are often of particular interest to society. These clusters aim to foster a dynamic research environment through research activities that build on collaboration, including publications (peer-reviewed), workshops, lecture series, and joint research projects.
Migration, narratives and identities
Our research focuses on how literary texts engage with social and individual transformations that are affected by migration processes and how these, in turn, redefine national literatures and literary forms of expression. We analyse definitions of home and belonging, forced migration and refugee narratives, testimonial migration narratives, financial crises and migration. We also explore the role of emotions in sociocultural and literary narratives of migration.
As part of our research activities, we have participated in a series of workshops on “Temporalities and Subjectivities of Crossing: Contemporary Public Migration Narratives in Europe” funded by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS) for the period 2019-2020 (extended until 2022). This project was led by Professor Johan Schimanski and included researchers from Universitetet i Oslo, Universitetet för Västra Finland and Dalarna University.
Utopian and dystopian literary studies
This group conducts research on utopian and dystopian literature from a historical and cultural perspective. The group is notable for its intercultural and comparative approach and brings together researchers from Russian, German, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese and English language literature. We meet regularly to discuss utopian and dystopian works as well as the research in the field of literary studies that relates to these texts.
Many of our researchers have taken part in international conferences whose focus is dystopian studies; they have also published academic work within this discipline. The group works on an ongoing basis to establish and further collaborations with international research environments, and has also organised lectures as part of an open lecture series.
Children’s and young adult literature
The research activities revolve around children's and young adult literature, with a particular focus on how themes and styles vary across various linguistic and cultural contexts. Together as well as in individual projects, the research group explores issues related to (post-)migration, power critique, and loss and identity, as well as how various life stages and problem areas are portrayed in children's and young adult literature.
Several ongoing projects take their theoretical starting point in disability studies and examine, among other things, how neurodiversity - such as autism - is represented in young adult novels. The analysis focuses on multiple perspectives, among them perception, societal conceptions, and the experiences of family members. Other current research focuses on ecocriticism and environmental aspects.
In addition to literary studies, the cluster also conducts research in literature didactics with a particular specialisation in the needs of teacher education. The researchers in the group have also examined translation practices in children’s literature.
Literature and gender
Our research focuses on how literary texts from different countries and eras engage with questions of gender, gendered identity formation, and the construction and deconstruction of the understanding of gender in societies. We analyse literature and the reception and dissemination of literature through the lens of postcolonial, feminist, queer, and masculinity theories. In the framework of the two-year MA programme in Intercultural Literary Studies, the researchers are responsible for the course titled Literature and Gender: Theory and Criticism.
Activities and collaborations
Publications
As part of the collaborative projects led by the group, several collections of essays have been published:
- Transcultural Identities in Contemporary Literature. Eds. Irene Gilsenan Nordin, Julie Hansen and Carmen Zamorano Llena (Rodopi, 2013)
- Transcultural Identity Constructions in a Changing World. Eds. Irene Gilsenan Nordin, Chatarina Edfeldt, Lung-Lung Hu, Herbert Jonsson, and André Leblanc (Peter Lang, 2015)
- Narratives Crossing Borders: The Dynamics of Cultural Interaction. Eds. Herbert Jonsson, Lovisa Berg, Chatarina Edfeldt and Bo G. Jansson. (Stockholm UP, 2021)
Open lecture series
The main aim of our research group’s open lecture series is to provide an open forum for focused discussion of research with national and international expert scholars on topics of scholarly and sociocultural interest. Each LiS open lecture series extends over the course of a year and is proposed and coordinated by several group members whose research relates to the proposed theme.
- 2022/2023 – “Literature in Times of Crisis” - coordinated by Carmen Zamorano Llena and Lovisa Berg.
- 2023/2024 - Dystopian and Utopian Literatures (forthcoming)
- Barnita Bagchi, Chair and Professor in World Literatures in English at the University of Amsterdam: “Decolonizing the Mind: Utopian and Dystopian Fiction Entangled with South Asia, c. 1900 to Contemporary Times”.
June 3, 2024 - Anna Specchio, Senior Research/Assistant Professor, University of Turin: “The (Un)Disciplined body: Surveillance and Resistance in Murata Sayakas
Satsukin shussan and Shōmetsu sekai”.
September 27, 2024 - Patricia McManus, Assistant Professor in English Literature, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman: “Fictions of the Future, Fictions of the End: Dystopia in the Twenty-First Century”.
February 28, 2025 - 2025 “Gender in Literary Perspectives” (arrangör: klustret litteratur och genus)
- César Braga-Pinto - George F. Appel Professor in the Humanities, Northwestern U. USA: “The holy trinity of Queer Brazilian Writers: Raul Pompeia, João do Rio, Mário de Andrade”.
November 3, 2025 - Nesma Elsakaan, Assistant professor in Arabic Language and Literature, Università degli Studi di Palermo: “Women´s Words, Women´s Images. Turning a Hashtag into Feminist Graphic Narratives”, December 15, 2025
Collaboration with the public Library in Falun and Litteraturens Hus Dalarna
Since its inception in 2016, the Literatures in Society (LiS) group has organised seminars and lectures in collaboration with Falun's public library and Litteraturens Hus Dalarna (LHD). In 2022, this collaboration expanded to include an open lecture each semester that aimed to promote international literary research at Dalarna University.
Our collaboration with the library and Litteraturens Hus Dalarna has also included several events attended by authors. In May 2024, LiS organised an event with LHD and Alliance Française Falun with the journalist and author Anna Franklin about her book Fransk vår (2023). More recently, LiS organised an event in recognition of the publication of the Swedish translation of the collection of poetry titled "The Sun Is Open" (2021) by Northern Irish poet Gail McConnell. The event included a reading and a lecture, as well as a conversation with Gail McConnell and the Swedish translator Henrik C. Enbohm about the collection, which has the translated title "Solen står på glänt" (Rasmus Förlag) (2025).
Lectures in collaboration with the public library in Falun and Litteraturens Hus Dalarna:
”Dystopian narrative and modern Arabic literature”, Barbara Bakker Stors (2022)
”Tyskspråkig litteratur i skuggan av pandemin” Maren Eckart (2022),
”John Lanchester’s novel ’The Wall’ and British Dystopian Fiction” David Gray (2023).
”Haikupoesi: Mitsuhashi Takajo (1899-1972)” Herbert Jonsson (2023)
”Japanska mangaserier: Shojo Manga” Hiroko Inose (2024)
”Kung Arthur och hans riddare: en mångfacetterad berättelse” Kristina Hildebrand (2024)
”Hur ska vi göra med den ryska litteraturen?” Kostia Andreev (Konstantin Zarubin) (2025)