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FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren

ImagiNation. Mapping the Imagined Geographies of Norwegian Literature from 1814 to 1905

Alternative title: ImagiNasjon. En kartlegging av forestilte geografier i norsk litteratur fra 1814 til 1905

Awarded: NOK 11.9 mill.

Imagine a digital map of the world visualizing all the places, countries, and regions mentioned from year to year in Norwegian literature between 1814 and 1905. Which contours of Norway and the world would emerge? And how can such a digital literary geography renew research and teaching of Norwegian literary history? That is what we aim to find out in this project. The project will map the "imagined geographies" of Norwegian literature between 1814 and 1905. By imagined geographies we simply mean literary descriptions of space and place. Such descriptions are not neutral, but situated in historical and political contexts. Since the National library of Norway has digitized its entire collection of books, we can now use digital tools to map the geographical attention of authors from a birds-eye view. The project will use digital tools to systematize placenames from an archive of some 20 000 books published from the year of the Norwegian constitution to the year of Norway’s national independence. Our goal is to “dig out” a hidden geography from the archive; to identify which conflicts and stereotypes it refers to; and to find out which function it may have had in literary history. We will try to identify the historical forces that drove literature’s geographical orientation throughout this period; but we shall also develop a new approach to literary history education in schools, where digital maps and perspectives of literary geography will form exploratory and interdisciplinary teaching strategies. ImagiNation shall deliver new knowledge of how Norway and the world was depicted in 19th century literature; a new theoretical and methodological framework for literary history education; and a new infrastructure for digital humanities in Norway. Overall, the project will deliver digital, pedagogical and critical tools to educate pupils and teachers with historical knowledge and critical awareness of how cultural expressions create social realities. So far, activities and results include: - making a corpus with ca. 23 000 digitized books from the period 1814-1905. For the first time it is now possible to conduct quantitative genre- and subject-specific investigations of the National Library's digitized collection of 19th century literature. The corpus can be found under "Products" on our website: https://www.ntnu.edu/isl/imagination. - re-OCR of the entire above-mentioned corpus, making our corpus one of the best 19th century digitized book collections in the world. - Case studies in literary history didactics and literary geography. Two articles published by Tatjana Kielland Samoilow (https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/6375) and Janicke S. Kaasa & Marit Sjelmos (https://www.idunn.no/doi/10.18261/agora.40.2-3.7). - We have explored the didactical potential of literary maps with L1 teachers from all over Trøndelag. - Arranged a panel on literary geographies on the international geography conference, NGM 2022 in Joensuu, Finland (https://www.ngm2022.fi/). - Arranged the international conference NORLIT 2021, Literature and Space, at NTNU (https://www.ntnu.edu/norlit2021/norlit2021). - Presented the project internationally on several occations - Employed two new PhD students, Benjamin August Barkved and Hanna Malene Lindberg. 2023 har også vært et år viet til produksjon av vitenskapelige publikasjoner. Samoilow har publisert artikkelen "Kart- og stedstegning som litterær respons" i Nordic journal of literacy research, og vi har i skrivende stund en større rapport, samt to artikler inne til fagfellevurdering. Disse vil registreres i neste rapport.

ImagiNation will renew our understanding of literature and nationbuilding through a fundamental reassessment of how 19th century writers imagined the nation and the world that they inhabited. The project will visually map and critically examine descriptions of geographical space in the National Library’s archive of digitized literature from 1814–1905. This period marks the parallel rise of the Norwegian nation state with modern literature, globalization, and new means of communication. The National Library of Norway has digitized its complete collection of books, and Norway is the first country in the world to have its entire written cultural heritage digitally available. The archive holds 21 233 books from the period, including some 3000 translated titles that have never been accounted for. With this unique resource, ImagiNation will comprehensively study the imagined geographies of Norwegian literature throughout a period of intense national consolidation. The project assembles an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers to answer the following research questions: What do the imagined geographies of Norwegian literature look like from 1814–1905? Which historical impulses informed the geographical attention of writers throughout this period? How have imagined geographies from the period’s literature been passed on and informed processes of national identity production in Norway? How can literary geographical teaching strategies benefit our students’ understanding of and identification with our written cultural heritage? Our main hypothesis is that Norwegian literature was more internationally oriented than what conventional literary history has been able to grasp and willing to admit, and that research and teaching of our national literary history must be revised accordingly. ImagiNation commences such revision with historiographical and educational practices that are adequate to our globalized and digital present.

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FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren