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Vortrag: Freitag, 26.06.2026

Zeit/Ort: 11:00-11:30

Ellida, the main character of Henrik Ibsen's 1888 drama "Fruen fra Havet", is often perceived as a mermaid descendant, caught between agoraphobia on land and thalassophobia during her swims in the fjords. This ambivalence stems not only from her history but from the genre. In classic literature, the sea belongs to the epic realm. In drama, however, it is absent for good reason: it would violate the unity of space by lying outside the plot on land. In Andersen's "Den lille Havfrue", the eponymous character undermines her sea origin by becoming human. The transgression follows a tragic structure, culminating in evaporation as an aerial being. I will examine "Fruen fra Havet" through the lens of "Den lille Havfrue", focusing on the genre shift. Bearing in mind Peter Szondi's statement that Ibsen's drama is modern in its 'static' and 'epic' nature, I demonstrate how the sea plays a major role in the emergence of epic drama, foregrounded by the opposite tendency of the tragic epic tale.

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Vortrag: Donnerstag, 04.06.2026

Zeit/Ort: 10:30–12:00, Universität Aarhus; Room 9: Auditorium 3, 1441-113

In 1859, H.C. Andersen wrote one of his most sinister fairy tales, "Pigen som traadte paa Brødet," about Inger and her punishments. As a child, she tortured bugs and is tortured in turn. During petrification, she must move her eyes inward and backward to gain insight. According to Bakhtin, one gains insight by "stepping outside of oneself" and seeing the world through other eyes — "relative exotopy." Inger cannot achieve this. Her hypermobile eyes expose rather than extend her view. The petrification, by contrast, manifests as inflexibility and unwillingness to change, defining her through absolute exotopy: looking behind one's own eyes, preventing any progress. Exotopy thus functions as a metaleptic optical device for describing not only the character's point of view but the narrator's. We observe a narrator observing a character observing herself — perpetual looking that makes us scrutinize the narrator's evaluations and notice unreliable, visually manipulative narration.

Vortrag: Montag, 16.03.2026

Organisiert von: Sarah Paetzke

Zeit/Ort: 12:15-12:45, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. IBZ (Kiellinie 5).

21. überregionalen Promovierendentagung der Skandinavistik

Vortrag: Donnerstag, 31.07.2025

Zeit/Ort: 14:30, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München (LMU)

H.C. Andersen Paneel an der internationalen Skandinavistik-Konferenz im Rahmen von "Peripetia" zum übergreifenden Thema Turning Points in Hans Christian Andersenʼs Fairy Tales mit einem Einzelvortrag