Queer Environments in Norwegian Fiction

Abstract:

Queer theory and ecocriticism have historically had a thorny relationship. While the former emphasizes the cultural constructedness and politically oppressive effects of concepts like “nature,” the latter insists that our inability to appreciate humans’ material interdependence with the surrounding world is a root cause of the climate crisis. 

Recently, several scholars have suggested that there is fertile ground for combining the insights of these theoretical fields. Queering ideas of the environment offers a potentially affirmative approach that enables us to envision liberatory and creative ways of understanding sexualities, environments, and human-nonhuman relations.

Building on this premise, my talk will explore how two canonized Norwegian authors use ideas of environments, gender, and sexuality to critically probe human experiences of relatedness. In two novellas featuring the same protagonist, Sigrid Undset (1882—1949) explores the (im)possibility of female same-sex desire in the interwar years, shedding new light on the Catholic author’s intriguingly ambivalent sexual-political viewpoints. Similarly, Tarjei Vesaas’ (1897—1970) novel Is-slottet depicts a fatal attraction between two young girls while critically undermining patriarchal authority. With these readings, I aim to show how coupling queer theory and ecocriticism can offer new perspectives on the literary canon.

Bio:

Per Esben Svelstad is a Professor of Norwegian at the Department of Teacher Education, NTNU in Trondheim. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with a dissertation on queer, contextual readings of the poet Åsmund Sveen. His current research focuses on the environmental humanities, especially empirical studies of how to integrate ecocritical and sustainability perspectives in the literary classroom. His latest book, Same-Sex Desire and the Environment in Norwegian Literature, 1908—1979, was published at Palgrave in 2024.