Humanities - Staff

Johan Schimanski

Associate Professor

Phone (+47)
776 44231

Homepage
http://www.hum.uit.no/a/schimanski/

Office/Visit
A1007

Biographical data
1963 born in Stockholm
1968-1981 attended schools in England, Botswana, Zambia and Norway
1990 Mag. art. in literary studies, Oslo, “Falskneri som pre-romantisk trope: Iolo Morganwg 1747-1826” (Forgery as a Pre-romantic Trope: Iolo Morganwg 1747-1826)
1997 Dr. art., Oslo, “A Poetics of the Border: Nation and Genre in Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd and other texts by Islwyn Ffowc Elis”
1998 employed as Associate Professor in comparative literature at the University of Tromsø
2006 Visiting Professor of Border Studies at the Centre for Border Studies at the University of Glamorgan

Teaching
autumn 2006:
• Poetry (ALI-1130)
• Border narratives (ENG-3105, with Stephen Wolfe)
spring 2007:
• Fantastic literature and science fiction (ALI-2111/3101)

Duties/posts
• discpline contact person for general literature, autumn 2006 and Spring 2007
• project coordinator Arctic discourses, autumn 2006 and Spring 2007
• associate fellow of the Centre for Border Studies, Glamorgan University
• member of the Association for Welsh Writing in English (AWWE)
• the University of Tromsø representative in the board of the Ordkalotten Tromsø International Literature Festival
• lecturer at Ordkalotten 2005, Tromsø
• stand-in member of the Programme committee for humanities bachelor and masters programmes
• paper at the seminar "Borders and Borderlands", Corfu, Greece, September 2005
• invited discussion panel participant at the conference "Gendering Border Studies", Glamorgan, Wales, October 2005
• arrangor of the international seminar “Borders Differences Distances”, Tromsø, November 2005
• visiting professor at the Centre for Border Studies, Glamorgan University, January-April 2006, centre lecture 26 April
• arrangor of the workshop "Borders and Literature", Universitetet i Glamorgan, March 2006
• paper at the AWWE conference "Travelling to New Worlds: Immigration, Emigration and the Experience of Wales", Gregynog, Wales, april 2006
• keynote at the IASS conference "Borders in Nordic Literature ", Åbo, Finland, August 2006
• supervisor for 2 active masters students and part-supervisor for 1 doctoral student

Research
• borders and literature
• postcolonialism
• national identity and literature
• Welsh literature
• fantastic literature, science fiction
• poetry

Research Projects
• "Border Poetics". Book on borders and literature.
• Border Poetics. Project Leader, with co-operation between researchers in Tromsø, Glamorgan, Stockholm, Düsseldorf, London, Oxford and København. Applying for funding from the Norwegian Research Council.
• Arctic discourses. In leading group for project involving researchers in Tromsø, 2006-2009. Funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
• "European attitudes to the Arctic: The Austro-Hungarian Polar Expedition (1872-74) and its significance up to the present". Cooperation with Curator Ulrike Spring (Wien Museum).

Bibliography
(1999-2004 - for a list of earlier work, see here)
• ”Crying like Throwing Up: Abjection and Resistance in Caradog Prichard's Un Nos Ola Leuad”. In Postcolonialism and Cultural Resistance. Eds. Jopi Nyman & John A. Stotesbury. Joensuu 1999. 205-214. (PDF)
• ”Singing ‘Che Gelida Manina’ in Welsh: Internal and External Cultural Translation in the Future Wales of Islwyn Ffowc Elis”. Interlitteraria 5 (2000): 365-374.
• [The Halving Horizon: Postcolonialism according to Ingeborg Bachmann and Derek Walcott] ”Den halverende horisonten: Postkolonialisme ufra Ingeborg Bachmann og Derek Walcott”. Vagant 3/4 (2000): 49-59. (PDF)
• [The Literary Border: Knut Hamsun's 'The Queen of Saba'] ”Den litterære grensen: Knut Hamsuns ‘Dronningen af Saba’”. In Att forska om gränser (Researching Borders). Ed. José L. Ramírez. Stockholm 2001. 141-170. (PDF)
• [Jean Genet and the European Border] ”Jean Genet og den europeiske grensen”. In Litteratur og erfaring (Literature and Experience). Eds. Ragnhild Reinton & Irene Iversen. Oslo 2001. 149-166. (PDF)
• ”The Deperiodicized Patient: Ondaatje and the Contemporary”. In Identities and Masks: Colonial and Postcolonial Studies. Eds. Jakob Lothe, Anne Holden Rønning & Robert Young. Kristiansand 2001. 125-141. (PDF)
• [The Borders of Identity: On National Identity in Literature] ”Identitetens grenser: Om nasjonal identitet i litteraturen”. Nordlit 10 (2001): 57-78. (HTML)
• [A Turn on the River Dovey] “En vending på elfa Dyfi”. I Hilsen: En bok til Arne Melberg i anledning 60-årsdagen (Greetings: A Book for Arne Melberg on his 60th Birthday). Eds. Gruppe Oslo. Oslo: Gyldendal, 2002. 273-297. (PDF)
• ”Genre Borders in a Border Novel – Nadine Gordimer’s My Son’s Story”. In Genrer och genreproblem: teoretiska och historiska perspektiv / Genres and Their Problems: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives. Eds. Beata Agrell & Ingela Nilsson. Göteborg: Daidalos, 2003. 505-513. (PDF)
• with Ulrike Spring: "Austro-Hungarian and other Mountains in Polar Discourse". Trans 15.10 (2003). (HTML).
• [Postcolonial Travel as Return] "Postkoloniale Reise als Umkehrung" (review of Kati Stammwitz, ‘Travel Writing the Empire doesn’t imply’: Studien zum postkolonialen Reisebericht[Studies on Postcolonial Travel-Writing]). IASLonline 07.05.2004 (HTML).
• "Drums of the Babongo and the Ironies of Celtic Postcolonialism". In Postcolonial Dislocations: Travel, History, and the Ironies of Narrative. Eds. Charles I. Armstrong & Øyunn Hestetun. Oslo: Novus, 2006. 201-14.
• "Crossing and Reading: Notes towards a Theory and a Method". Nordlit 19 (2006): 41-63. (PDF)
• [Hamsun's Colonial Nonsense] "Hamsuns koloniale nonsens". Tid of rom i Hamsuns prosa (II). Eds. Even Arntzen & Henning H. Wærp. Hamarøy: Hamsun-Selskapet, 2006. 81-116.

Work in progress (feel free to read and comment!)
• The Postcolonial Border: Bessie Head’s ‘The Wind and a Boy’ - PDF

Handouts
• IASS 2006 (revised)