Þriðjudaginn 26. nóvember kl. 16–17 flytur Charlotte Ettrup Christiansen erindið New Landscapes: Insights from Ethnographic Fieldwork on Literary Production in Iceland í fyrirlestrasal Eddu.

Um erindi sitt segir Charlotte:

This talk will present preliminary findings from an anthropological study in Iceland. From 2023–2024, I carried out an ethnographic fieldwork, which mainly consisted of participant observation in literary events and semi-structured interviews and informal conversations with literary writers. I also carried out some collaborative experiments with different interlocutors, such as co-written poetry and reading experiments.

In tourism, nation branding, literature and visual culture, portraits of Iceland often emphasize its unique and unspoiled landscape. Such characterization can also be seen in scholarly, including anthropological, descriptions, where the nexus landscape – literature – national narrative is a recurrent theme. Taking a departure from this, this project sought to explore the role of landscapes and ’more-than-human’ elements in contemporary writers’ everyday practice.

In my fieldwork I did not encounter much talk of the ‘real’ landscapes of Iceland. Instead, the contours of three new kinds of virtual landscapes appear: an imagined landscape built in the process of writing; writing and the literary field described as a certain waterscape, with metaphors of fish and fishing; and the emotional terrain navigated in a writing life. The project “An anthropology of literature and creativity in Iceland – enchanted landscapes” (2023–2025) is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation.