Welcome to join the Nordic DINO network – Diversity in Nordic Literature!

During the last decades, the Nordic countries as well as Nordic literature, have gone through essential changes. Due to the increasing globalization and side by side with the changing developments in the politics of language and minorities, what were once relatively fixed and definable concepts – such as ‘Finnish’ and ‘Nordic’ literature – have expanded and acquired new meanings. The multicultural and multilingual society, with its changed attitudes (that often transcend former boundaries) towards such categories as sexuality and sexual identities, brings with it new problems and challenges for authors as well as scholars.

These new challenges have led to a need to form new networks and the Nordic DINO network – Diversity in Nordic Literature – was created to satisfy that need. DINO is an informal forum discussion and the aim is primarily to give scholars possibilities to discuss and develop scholarly studies about Nordic literature and diversity. The initiators of DINO are Satu Gröndahl (Uppsala University), Rita Paqvalén (Helsinki Universtity), Anne Heith (Tromsø University ) and Heidi Grönstrand (University of Turku). Since 2011, DINO is co-ordinated by Ann-Sofie Lönngren (Uppsala University).

By autumn 2011, about 120 scholars have joined the network.

Network meeting
The first network meeting was held 2-3 October, 2009, at Tvärminne Zoological Station, Finland, on the theme Aesthetic Expressions of Diversity. The thematic sections dealt with Postcolonial Perspectives on Nordic literature, Whiteness and Heteronormativity in Nordic literature, Ethnicity and Intercultural Encounters in Literature, and Multilingual Literature & Multilingual Authors. The meeting gathered 25 scholars.
See proceedings:

The second network meeting was held at the symposium Challenging Colonialism and Homogenizing Modernity: Theory, Methodology and Literary Analysis, arranged by the Border Poetics Group, Tromsø University, in cooperation with Dino, Tromsø University, 6–9 October 2010. (See: Conference Program Participants Abstracts )))

Become a member
If you want to join the network, please send an e-mail to Ann-Sofie Lönngren, ann-sofie.lonngren@littvet.uu.se

Further information
Ann-Sofie Lönngren, ann-sofie.lonngren@littvet.uu.se
Rita Paqvalén / paqvalen@mappi.helsinki.fi
Anne Heith / anne.heith@littvet.umu.se
Satu Gröndahl / e-mail
Heidi Grönstrand / heigro@utu.fi


News / Links
Call for Papers: Crossroads in Cultural Studies, Paris 2012

Tip: New no. (no. 2) of the journal Culture Unbound


Documents / Articles
Kristín Loftsdóttir, "Feminist Theory and that Critical Edge." 2011. Nora – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 19(3):198-204

Kristín Loftsdóttir, "The Country Without Racism: Multiculturalism and Colonial Identity Formations in Iceland." 2011. Social Identity: Special issue, 17(1):11-25.

"Både och, sekä että. Om flerspråkighet/Monikielisyydestä" (Red. Heidi Grönstrand ja Kristina Malmio, Schildts 2011) With Arne Nevanlinna, Alexandra Salmela, Kadriye Bedretdin, Jan Dlask, Satu Gröndahl, Heidi Grönstrand, Vuokko Hirvonen, Tintti Klapuri, Kristina Malmio, Simo Muir,Julia Tidigs, Agneta Rahikainen, Kai Åberg. See

Anne Heith, "Särskiljandets logik i en kolonial och en antikolonial diskurs: Nils-Aslak Valkeapääs Beaivi áhcázan" [The Logic of Division in a Colonial and an Anticolonial Discourse: Nils-Aslak Valkeapää's Beaivi áhcázan], Edda, 335-350. issue 4/vol. 110/2010

Satu Gröndahl, ”Identity politics and construction of 'minor' literatures: Multicultural Swedish literature at the turn of the millennium”, from Multiethnica 30 (2007), pp. 21–29 ()

Vuokko Hirvonen, ”Skärnings-punkter mellan nationalitet, etnicitet och genus: Den samiska kvinnan – medborgare i fyra länder, medlem av urbefolkning”, from Multiethnica 30 (2007), pp. 13–17. ( Swed.)

The third network meeting will be at the conference Ambiguities, alterations, alternatives – transforming identities in Nordic literature, 4-6 October 2012, at Uppsala University.

See Conference Call for Papers (pdf)

Steering committee
Satu Gröndahl Uppsala University, The Hugo Valentin Centre. Docent, Associate Professor. Research areas: Minority literature and intercultural literature in the Nordic countries, intersectionality. Current projects: Participant in ‘Kosmopolitisme, postnasjonalisme og det kulturelle selv i nyere nordisk litteratur og kultur’ [Cosmopolitism, post-nationalism and the cultural self in contemporary Nordic literature and culture], Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, Oslo University. Participant in ‘Revitalisering mot alla odds? Sydsamiska i Sverige’ [Revitalization against all odds? The South Sámi language in Sweden] (http://www.valentin.uu.se)

Heidi Grönstrand University of Turku, Finnish Literature Ph.D, researcher. Research areas:: multilingual authors, contextual literature studies, 19th century literature. Current project: Multicultural Literature, Multicultural Finland (http://www.hum.utu.fi)

Rita Paqvalén Helsinki University, The Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literature Ph.D, researcher and critic. Research areas: Nordic Literature, gender and queer theory, intersectionality. Current project: Berättad annanhet – berättad mångfald [Narrated otherness – Narrated diversity]

Anne Heith Umeå University, Dept. of Literature, Postdoctoral Scholar within Border Poetics (http://uit.no/borderpoetics). Current project: Currently working on a project with the working-title ‘Nordic Anticolonialism and Postcolonialism: Deconstructing and Reconstructing National Cultural Archives’. The project examines negotiations between majority and minority cultures and the role of language and ethnicity in regional and national cultural production. The investigation is based primarily on Tornedalian and Sami material

Co-ordinator: Ann-Sofie Lönngren, FD, Uppsala university, Department of Literature, Center of Gender Research and the Hugo Valentin Centre. Research areas: nordic literature, the literary canon, queer theory, intersektionality. Current project: since 2008 working on a project titled Embodiments of normality – transformations from human to animal in Nordic, realistic prose 1897–2008 (www.littvet.uu.se).

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