Interwar Literature

Historians Inger Kaad and Martin Minka return with a four-session course on the interwar period (c. 1918-1945) - an era marked by extremes and division, but also solidarity and hope that left clear traces in literature.

Registration covers all four sessions. Venue: Pontoppidans Lounge.

First session - Tuesday 15 September at 10:00
Historian Martin Minka outlines the historical context: the interwar period as a time of social, technological, political and cultural upheaval with crises and extremes, but also experiments and significant developments in literature and art. This session provides the foundation for the subsequent literary discussions.

Second session - Tuesday 6 October at 10:00
Inger Nygaard Kaad, trained in Nordic literature, examines six artistic movements from the period - artistic responses to war trauma, urbanization, economic crises and political ideologies. Participants receive text examples and read poems together using the "Guided shared reading" method.

Third session - Tuesday 27 October at 10:00
The focus is Hans Kirk's debut novel "The Fishermen" (1928), a central example of social realism and the collective novel in interwar Denmark. The novel depicts how ideological and religious currents disrupt a traditional local community and create conflicts between community, morality and individuality. The novel is distributed at the second session - audiobook can also be arranged, let us know if desired.

Fourth session - Monday 17 November at 10:00
The course concludes with Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" (1927), one of the twentieth century's masterworks, exploring war's destruction, family relations and women's roles. The novel is distributed at the third session - audiobook can also be arranged.