08 December 2022
The history and cultures of the Nordic countries are strongly influenced by Protestantism, which has been the dominant religion in Scandinavia since the Reformation. But how is this influence reflected aesthetically? What effects has Protestantism had, from its inception until the present day, on the production and reception of literature and art?
This book explores the aesthetic consequences of Protestantism in Scandinavia. Fourteen case studies from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century discuss five abstract and trans-historical principles that characterize Scandinavian aesthetics and that arguably derive from Protestant thinking and practice, namely: simplicity, logocentrism, tension between pronounced individualism and collectivism, relatedness to the world, and ethics. The contributions address the peculiar aesthetics of Scandinavian print, literature, architecture, film, and opera and reflect on the influence of Protestant traditions on the establishment of genres and writing practices.
This volume is the first in a new series that will focus on the aesthetics of Protestantism in Scandinavia, both theoretically and through exemplary individual analyses.
Edited by Joachim Grage, Thomas Mohnike , Lena Rohrbach.
Contributions: Joachim Grage, Thomas Mohnike, Lena Rohrbach, Jürg Glauser (Basel/Zürich), Margét Eggertsdóttir (Reykjavik), Ueli Zahnd (Geneva), Lena Rohrbach (Basel/Zürich), Arne Bugge Amundsen (Oslo), Bernd Roling (Berlin), Anna Bohlin (Stockholm), Joachim Grage (Freiburg), Claudia Lindén (Stockholm), Søren Blak Hjortshøj (Strasbourg), Sophie Wennerscheid (Copenhagen), Thomas Mohnike (Strasbourg), Giuliano D’Amico (Oslo), Joachim Schiedermair (München).
