Book Series Aesthetics of Protestantism in Northern Europe, vol. 1

Aesthetics of Protestantism in Northern Europe

Exploring the Field

Joachim Grage, Thomas Mohnike, Lena Rohrbach (eds)

  • Pages: 260 p.
  • Size:178 x 254 mm
  • Illustrations:23 b/w, 11 col., 2 tables b/w.
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:2022

  • € 80,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
  • ISBN: 978-2-503-60160-1
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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-60161-8
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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?

BIO

Joachim Grage is professor of Scandinavian Studies at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg.

Thomas Mohnike is professor of Scandinavian Studies at the Université de Strasbourg.

Lena Rohrbach is professor of Scandinavian Studies at the Universities of Basel and Zurich.

Summary

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.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Joachim Grage, Thomas Mohnike, Lena Rohrbach, Aesthetics of Protestantism in Northern Europe. Introductory Investigations

Jürg Glauser, The Aesthetics of Protestant Rhetoric: Early Reformation Polemic in Denmark

Margrét Eggertsdóttir, The Value and Importance of Poetry in the Vernacular

Ueli Zahnd, Which Protestants? Calvinism, Crypto-Calvinism, and the Scandinavian Reformation

Lena Rohrbach, Access to the Word of God. Language, Literacy, and Religious Understanding in Protestant Faroese Tradition

Arne Bugge Amundsen, Church Architecture in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Scandinavia

Bernd Roling, Rugia Gothorum’: Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten and the Tradition of Gothicism

Anna Bohlin, Anti-Catholicism in Bremer and Topelius: Addressing the Historicity of Trans-historical Principles

Joachim Grage, Kierkegaard’s Journals as a Protestant Practice of Writing

Claudia Lindén, Ursus sacer. The Bear as Man’s Neighbour in Swedisch Nineteenth-century Fiction

Sophie Wennerscheid, Sin and Seduction: Antichrist in Danish Literature, Opera, and Film

Thomas Mohnike, Aesthetization of Faith and the Nordic Revival Movements in Scandinavian Post-World War II Literature


Giuliano D’Amico, “Rather Than Buddha’s Calm, I Choose the Crucifixion” – Håkan Sandell’s Christian Palimpsests


Joachim Schiedermair, Absence - Remnants of a Protestant Past: Greeley/Vattimo/Ask