'At dead of night' Abo Rasul's Macht und Rebel as dystopia and story of honour

The novel is read as a literary dystopia and an honour narrative by suggesting that the misanthropy in the novel and the Marcussian repressive tolerance of the welfare state, are dystopian expressions of the lack of traditional honour culture. The novel tries to oppose this by its main plot: the depiction of the two protagonists’ radical and rebellious resistance work. This is seen as a utopian initiative, promoted by the need to revitalise a kind of traditional honour culture

Literature and Honour

What is honour, and how does it affect our lives? In contemporary Western cultures, honour seems to have lost its dominant role as a key concept for denoting central dynamics of human life, both individually and socially. In the Scandinavian countries, a slow revolution has taken place throughout history from the strong Norse honour culture to the post-war egalitarian and equality-oriented welfare society which appears to be an after-honour culture. What are the reasons for this weakening, and what are its consequences? Are we living with new forms of honour, and what does it mean to live in an after-honour culture? The focal point and chief target of the discussions is literature, primarily Scandinavian, but also other textual expressions. The book is aimed at readers interested in literature, but the topic is interdisciplinary and should therefore appeal to a wider audience. This volume emanates from the project After Honour, initiated by the research group Literature and Affect at Institute of Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo. The 15 articles are written by scholars from Norway, Denmark and Iceland: Per Thomas Andersen, Aasta Marie Bjorvand Bjørkøy, Mads B. Claudi, Johanne Walle Jomisko de Figueiredo, Jon Gunnar Jørgensen, Anne-Marie Mai, Thorstein Norheim, Nasim Karim, Jan Erik Rekdal, Peter Simonsen, Simen Syvertsen, Cecilie Takle, Torfi H. Tulinius and Mikkel Bruun Zangenberg

1 The concept of honour and honour narratives

This article gives an introduction to the concept of honour, which is explored theoretically, with references to the most prominent researchers in the field, as well as historically, in order to reveal the concept’s main transformations in Scandinavian culture. In addition, the article gives a short introduction to the rest of the articles in the book

Literature and Honour

The articles included in this volume emanate from the project After Honour, initiated by the research group Literature and Affect, Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, at the University of Oslo. The following 15 articles are written by scholars from Norway, Denmark and Iceland. In May 2015, the research group arranged a kick-off workshop, and during the autumn we organized two seminars, each followed by workshop: ‘Honour, war and violence in literature’ (25 September), and ‘The welfare state and the fall of honour groups’ (20 November). In Spring 2016, the Master’ course NOR4460 Literature and honour was a part of the teaching portfolio at the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies. It was led by Thorstein Norheim, and several of the contributors to this volume, and research group members, contributed with lectures. The course generated several Master’s theses related to the honour concept. In August 2016, Cecilie Takle initiated her Ph.D.-project, ‘Honor Codes in Contemporary Scandinavian Fantasy Literature for Children and Young Adults’. We would like to thank the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Oslo for the financial support, which helped us to initiate the research group and work out the research project. We are particularly grateful to Per Thomas Andersen for his major role in initiating this, and outlining the research project. We would also like to thank Stefka Georgieva Eriksen for her contribution during the start-up phase and the first seminars. This OA-book is financially supported by the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, by the Publishing fund for UiO researchers, and the foundation Fritt Ord