The overarching focus of the portfolio of publications I have submitted for the PhD
by Research Publications is the treatment of place - in particular the mapping and
problematisation of nation space - in Selma Lagerlofs and Hans Christian
Andersen's novel- and travel-writing. Through a consideration of selected texts it is
argued that manifestations of mobility, modernity and hybridity contribute centrally
to the articulation of place in the works of both writers. It is further argued that the
majority of the texts themselves display hybrid features, challenging the boundary
between 'fictional' novel-writing and 'factual' travel-writing and combining a
commitment to the 'real' with a recurring interest in the imagined.In all, the submitted publications on Lagerlof and Andersen may be seen as
contributions to the reassessment of two Scandinavian cultural figures of 'world
literature' status, highlighting proto-modernist aspects of their oeuvre as well as
some reductive patterns in their reception history
