The shadow of war - Denmark, the Nordic countries and the return of geopolitics
This is the title of the research project that eight new fellows in the Nordic Humanities Center will embark on from February 1, 2025. The project has just been selected as the center's second research relay.
It is Rasmus Glenthøj, associate professor of history at the University of Southern Denmark and Rasmus Mariager, professor of history at the University of Copenhagen, who will lead the work, which involves a total of eight fellows from the two universities as well as a number of affiliated Danish and international researchers.
The background for the project is extremely current
As the researchers write:
"The bells of war have been ringing over Europe for the third year, and there is no sign of peace any time soon. Denmark's Prime Minister's Office estimates that we are looking at at least a 30-year-long conflict, Sweden's Minister of Defense and Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs have stated that war between Russia and the West cannot be ruled out. We have already seen the first dramatic consequences: hybrid war, refugee flows, closed borders, threats to use nuclear weapons, increased armaments, growing willingness to defend, supply problems, the integration of energy policy into security policy and global tensions, among others. in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic.”
Against this background, the project will analyze what the war in Ukraine will mean for the Nordic societies in the coming years. With insights from the humanities as well as art and culture, the new fellows will examine how we can better live with the challenges of the new era in the confrontation with Russia.
The group consists of an interdisciplinary team of researchers from culture, memory and art history, Danish and Nordic literature, American studies, Eastern European studies, photography studies and history.
The future fellows are:
Rasmus Mariager, professor of history at the University of Copenhagen (co-PI)
Rasmus Glenthøj, lecturer in history at SDU (co-PI)
Malene Breunig, lecturer in Danish at SDU
Nils Bjerre-Poulsen, lecturer in American studies at SDU
Mette Sandby, professor of photography studies at the University of Copenhagen
Tea Sindbæk Andersen, lecturer in East European studies at the University of Copenhagen
Kristian Handberg, postdoc, history of art at the University of Copenhagen
A postdoc, SDU, will be assigned