Birgitta Trotzigs författarskap relaterar till en biblisk tradition, men hennes teologi innefattar även ansatser att decentralisera människan. Novellsamlingen I kejsarens tid (1975) har i tidigare forskning diskuterats utifrån spänningen mellan symbol och realism. Här utvecklas den analysen genom kopplingar mellan novellen ”Björnen” och den biologiska och kulturhistoriska kontexten för arten brunbjörn. Berättelsens apokalyps kan därmed förstås som straff för människans förtryck av djur och natur.

Claudia Lindéns oskattbara bidrag till svensk litteraturvetenskap syns kanske främst i hennes teoretiskt förankrade, reflekterande och problematiserande litteraturhistoriska forskning. Hennes insats präglas också av en osläcklig nyfikenhet som tagit henne till mängder av författarskap, från en rad länder och hemmahörande i olika epoker. 

I hennes omfattande och mångsidiga utgivning samsas svensk romantik och Johann Wolfgang Goethe med Emily Dickinson och Karen Blixen; brittisk 1800-talsgotik får stå sida vid sida med björnar och moderna TV-vampyrer à la Twilight. Det är med stor tacksamhet som vänner och kollegor vill överräcka dessa studier, essäer och översättningar, vilka alla behandlar kärlekens svåra frågor, till Claudia på hennes sextioårsdag. 

This article compares the short story “Mrs Fox” by Sarah Hall (3013) with David Garnett’s novel Lady into Fox (1922). Albeit different in some regards, these stories both center a human-animal transformation, and thus take part in a world-wide tradition that has existed since ancient times. How, then, is this motif rendered meaningful in modern times? This question is addressed in a discussion of the possibilities for different interpretations of these magical-realist stories. On the metaphorical level, the stories seem to be about gendered relations and woman’s situation in patriarchal society. This is the most common way to understand them in previous research. It also makes sense, however, to read them on the metonymical level, at which they tell the story about the relationship between the human and the non-human world, human and non-man animals. Finally, it appears to be productive to embrace the enigma at their core, the transformation, as a real event according to a different ontology. Indeed, it seems to be the liminality at its core that gives the human-animal transformation its ability to remain meaningful in times and places that are widely different, and in fictional genres far apart.

This collection maps out the current state of the field of literary and cultural animal studies in Northern Europe. With contributors from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Poland, and Sweden, the work spans a wide variety of issues regarding human and non-human life in relation to different kinds of cultural expression, while others are more general in character. Above all others, one urgent and overarching question is addressed: How can we challenge the current anthropocentric paradigm in ways that benefit the production of less violent, more ethically sound and sustainable knowledge regarding the relationship between human and non-human life?   

Ratatϙskr, in Norse mythology, is a squirrel that scurries up and down Yggdrasil (the tree of life), carrying messages between the dragon at its roots and the eagle at its top. Being a representation  of a ‘real’ animal species, but also a part of the mythology organizing the human world, Ratatϙskr is ideally situated for literary and cultural animal studies. Apart from directing the scope of interest towards Northern Europe, this figure reminds us that the “squirrelling” and storage of productive and just knowledge about all forms of life is an important undertaking if there is to be a future for any of them.

How can we read literary animals in ways that do not reproduce the anthropocentric paradigm? This chapter attempts to formulate possible answers to this question, and thus to function as an introduction to the practice and theory of reading animals. Firstly, there is a discussion about conceptualizations of the ontology of literature in relation to the non-human world. Then, there is an expansion of the meaning-productive potential inherent in the tension between metaphorical and metonymic understandings of literary animals. Finally, a reading strategy is sketched in which the term “following” is proposed as a point of departure for the production of “more-than-anthropocentric” meaning in literary narratives.