The collection, first one ever on Aino Kallas in English, highlights her significance to the artistic and intellectual horizons of modernity of Finland and Estonia as well as those of Scandinavia and Europe. In the 1920s and 30s, Aino Kallas became an internationally renowned author and a selection of her work was translated into English. For her, participating in the immediate cultural debates in Estonia and Finland was a priority, yet her whole oeuvre is a negotiation between her more immediate contexts and the leading conceptual frameworks of aesthetics, geniality, knowledge, subjectivity, race, sexuality, nature, etc., circling in Europe at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Containing articles focusing on the question of female voice and echoes of feminist ecological thought in her fiction, a contrapuntal reading of her fiction and that of Isak Dinesen, her unknown manuscript “Bathseba”, the implications of existentialist thought for her work, Kallas’ engagement in her cultural criticism and life writings with decadent modernism, issues of race and heredity, subjectivity and borders, travel, ageing, her interpretation of Goethe, and the iconography of Kallas, the collection features the work of today’s leading Aino Kallas scholars in Finland and in Estonia.

"The collection, first one ever on Aino Kallas in English, highlights her significance to the artistic and intellectual horizons of modernity of Finland and Estonia as well as those of Scandinavia and Europe. In the 1920s and 30s, Aino Kallas became an internationally renowned author and a selection of her work was translated into English. For her, participating in the immediate cultural debates in Estonia and Finland was a priority, yet her whole oeuvre is a negotiation between her more immediate contexts and the leading conceptual frameworks of aesthetics, geniality, knowledge, subjectivity, race, sexuality, nature, etc., circling in Europe at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Containing articles focusing on the question of female voice and echoes of feminist ecological thought in her fiction, a contrapuntal reading of her fiction and that of Isak Dinesen, her unknown manuscript "Bathseba", the implications of existentialist thought for her work, Kallas' engagement in her cultural criticism and life writings with decadent modernism, issues of race and heredity, subjectivity and borders, travel, ageing, her interpretation of Goethe, and the iconography of Kallas, the collection features the work of today's leading Aino Kallas scholars in Finland and in Estonia. "

Literary transformations from human to animal have occurred in myths, folklore, fairy tales and narratives from all over the world since ancient times, and have always provided a narrative space for depictions of power, agency, and the radical nature of change. In Following the Animal, these transformations are analysed with regards to their use in modern literature from northern-most Europe, with specific attention being paid to the insights they provide regarding the human-animal relationship, both generally in the industrialized West, and against the background of more specific circumstances in the Nordic area. In three analytic chapters, focusing respectively on Swedish author August Strindberg’s novel Tschandala (1887), Finnish author Aino Kallas’s novel The Wolf’s Bride (1928), and Danish author Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen’s short story “The Monkey” (1934), along with discussions of a range of other authors and texts, the reader is introduced to several traditions of literary production that both connect to, and differ from, Anglophone and other literature in fascinating ways. In addition to the insights it provides concerning the uses of human-animal transformations in modern Nordic literature, and their significance in relation to “the question of the animal”, Following the Animal also offers literary scholars and students alike a series of useable and transferable strategies for approaching texts from a “more-than-anthropocentric”, human-animal studies perspective. In phrasing and employing the interpretational method of “following the animal” over the text’s surface, up metaphorical elevations, down material wormholes, and in constant dialogue with previous research, this book contributes greatly to both human-animal literary studies specifically, and to the field of literary scholarship generally, in both an international and northern-European context.

A valuable survey and reference resource It is hard to imagine a more needed and more useful literary reference work than this one, which gives students and readers quick access to the lives and work of a wide range of notable female writers from England and the Continent, from Aphra Behn to Emily Bronte, from Simone de Beauvoir to Isak Dinesen, from Bridget of Sweden to Hannah Arendt. Writers in more than 30 languages are included: French, Czech, Greek, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, German, Russian, Portuguese, Serbian, Catalan, Arabic, Hebrew, Dutch, Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovak, and more. Covers 1,500 years and all major genres Going back 15 centuries, the Encyclopedia covers the authors of novels, short stories, poetry, plays, criticism, social commentary, feminist manifestos, romances, mysteries, memoirs, children's literature, biography, and other genres. In signed entries, some of which are mini-essays, experts in the field examine writers' lives and achievements, comment on individual works, place artistic efforts in historical context, provide insights and analyses, and present more information than can be easily found elsewhere without undertaking more exhaustive research. Each entry is followed by a bibliography of primary works. Indexed by language, nationality, genre, and century. Spotlights the interesting lives of notable writers In these pages students and readers will meet hundreds of interesting women writers who made lasting contributions to the intellectual and popular culture of their countries while often leading fascinating lives, among them: * AGATHA CHRISTIE , who wrote her first book in response to her sister's demand for a detective story that was harder to solve than the popular fiction of her day, and whose work has been translated in more languages than Shakespeare's. * HILDEGARD VON BINGEN , the 12th-century German mystic, who wrote profusely as a prophet, a poet, a dramatist, a physician, and a political moralist, often communicated with popes and princes, and exerted a tremendous influence on the Western Europe of her time * MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY, whose 1818 masterpiece Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus became a literary sensation around the world * ILSE BLUMENTHAL-WEISS, one of the few concentration camp survivors to memorialize the victims of the Holocaust in German verse * LINA WERTMULLER, who in addition to her work in films, has written plays for the stage and a novel, and who once was a member of a short-lived puppet theater that staged the works of Kafka. Special features: Ideal for quick reference and student research * Multicultural-covers over 30 languages and 15 centuries * Includes many contemporary writers * Provides essential biographic data on each writer * Each entry is followed by a chronological listing of the writer's published book-length works * Offers critical evaluations of major works * Indexes help find writers by country...research by time period...survey genres...focus on languages

Ideas in History is the result of collaborative efforts among nearly a dozen universities and colleges throughout the Nordic countries. The purpose of these initiatives is to further awareness of research, resources, and activities in the field of intellectual history in the Nordic countries as well as internationally. The journals introduces Nordic and international readerships to some of the finest work in intellectual history by Nordic-based scholars as well as international authors. The purpose of the journal is to create a meeting ground for the study of ideas in historical context across disciplinary, geographical and institutional boundaries. Ideas in History welcomes interdisciplinary approaches to intellectual history at the same time it acknowledges specific traditions in the field. Ideas in History seeks a pluralism of methodological approaches to intellectual history: reflections on the field, historical contexts studied, subject matter for intellectual-historical investigation, critical understandings of relations between the intellectual past and present as well as the comprehension of culturally, politically and geographically diverse intellectual traditions.

The literature of Finland is bilingual, with lively and extensive traditions in both Finnish and Swedish. This history covers both literary traditions in detail. The volume?s first section, on Finnish-language literature, consists of a series of connected chapters by leading authorities within the field. It opens with a consideration of the folk literature in Finnish that flourished during the Middle Ages and then examines the more recent history of Finnish-language literature, with special emphasis placed on writings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The second part of the book provides an examination of Finland?s Swedish-language literature from the late fifteenth century through the early nineteenth century. Subsequent chapters trace developments in Finland?s Swedish-language literature during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A survey of children?s literature?from both the Finnish- and Swedish-language traditions?concludes this exceptionally thorough volume.

The notion of woman as the Devil's accomplice is prominent throughout Christian history and was used to legitimise the subordination of wives and daughters. In the 19th century, rebellious females performed counter-readings of this misogynist tradition and Lucifer was reconceptualised as a feminist liberator. Per Faxneld shows how this surprising Satanic feminism was expressed in a wide range of 19th-century texts and artistic productions

Cities have always been defined by their centrality. But literature demonstrates that their diverse peripheries define them, too: from suburbs to slums, rubbish dumps to nightclubs and entire failed cities. The contributors to this collection explore literary urban peripheries through readings of literature from four continents and numerous cities.