In the drama Close City, first published in 2005, Lithuanian playwright Marius Ivaškevičius focuses on the (im)possible connections between Malmö and Copenhagen. The initially realistic setting of a failing marriage in the spirit of August Strindberg and Ingmar Bergman evolves gradually into an absurd spectacle that explores spatial and intertextual interstices. This article investigates how the drama, as a scenic kaleidoscope, elaborates on the influence of imagined geographies in the Baltic Sea region, discusses (gendered) power relations, and questions Scandinavian exceptionalism.
Henri Nathansen’s highly successful bildungsroman Af Hugo Davids Liv, first published in 1917, tells the story of its Jewish protagonist from cradle to grave – with obstacles, adventures and challenges. But much more so, Nathansen offers a multi-layered narration of what it could mean to be a “noble” Jew. Providing a multitude of answers to that question, Af Hugo Davids Liv refuses any definition and thus opens a “third space” in which ambiguous and grained narrations of migration can take place, flourish and be understood in their own right. The article focuses on exploring these narrative interstices and spaces of in-betweenness and in doing so also (re-)discovers Nathansen’s unique way of telling migration as socially always imminent.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.