Frode Lerum Boasson

My phd project is an analysis of the works of Knut Hamsun and their relationship to historical vitalism. Vitalism was a broad scientific, cultural and artistic impulse in european thought in the first three decades of the 20th century. The vitalist movement is in the history of literature almost always linked to the fascist ideology of the same period and therefore devaluated. This is also the case in the reception of Hamsun. My thesis links Hamsun to the historical vitalism and discusses the claimed identity between vitalism and fascist ideology. In relationship to the category «modernism» it argues a broader understanding of the historical vitalism as a scientific, cultural and aesthetic response to the rise of modernity.

The goal of the project is to shed new light on the understanding of vitalism in the works of Hamsun and its relevance for his poetics, as well as his politics. My supervisors are Britt Andersen, Eirik Ekerhovd Vassenden and John Brumo.