Body-possible bodies in new Danish literature
In recent years, a new orientation towards the body has been seen in Danish contemporary literature. Pregnancy, abortion, desire, cancer, disability, even the bacteria of the intestines have moved into books as essential literary matter, and they do so mainly in ways where the complex emotional life they trigger is at the center.
Kødets Poiesis explores this current based on the idea that the many body portraits challenge a range of discourse- and language-oriented approaches in Danish literature by primarily depicting the body as self-willed flesh that does what it wants, at least as often as it does , what is said.
As a corrective, the book proposes an alternative literary analytical field of attention that combines affect theory, neo-materialism and post-criticism, and maps on this background contemporary literature's interest in the experiences of desire, motherhood and illness in particular Olga Ravn, Bjørn Rasmussen, Amalie Smith, Ursula Andkjær Olsen, Niels Henning Falk Jensby, Katinka My Jones, Maja Lucas, Caspar Eric, Cecilie Lind and Ida Marie Hede.
