Network background

The network project originates in a Postcolonial studies network set up in 2004 in the wake of a successful conference and postgraduate seminar held at the University of Bergen in October 2003, Transcultural Identities and Masks. This was a follow-up to the publication of Identities and Masks: Colonial and Postcolonial Studies (eds. Jakob Lothe, Anne Holden Rønning and Peter Young, Kristiansand: Høyskoleforlaget 2001.) A selection of articles based on the above conference were published in Readings of the Particular: The Postcolonial in the Postnational  (eds. Anne Holden Rønning and Lene Johannessen. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. 2007). 

In 2004 a planning meeting was held with support from NorFa to establish a core network group with participants (established and younger scholars) from the Nordic and Baltic countries to profile the existing work done in this field and to initiate, promote and develop new projects. This forum of researchers and scholars who engage their fields from the standpoint of their language and literature departments’ traditions, has been active since. 

In the fall of 2006 a NordForsk supported seminar “Challenges to the Specific: The Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures” was held in Bergen, attended by doctoral students from the Nordic and Baltic countries. Invited faculty and speakers for this event were David Atwell (UK), Tabish Khair (Denmark) and Richard Rodriguez (USA). That seminar became the launching pad for the present project, which was granted funding from Nordforsk for a three year period starting 2009.