What can literary travelogues tell us about 19th-century Norway?
Join us for the first Digital Humanities Lunch Lecture (DH-lunch) of the autumn, where we’ll explore what the Norwegian Travel Literature Corpus can reveal about how Norway was portrayed in 19th-century travel writing, both by foreign travelers and Norwegians themselves.
Main content
The lecture will be held in Norwegian.
PhD candidate Marit Sjelmo will present her project and share how she has worked with the Norwegian Travel Literature Corpus from a macro perspective using digital tools.
About the lecturer and the PhD project
Marit Sjelmo is a PhD candidate at NTNU, Department of Language and Literature. In her doctoral project titled "Den litterære landmålingen av Norge: reiseskildringer 1800–1850", she investigates representations of Norway in 19th-century travel literature.
Over the course of a century, from 1800 to 1900, Norway transitions from being portrayed as a «terra incognita» in this literature to appearing as a modern European nation-state and a destination for global mass tourism.
As literary data, she uses an international corpus consisting of approximately 750 travelogues from the National Library’s archives, which she has named the Norwegian Travel Literature Corpus 1800–1900.
The project is affiliated with the research group Literature, Technology and Media at the Department of Language and Literature at NTNU, and the Research Council of Norway project ImagiNation. Mapping the Imagined Geographies of Norwegian Literature from 1814 to 1905.
The DH Lecture Series
The DH Lecture Series is a collaboration between the Digital Lab at the University of Bergen Library, the D-lab at NTNU and the Norwegian Network for Digital Humanities and Cultural Organization (DHKO). The lecture series addresses DH-related topics, and gives researchers and others involved in DH projects or research the opportunity to share their experiences, successes and challenges related to the use of digital tools and/or methods.
Do you have suggestions for topics you would like to hear more about, or are you working on something that you would like to share in a lecture? Do not hesitate to contact us organizers by e-mail.
In the autumn of 2025, you can attend digital DH lectures on the following dates and times:
Thursday the 25th of September at 11.30-12.00AM
Thursday the 23rd of October at 11.30-12.00AM
Thursday the 27th of November at 11.30-12.00AM
Follow the Digital Lab's calendar for more information about each individual lecture.
Practical information
Sign up for the lecture by using the registration form. A Zoom link will be sent out to all registered participants the day before.