Program: Session II
Session II
Wed. 30 September
11:00–12:30
Ruuma (Linnanpuomi, ground floor)
Chair: Pia Maria Ahlbäck
Juliane Amberger (University of Freiburg)
(The Art of) Living at the Coast: Human-Sea Relations in Tove Jansson’s Den ärliga bedragaren (1982) – An Ecocritical Blue Approact
The plot of Tove Jansson’s novel seems to be rather unremarkable: Katri, a mathematical genius with little money, looking after her younger brother, wants to fulfil his wish of owning his own boat. To do so, she plans to move into the villa of the wealthy older lady Anna Aemelin, a slightly naïve artist who is creating small watercolour paintings depicting, among other things, little floral rabbits or her observations of the forest. The coast, work processes such as fishing or building boats, and the never-ending snowfall provide the backdrop to the story of the emotionally disturbing encounter of the figures.
In my presentation, I want to examine this backdrop exactly because it seems to play such an unspectacular role for the plot. Since, at the same time, it appears to create a place where creativity can flourish: Artistic practices as well as emotional tensions take in a major narrative role.
To approach this space, I want to take different aspects from concepts of the Blue Humanities into account, such as the understanding of a singular ocean within the planet as a system, bodies of water, or Oceanic Studies and bring it together with the scarcely narrated sea in the novel. Yet, it is ever-present.
Viktor Emanuelsson (Lund University)
Making Fun of the Maritime World: August Strindberg’s Ironic Sea Fiction
In his archipelago fiction from the 1880’s and 1890’s, Swedish author August Strindberg often made fun of sailors, fishermen, pilots and other members of what can be called the maritime world. In the novel By the Open Sea (1890), the Superintendent of Fisheries Axel Borg tries to teach better fishing practices to a local island community to mitigate overfishing in the Baltic. However, while the superintendent Borg succeeds in finding better methods, he is dismissed by the community and turns mad, committing suicide in the open sea at the end. This presentation proposes to read Strindberg’s archipelago fiction as ironic treatments of a maritime world undergoing change, where science and engineering were replacing the art of seamanship. By turning to the concept of literary irony and parody (Colebrook, 2004), I show how Strindberg engages with the waning world of sail and the art of seamanship. While other authors of sea fiction turned to nostalgia, Strindberg turned to parody. By comparing it with classic maritime novels, such as James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pilot (1824), Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870), and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), I show that By the Open Sea can be understood as an ironic contribution to the wider tradition of western sea fiction that is usually defined by serious adventure. Through his ironic sea fiction, Strindberg approaches the sea with simultaneous distance and involvement, reflecting an ocean world in transition.
Roland Ingelin (Åbo Akademi University)
Turning with the Sea: Toward a Phenomenology of the Irony of Water
Havet drar människan till sig och undflyr henne i samma rörelse. Det öppnar horisonten, bär kroppen, renar sinnet och lovar frihet. Samtidigt anas bottenlöshet, desorientering, upplösning, motstånd och hot om drunkning. Detta bidrag undersöker denna dubbla struktur i termer av ironi.
Ordet ironi förknippas ofta med humor, stilfigur eller verbal motsägelse. Här betecknar havets ironi i stället en erfarenhetsstruktur där havet framträder genom sin egen gräns och sin egen möjlighet till värdevändning. Med värde avses den kvalitativa betydelse genom vilken havet erfars som bärande, öppnande, lugnande, hotfullt eller upplösande. Poängen är att dessa betydelser inte står åtskilda, utan växer fram ur varandra: det som bär rymmer möjligheten att sluka, desorienteringen kan öppna för en annan erfarenhet av världen, och upplösningen kan vara både skrämmande och frigörande.
I dialog med ironiteori och Gaston Bachelards filosofi om de fyra elementen utvecklar bidraget ett filosofiskt språk för dessa värdevändningar. Hos Bachelard framträder elementen som materiella och imaginativa krafter som formar känslor, värderingar och kroppslig orientering.
Genom att tänka med havet som en mer-än-mänsklig verklighet undersöker bidraget hur marina erfarenheter utmanar både idealiserade och demoniserade bilder av det marina. Därigenom synliggörs gränserna för mänsklig kontroll och möjligheten
Jolanda Linsén & Anna Törnroos-Remes (Åbo Akademi University)
How Do We Articulate More-than-Human Organisms and Our Relations with Them?
Natural sciences aim to understand organisms and ecosystems through measurable features such as traits. At the same time, humans create representations and constructs of organisms in ways that shape how they (organisms) are understood outside of themselves. Our study is interested in the nexus; what organisms are and do through their traits and how they are represented by humans. This approach seeks to uncover articulations of organisms to understand how we create (knowledge of) our relations with them. The presentation explores results and discuss’ the merits of our approach, while inviting reflection on the fundamental role of biodiversity and the importance of cultivating more-than-human care.
We present insights from an ongoing meta-analysis of research on human relations to more-than-human organisms. Our sample consists of research articles from 2010–2025, representing over 90 research areas across humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. The aim is to understand how various organisms (algae, plants, and animals) have been articulated, with an emphasis on the characteristics (traits) used to describe them and the kind of relations humans have with them.
Preliminary findings confirm a bias toward vertebrates, especially charismatic or conflict-related species. Marine life is rarely featured, mainly as whales, dolphins, or invasive species, indicating a considerable lack of attention to invertebrates, plants, and algae. As these groups account for the majority of described organisms and are essential for ecosystem functioning, this raises concerns about how well current research is able to reflect the spectrum of human-water relations to support marine policy and governance.