Writings

Danish. The subtitle “and the Making of the Modern World” has become an obsession for publishers of popular history books, being applied to everything from Gengis Khan to dynamite and the year 1946. The compulsive repetition of the subtitle—I list 33 examples shows us two things about the popular notion of history: a widespread disagreement about what “modernity” means, and a widespread agreement about the purpose of history, namely using the past to understand the present.

“Den moderne verdens mange, mange tilblivelser” (“The many, many makings of the modern world”), Weekendavisen (9 June 2023). Link.

Danish. In a review of Kåre Johannessen’s book about leisure and amusement in the European Middle Ages, I argue that Johannessen’s fascination with play is an example to be emulated. Historians often explain premodern diversions in instrumental terms—as physical training or forms of subtle social control—but this reading of fun and games as always being “work in disguise” itself reveals our modern, capitalist, post-protestant work-bias, a bias we must set aside if we are to understand Medieval peoples on their own terms. Play can be its own purpose.

“Fritid er sit eget formål” (“Leisure is its own goal”), Weekendavisen (5 May 2023). Link.

Danish. Weighing in on the controversy surrounding the 2023 Netflix docudrama about Queen Cleopatra, I briefly trace the history of her malleable, adaptable image, arguing that the queen’s legacy became a confluence of contradictions: she gathers in one figure East and West, sex and death, power and decline, excessive masculinity and excessive femininity. Talking about Cleopatra has always been a way to talk about the relation between women, ethnicity, and power, but when will we stop reducing her to her body—whether her skin or her sex life—and focus instead on her complex achievements and afterlife?

“Hvornår bliver vi klar til Kleopatra?” (“When will we be ready for Cleopatra?”), Weekendavisen (5 May 2023). Link.

Danish. Are Danish museums prepared for the coming climate catastrophe? In this article, I survey the plans that Danish cultural institutions have made to protect their cultural heritage against extreme weather phenomena and social unrest over the coming decades, drawing a parallel between the situation we face today and the story of the Flood as relayed by the Babylonian writer Berossus.

“Før Syndfloden” (“Before the Flood”), Weekendavisen (21 April 2023). Link.

Danish. In a review of a new Danish publication of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, I connect the all-pervading change that is the subject of the genre-busting “epic” with the profound, violent transformation that Ovid himself lived through, from his birth one year after Caesar’s assassination to his own death in political exile under Augustus. A traumatic transformation can be repressed beneath the illusion that our lives are under our own control, or it can be elevated into a poetical and cosmological principle: Ovid chose the latter.

“Bestandigt i forvandligt” (“In constant change”), Weekendavisen (14 April 2023). Link.

Danish. In 2023, the first Danish novel, Den beklædte sandhed (The Veiled Truth), celebrates its 300th anniversary. Virtually forgotten today, the novel was written by a woman, Anna Margrethe Lasson, who was an ardent defender of women’s place in literary culture. A roman-à-clef with concealment as both its form and its topic, the book fell between two historical stools: it appeared half a century too late to be part of the vogue of baroque courtly novels that Lasson sought to bring to Scandinavia, and half a century too early to be part of the flourishing of Danish novels.

“Kærlighedens nye klæder” (“Beyond the Veil”), Weekendavisen (7 April 2023). Link.

Danish. The recently launched portal of the Electronic Babylonian Literature projected, led by Enrique Jiménez, is a huge advance in the study of cuneiform cultures. The digital framework has allowed philologists to place fragments so small that humans would be unlikely to ever identify them; and while the fragments themselves are typically no more than a few lines, their combined effect—Jiménez’s team have so far processed 21.568 fragments—is revolutionary.

“Nyt fra Babylon” (“News from Babylon”), Weekendavisen (31 March 2023). Link.