Literary history and media history, sociology of literature, intellectual history, discourse analysis, literary stylistics, cultural studies, popular culture, urban studies

Scandinavian Modernity, European Avant-Garde art and culture around World War I (Futurism, Expressionism, Dadaism), First World War, the German Occupation (1940-1945), Nordic Cultural Radicalism from Georg Brandes to Klaus Rifbjerg.

Courses forming part of the study programme in Danish:

• Literary history (2. term)
• Modern literature (3. term)
• The selective subject "Texts, books and bits"
• The selective subject "Copenhagen: Modernity and Pluralism"
• MA courses on Modern Danish literature in interaction with culture and media history
  
  

Supervision

I offer supervision on Danish and Nordic literary history from antiquity up until today and I welcome interdiciplinarity – including projects and theses formulated in the border zone between literature, cultural studies, sociology and media history.

My main research area is modern Danish and Scandinavian literary history in a European perspective. 

My previous research has focused on the early 20th century avant-gardes in art and literature, both in a European and a Nordic context. Another key interest in my work is the tradition of "Cultural Radicalism" - an intellectual and artistic reform movement emanating from Georg Brandes' and the Modern Breakthrough in Scandinavian literatures in the last decades of the 19th century. 

I am currently the head of the research group MoSka (Moderne Skandinaviske litteratur- og kulturstudier)  

Recent publications

Torben Jelsbak and Anna Sandberg (eds): Dansk-tyske krige. Kulturliv og kulturkampe, Forlaget U Press, 355 pp., 2020.

Jens Bjerring-Hansen, Torben Jelsbak and Anna Estera Mrozewicz (eds): Scandinavian Exceptionalisms. Culture, Society, Discourse = Berliner Beiträge zur Skandinavistik vol. 29, 534 pp., 2021

Torben Jelsbak and Lill-Ann Körber (eds.): New Geographies of Scandinavian Studies. Moving Maps, Reciprocal Images, Emerging Communities = Folia Scandinavica Posnanienia vol. 33, 2023.

Research Projects

Contributor to the Project "Digital Main Currents/Digitale Hovedstrømninger" (2017-2020), funded by The Carlsberg Foundation www.georgbrandes.dk

Co-director of the Network New Geographies of Scandinavian Studies (2019-2024), funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark https://arts.au.dk/new-geographies-of-scandinavian-studies/

I am currently involved in several international research networks and collective research projects.

I have contributed to the project "Digital Main Currents" (Carlsberg), www.georgbrandes.dk, and, together with Lill-Ann Körber (Aarhus University), I am in charge of the DFG-network "New Geographies of Scandinavian Studies", https://arts.au.dk/new-geographies-of-scandinavian-studies/   

Education

2008 PhD in Nordic Philology, University of Copenhagen

2005-2006 Study and research stay, Humboldt Universität, Berlin

2002 Cand.mag. in Danish, Art History and Comparative Literature, University of Copenhagen (UCPH)

1999-2001 Study stay, Université de Paris X-Nanterre and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris

1997 BA in Danish, Art History and Comparative Literature, UCPH

Positions held

2015- Associate professor in Danish literature, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, UCPH

2014-2015 Associate professor in Danish literature and media, Department of Culture and Identity, Roskilde University (RUC)

2012-2014 Assistant professor in Danish literature and media, Department of Culture and Identity, RUC (parental leave 5 months, January-May 2013)

2012 Part-time lecturer, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, UCPH

2009-2012 Postdoc, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, UCPH

2008 Editor, Danish Society of Language and Literature

2008-2009 Part-time lecturer, Department of Culture and Identity, RUC

2004-2008 PhD scholar, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, UCPH (parental leave 4 months, May-August 2008)

Networks and external duties

• Member of Danish Society of Language and Literature, 2013-
• Member of Comité scientifique, Deshima. Revue d’histoire globale des pays du nord, 2010-
• Member of European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies, 2009-
• Member of the committee of The Danish Society of University anniversary (UJDS), 2007-
• Member of European Society for Textual Scholarship, 2004-
• Member of Nordic Network for Textual Scholarship, 2004-
• Member of Nordic Network for Avant-Garde Studies, 2004-
  
  

German, French and English in speech and writing. Passive skills in Norwegian and Swedish.