Affiliated Researchers at Mid Sweden University

Reinhard Hennig is project assistant for the interdisciplinary research project Inscribing Environmental Memory in the Icelandic Sagas at ECOHUM, Mid Sweden University. Having pursued an emphasis on environmental literature from Iceland and Norway, he completed his dissertation project at the University of Bonn in 2014. His research interests include environmental change in history and literature, the Arctic, contemporary literature from Northern Europe, and Old Norse literature and culture.

His publications include articles on climate change in contemporary Norwegian fiction, on landscape and nationality in Icelandic literature, and on the relation between ecocriticism and postcolonial studies. His monograph Umwelt-engagierte Literatur aus Island und Norwegen. Ein interdisziplinärer Beitrag zu den environmental humanities is currently in print with Peter Lang International Academic Publishers and expected to appear in late 2014 as part of the series Texte und Untersuchungen zur Germanistik und Skandinavistik. This study combines approaches from several environmental humanities disciplines, including ecocriticism, cultural ecology, environmental history and environmental ethics. The project was supported through a three-year scholarship from the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Moreover, Hennig has translated one of the major medieval Icelandic sagas, Egils saga Skallagrímssonar, into German. Old Norse literature has long held a special interest for Hennig who wrote a Master’s thesis on this topic in 2008 after studying Scandinavian studies, medieval and modern history at the universities of Freiburg im Breisgau, Gothenburg and Bonn. Hennig has also taught courses in both medieval and modern Icelandic literature at the University of Münster, Germany and worked as research assistant at the Department for Scandinavian Studies at the University of Bonn 2009 to 2012.

From 2012 to 2014, he completed two extensive stays as a visiting researcher in Skandinavia: At the University of Iceland in Reykjavíkin’s  EDDA – Center for Excellence in 2012 and  at the University of Oslo’s Centre for Development and the Environment (Senter for utvikling og miljø, SUM) in 2013.

Recently, Hennig was one of several lecturers in the interdisciplinary summer course “Environmental Memory and Change in Medieval Iceland” held in June of 2014 in Bárðardalur, Iceland. During his stay at  ECOHUM, Reinhad Hennig will be presenting his current research in a seminar  which will be held at Mid Sweden University’s Department of Humanities located at Metropol on December 16 from 13:00 -15:00.

Reinhard Hennig is also contributing to ECOHUM’s inaugural symposium “Rethinking Environmental Consciousness” from December 5th - 8th.