Tomine Sandal

• Sandal, Tomine (2026). Situating oil within, through, and across human bodies: Petroleum and trans-corporeality in contemporary Norwegian literature and theatre. doi: https:/datashare.tu-dresden.de/s/A4n5ZHEPgrBdDbx?dir=%2F&editing=false&openfile=true. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Following the declaration of Petrocultures 2026’s call for paper that “there is no outside observation of energy”, Sandal’s paper argues that there is something to be gained from a corporal introspection: to consider how petroleum moves on and in human bodies. In truth, the geography of petroleum it's not only found “between the site-specific and the planetary”; oil is also bodily situated. Drawing on Stacy Alaimo’s term trans-corporality (Alaimo 2010), Sandal considers how transitions and entanglements between petroleum and human bodies are explored in different ways in contemporary Norwegian literature and theatre. To understand human bodily realities as trans-corporeal means acknowledging that human bodies are always already entangled with their surroundings. This paper discusses the consequences and implications of understanding the relationship between human bodies and oil as trans-corporeal. Sandal considers how literary and theatrical representations of encounters and interactions between human bodies and oil in its various forms and associated infrastructures demonstrate a broader engagement with material, sensory, and affective attachments to petroleum. Thus, this paper seeks to illuminate how aesthetic representations and explorations of how oil is situated within, through, and across human bodies might better our understanding of how petroleum permeates our porous bodies and how deeply ingrained oil is in our corporal realities. The recognition that what we «put out there» comes back to us, urges us to think and act responsibly and with care towards more-than-human bodies and other substances – including for our own sake.

• Sandal, Tomine (2025). Når verden samler seg i kroppen | Vinduet.no. Vinduets nettsider. doi: https:/www.vinduet.no/essayistikk/nar-verden-samler-seg-i-kroppen-tomine-sandal-essay-om-sara-solberg. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Sara Sølbergs forfatterskap lodder dypt i sin utforskning av økosykdom og den miljøforurensede kroppen. https://www.vinduet.no/essayistikk/nar-verden-samler-seg-i-kroppen-tomine-sandal-essay-om-sara-solberg

• Sandal, Tomine (2025). Representations of bodily encounters with petroleum oil in Norwegian literature and theatre. doi: https:/www.sv.uio.no/tik/english/research/network/oil-and-society/events/network-gathering-north-sea.html. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Sandal's PhD project – Bodies of oil – foregrounds bodily encounters with petroleum oil in its various forms and associated infrastructures, by exploring how interactions between bodies and oil are represented in Norwegian contemporary literature and theatre. The dissertation asks: How do bodily and affective connections to oil manifest in novels, poems, dramas and theatre performances, and how do the depicted relationships between body and oil influence possible transitions from oil to other forms of energy? In this presentation, Sandal will discuss both literary and theatrical examples that reveal the trans-corporeal (Alaimo 2010) connections and entanglements between human bodies and oil, and the implications of understanding representations of such relationships as expressions of trans-corporeality.

• Sandal, Tomine (2025). Fossil Feel LAB: Oljekropper i norsk litteratur og teater. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I samarbejde med Den Danske Scenekunstskoles Efteruddannelse inviterer vi til workshop med forsker Tomine Sandal og Tora Balslev. En sanselig undersøgelse af spørgsmålene: Hvordan kan vi mærke den fossile kultur i vores kroppe? Hvilken rolle spiller kropslige og affektive tilknytninger til olie i en bæredygtig omstilling? Hvordan kan kunst bidrage til diskussioner om vores moderne olieafhængighed, samt hvordan vi kan komme videre? I workshoppen kan du opleve oplæg ved forsker Tomine Sandal, bevægelsespraksis-deling ved kunstner Tora Balslev og fælles refleksive samtaler. Som deltager er du aktivt i spil med dine sanser, bevægelser og erfaringer som del af undersøgelsen. Der kræves ikke tidligere erfaring med dans eller bevægelse. Efter workshoppen byder vi på en enkel frokost, før programmet fortsætter udendørs med performance-vandringen Fossil Feel.

• Sandal, Tomine (2025). Ocean, oil and illness: Sara Sølberg’s Seismiske smell (2016). doi: https:/www.hf.uio.no/iln/english/research/projects/eco-emotions/annual-conferences/eco-emotions-on-water-2025/program-for-eco-emotions-on-water.html. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The novel Seismiske smell (Seismic bangs, 2016) by the Norwegian author Sara Sølberg is a multifaceted story about physical and mental illness, extractivism and pollution, loss and grieving, in which the narrator’s human body is woven narratively together with the ocean and the creatures inhabiting it. In this paper, I use Stacy Alaimo’s term trans-corporeality (Alaimo 2010) to discuss how Sølberg’s novel explores trans-corporeal relations between the human body, the sea and extractivism (particularly oil – the title of the novel alludes to seismic surveys that are used when searching for promising offshore oil sites). In addition to examining corporeal and affective responses to environmental change in Seismiske smell, the paper also argues that the novel can be read as an example of what Heather Houser terms “ecosickness fiction”, which refers to literature characterized by “narrative affects that draw conceptual homologies between environmental and somatic vulnerability” (Houser 2014, 3). The paper shows how the novel explores contact zones and flows between the narrator’s own disease-ridden body and other life forms that reside in the ocean, and how Sølberg weaves together the narrator’s physical and mental medical condition with that of oceanic life forms, and ultimately the planet’s ecological emergencies.

• Sandal, Tomine (2025). Hvor er den store norske oljeromanen? doi: https:/klassekampen.no/utgave/2025-07-08/hvor-er-den-store-norske-oljeromanen. Full text in Research Archive
• Ahlbäck, Pia Maria; Furuseth, Sissel; Ritson, Katie; Reetz, Karl Emil Rosenbæk & Sandal, Tomine (2025). Olie og vand? Petrokultur på og i havet. Full text in Research Archive
• Sandal, Tomine (2024). Embodied Experiences of the Post-Oil "Siddy" in Øyvind Rimbereid’s "Solaris Corrected". Full text in Research Archive
• Sandal, Tomine (2024). Theatrical Translations of Oil in Olje og vatn. Full text in Research Archive
• Sandal, Tomine (2024). Bodies of Oil: Exploring Oil in 21st Century Norwegian Literature and Theatre. Full text in Research Archive
• Sandal, Tomine (2024). Intoxicated driving and reality displacements in Erlend O. Nødtvedt's Vestlandet (2017) and Theis Ørntoft's Solar (2018). Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper explores automobility in two contemporary Scandinavian novels – Erlend O. Nødtvedt’s Vestlandet (2017) and Theis Ørntoft’s Solar (2018) – with an emphasis on connections between intoxicated driving and reality displacements. Both novels depict driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, where the combination of the substances and the road leads the characters to experience distorted senses, visions and unreal experiences. On the one hand, this mode of driving involves high risk and could potentially be considered an expression of violence. On the other hand, engaging in the practice of intoxicated driving seems to offer potential insight for the characters. This paper seeks to investigate how driving under the influence enable the characters in Vestlandet and Solar to experience alternative states of consciousness, as well as perceptive and affective openings.

• Sandal, Tomine (2023). Bånn gass? Introduksjon til Italo Calvinos «Bensinpumpen». Arr - Idéhistorisk tidsskrift. ISSN 0802-7005. 35(3-4). Full text in Research Archive
• Sandal, Tomine (2023). Scenesamtaler om teater og tekst. [Radio]. Scenesamtaler – en podkast fra Scenekunst.no. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I den 29. utgaven av Scenesamtaler er temaet teater og tekst. I denne episoden snakker Julie Rongved Amundsen med kritikerne Mariken Lauvstad, Anette Therese Pettersen og Tomine Sandal om teater og tekst. Forestillingene og tekstene det snakkes om er Vinge/Müller og Henrik Ibsens Byggme(i)ster Solness og Cecilie Løveid og Nationaltheatrets Jeg er SYLv. I tillegg diskuterer de den siste tidens debatt om tekst, fortolkning og teater som ble satt i gang av professor i nordisk litteratur ved Universitetet i Bergen, Frode Helmich Pedersen.

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