Emma Helene Heggdal

Academic interests

Poetry and Poetics

Literary Theory

Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction

Performativity

Modern Poetry and Contemporary Poetry

American Poetry

Scandinavian Poetry

Law and Literature

PhD Project

As a member of the research group Temporal Experiments I work with questions concerning time and poetry, specifically the experience of waiting in three major works by the Canadian poet, Greek scholar and translator Anne Carson. Through the project I explore how Carson’s long poems seem to offer particularly apt loci for rendering experiences of waiting.

The three poems are "The Glass Essay" (1995), Autobiography of Red (1995) and Nox (2010). All three poems render experiences of loss, which challenges the flow of ordinary time. It is a time that is slow, thick, and uncomfortable. It stalls and suspends one’s actions, thoughts, and emotions, often painfully so. Yet, Carson’s poems do limn slow, almost invisible developments in experiential processes: a persistent endurance. Building on important studies in poetics to conduct in-depth analyses of the three works, I argue that a crucial function of long poems like Carson’s is to train the reader in endurance: to challenge our temporal experiences, to hone our patience and to work on our abilities for attention.

Courses taught

• Spring 2018: 114S Tekst og kultur. Nordic subject at Volda University College. 
• Spring 2018 and fall 2017: 301 Litteraturvitenskapelig grunnkurs. Introduction course to the master thesis in Comparative Literature at the University of Bergen.

Background

• 2015 - 2017: MA in Comparative Literature at the University of Bergen
• 2012 - 2015: BA in Comparative Literature at the University of Bergen
• Spring 2012: Semester study, French level 2 and Art History at Gateway College in Paris

While being a student I held positions in the Bergen Student Society, the literary journal Prosopopeia, and the student council for comparative literature at UiB. 

In 2014, I wrote the play Du ser meg (You see me) for the Theater Company Hennes Majestet.