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 Research Fellow - Temporal Experiments

As a member of the research group Temporal Experiments, I engage with questions concerning poetry and time: What kinds of temporalities can exist in poetic form - how is poetry establishing time? What temporal experiences can long forms of poetry create? What can poetic time reveal about our own time and how relate to time in our lives?

My dissertation is a study of the three contemporary North American poets John Ashbery, Louise Glück and Anne Carson and their long, serial and epic poems. I am interested in how these poetic long forms maintain the essentially lyric relationship between reader and poem while at the same time experimenting with strategies of temporal expansion. These strategies take form as structures of repetition, narrative and narration, and extensive play with temporal markers and notions from both culture and nature, such as clock time (social time) and the seasons (cyclical time). Seeking to map how these poetic long forms both convey and create experiences of time, the project engages with recent theories of the lyric and of performativity. 

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.