eventei
Academic interests
- W.G. Sebald
- Jenny Erpenbeck
- Hannah Arendt
- Walter Benjamin
- German literature (1900s, 2000s)
- Generic hybrids
- Literature and history
- Travel writing
- Fragments and short forms
- The essay
- Literary criticism
- Literature and politics
- Norwegian periodical culture
Background
- MA in comparative literature from University of Oslo (2018)
- Literary critic in Klassekampen (2019-to date)
- Editor of BLA - Bokvennen Litterær Avis (2019-2022)
Tags:
comparative literature,
German Literature,
History,
Borders,
Homelessness,
Identity,
Criticism,
Periodicals
Publications
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Teistung, Even
(2022).
"Idet landet forsvinder". Variationer over hjem, flugt og den tyske rigsgrænse i Jenny Erpenbecks "Hjemsøgelse" (2008).
Passage.
ISSN 0901-8883.
87,
p. 83–97.
doi:
10.7146/pas.v37i87.133268.
Full text in Research Archive
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In Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel Heimsuchung (2008), the German national border is subject to continual change as the history of the 20th century is played out over the course of 11 main chapters, in which different occupants of a lakeside property move in and out of the narrative. The article examines the national border as struc- turing principle in Erpenbeck’s novel, and the interplay between border, national identity, Heimat and the plight of the refugee.
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Teistung, Even
(2019).
Historie og pukkelbevissthet: Om «den pukkelryggede mannslingen» i Walter Benjamins tenkning.
Norsk litteraturvitenskapelig tidsskrift.
ISSN 0809-2044.
22(1),
p. 32–54.
doi:
10.18261/issn.1504-288X-2019-01-03.
Full text in Research Archive
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Walter Benjamin uses the figure das bucklichte Männlein in four texts, three of which are central to his thinking on and about history, memory, remembrance and messianism. This article argues that this figure, the “hunchbacked dwarf”, is key to understanding Benjamin’s later thinking, seeking to show how the figure is used to visualize problems regarding history, remembrance and politics. The hunchback is at once a destructive and a productive force. Its presence opens for temporal disruption, which in Benjamin’s case connotes directly to the understanding of time and of history. The disruption/remembrance-dialectic is used to problematize the construction of history, its political and theological impeachments, and the possibilities of revolutionary and/or messianic redemption that lie in the perception of history and the attentiveness of the writer of history. Das bucklichte Männlein, I argue, may be understood as a figure opening for a change in the perception of history, and thus in the construction thereof.
View all works in NVA
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Teistung, Even & Vindegg, Jenny Moi
(2025).
Kontrastlengsel | Vinduet.no.
Vinduets nettsider.
Full text in Research Archive
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Et tostemt essay om øya Klovharun, Tove Janssons eget sted i verden.
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Teistung, Even
(2025).
Innvendig tapetsert av språk. Om å oppdage, lese, og leve med Dag Solstad (1941-2025), og særlig hans sans for tøys.
Vinduets nettsider.
Full text in Research Archive
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Nekrolog over Dag Solstad
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Teistung, Even
(2024).
Death is not the end. On restarting and collapsing history in Jenny Erpenbeck’s "Aller Tage Abend".
Full text in Research Archive
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Teistung, Even
(2024).
Constructing Germany. Conflicting narratives of identity and Germanness.
Full text in Research Archive
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On narrative, ethics and memory in Jenny Erpenbeck's "Gehen, ging, gegangen"
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Teistung, Even
(2024).
Greetings from the Shithole. Homelessness, Community and Agency in the Refugee Experience, by way of Arendt, Anders and Erpenbeck.
Full text in Research Archive
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Teistung, Even
(2023).
East German non-entities. Jenny Erpenbeck's "Aller Tage Abend".
Full text in Research Archive
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Innlegg holdt på konferansen "Trauma, Memory and Counter-Culture" 1.6.2023.
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Teistung, Even
(2023).
Verden uten kvinner. Framtidstap i Jenny Erpenbecks Gehen, ging, gegangen.
Full text in Research Archive
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Innlegg holdt på jubileumsseminar for Kjønn og estetikk, 19.04.2023.
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Damgaard, Sofie Anker-Møller; Lindberg, Hanna Malene; Teistung, Even & Fjogstad, Magnus Selsås
(2022).
Men er det bra?
Full text in Research Archive
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Teistung, Even
(2022).
Dublin, Hadeland, Andeby, Joyce.
[Journal].
BLA - Bokvennen litterær avis.
Full text in Research Archive
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Intervju med Leif Høghaug om gjendiktningen av James Joyces "Finnegans Wake".
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Myren-Svelstad, Per Esben & Teistung, Even
(2021).
Gammelgresk fra Gudbrandsdalen.
[Journal].
Bokvennen Litterær Avis.
Full text in Research Archive
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Teistung, Even
(2021).
Når gjenferd banker på døra.
[Journal].
BLA - Bokvennen litterær avis.
Full text in Research Archive
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Reportasje om tysk høyreekstremisme, med basis i intervju med historiker Astrid Sverresdotter Dypvik.
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Teistung, Even
(2019).
Å skrive historie: Et grunnriss i W.G. Sebalds forfatterskap.
Kritiker : nordisk tidskrift för litterär kritik och essäistik = nordisk tidsskrift for litterær kritik og essayistik = nordisk tidsskrift for litterær kritikk of essayistikk.
ISSN 1104-196X.
p. 92–114.
Full text in Research Archive
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Teistung, Even; Schimanski, Johan & Janss, Christian
(2025).
Home and Nowhere. On homelessness and belonging in W.G. Sebald and Jenny Erpenbeck.
Universitetet i Oslo.
Full text in Research Archive
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This thesis is a comparative study of homelessness and belonging in selected works by W. G. Sebald and Jenny Erpenbeck – the first of its kind. Through close readings of Sebald’s Die Ausgewanderten (1992) and Erpenbeck’s novels Heimsuchung (2008), Aller Tage Abend (2012) and Gehen, ging, gegangen (2015) I examine the authors’ representation of different forms of homelessness, flight, and emigration, and what these tell us about the handling of German history after the Shoah. Reading within a theoretical frame provided by Hannah Arendt’s texts on flight and homelessness, and with a double perspective on both the representation of subjective experiences of loss and structural and political bordering, outlines clear differences in the conception of homelessness, as well as the sociopolitical and existential possibilities that appear when narrating a country’s history from the perspective of a fleeing person.
The close readings uncover a distinction between what I call existential homelessness in Sebald, and political homelessness in Erpenbeck. Where Sebald’s stories portray the loss of home and belonging as an incurable and irreparable metaphysical trauma of identity, leading to isolation and longing for death, Erpenbeck’s novels show an evolution away from existentialism and into loss of home as a loss of illusion, which clears the ground for new interpretations of history. Sebald’s stories look inward and backward, contemplating loss; Erpenbeck’s novels look outward and forward, towards possible sociopolitical communities in the present. This means that Sebald’s stories portray history as locked in a negative groove, whereas Erpenbeck’s novels challenge the grip of the past over the present. This decisive difference illuminates the image either author draws of Germany’s identity after the Shoah, and prepares the grounds for renegotiations of German identity in the 21st century.
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Teistung, Even
(2018).
Historie og pukkelbevissthet. Om historieskriving og forløsning i W.G. Sebalds "Die Ausgewanderten".
Universitetet i Oslo.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Denne oppgaven er en motivanalyse av W.G Sebalds "Die Ausgewanderten" (1992), hvor jeg fokuserer på das bucklichte Männlein-motivet og dets forbindelse til bokas problematisering av historieskriving. Das bucklichte Männlein, den pukkelryggede mannslingen, er en figur fra tysk folkekultur som brukes i flere av Walter Benjamins sentrale skrifter. Benjamin bruker figuren for å problematisere spørsmål om glemsel og erindring, forløsning og historieskriving. Når Sebald så tar i bruk denne figuren, hvordan kan det forstås? "Die Ausgewanderten" består av fire fortellinger om europeiske utvandrere som på ulike vis har erfart det 20. århundrets katastrofer, men snarere enn å fortelle historiene deres direkte følger vi en førstepersonsforteller som arbeider med å avdekke, samle inn og organisere det tilgjengelige materialet etter de utvandredes liv. Das bucklichte Männlein er et ledemotiv i boka, og den tilkjennes en dobbeltrolle: På den ene siden som markør for urett, lidelse og traumer, på den andre som en snublestein som henviser til de uformidlede og utelatte delene av historien, og deres krav på å innlemmes. Det opprettes en forbindelse mellom Männlein-figuren og fortellerens arbeid. Ved å rette oppmerksomheten mot de glemte, utelatte og spredte elementene fra fortiden åpner figuren for et skrivearbeid fundert i det nesten-glemte, det som støver ned, og det som er utelatt. Fortellingene preges av en anakron tidsstruktur, der opplevelsen av tid går på tvers av kontinuiteten. I denne strukturen, som slekter på Benjamins tidsforståelse, tilkjennes det fortidige og glemte relevans for nåtiden. Fortløpende tematiseres mangelen på materiale og hullene i erkjennelsen. Snarere enn som kontinuitet framstilles historien som en fragmentarisk konstruksjon sammenføyd av støv, filler og rester. Skrivearbeidet antar etisk-politiske dimensjoner: Når historien framstilles som fragmentarisk og ufullstendig åpnes det potensialet som finnes i den glemte eller utelatte fortiden. Denne framgangsmåten vil jeg argumentere for at er politisk i sitt vesen, da den setter seg fore å utvide hvordan historie kan forstås. Das bucklichte Männlein er figuren som i "Die Ausgewanderten" åpner for denne utvidelsen.
View all works in NVA
Published
Sep. 2, 2022 9:51 AM
- Last modified
Jan. 21, 2026 12:24 PM
Home and Nowhere
Homelessness and Belonging in W.G. Sebald and Jenny Erpenbeck
This thesis is a comparative study of homelessness and belonging in selected works by W. G. Sebald and Jenny Erpenbeck – the first of its kind. Through close readings of Sebald’s Die Ausgewanderten (1992) and Erpenbeck’s novels Heimsuchung (2008), Aller Tage Abend (2012) and Gehen, ging, gegangen (2015) I examine the authors’ representation of different forms of homelessness, flight, and emigration, and what these tell us about the handling of German history after the Shoah. Reading within a theoretical frame provided by Hannah Arendt’s texts on flight and homelessness, and with a double perspective on both the representation of subjective experiences of loss and structural and political bordering, outlines clear differences in the conception of homelessness, as well as the sociopolitical and existential possibilities that appear when narrating a country’s history from the perspective of a fleeing person.
The close readings uncover a distinction between what I call existential homelessness in Sebald, and political homelessness in Erpenbeck. Where Sebald’s stories portray the loss of home and belonging as an incurable and irreparable metaphysical trauma of identity, leading to isolation and longing for death, Erpenbeck’s novels show an evolution away from existentialism and into loss of home as a loss of illusion, which clears the ground for new interpretations of history. Sebald’s stories look inward and backward, contemplating loss; Erpenbeck’s novels look outward and forward, towards possible sociopolitical communities in the present. This means that Sebald’s stories portray history as locked in a negative groove, whereas Erpenbeck’s novels challenge the grip of the past over the present. This decisive difference illuminates the image either author draws of Germany’s identity after the Shoah, and prepares the grounds for renegotiations of German identity in the 21st century.
