Mathies Græsborg Aarhus
Postdoctor
Department of Literature, History of Ideas, andAbout Mathies Græsborg Aarhus
My research investigates the relationship between literature and work and, more specifically, the cultural significance of work-related issues like unemployment, precarization and automation. My work has appeared in journals like symplokē, K&K, Passage, Contemporary Literature and in several anthologies.
My current research project explores how literary reception is adapting to labor developments using data and methods from digital humanities.
Scholars have shown that what we now call "literature" developed in response to some very fundamental changes to the workday as workers obtained more time to read fiction. Today, work is undergoing cataclysmic transformations as a result of digitization and the internet. Workers are becoming increasingly precarious and are expected to be available 24/7 on their mobile devices and smartphones. I am interested in what happens to reading when work becomes digital and omnipresent.
The project has established partnerships with major institutions in the Scandinavian literary industry from which I will gather data.