Högre seminarium: Tales from the Contact Zone. Colonial Printing and Romanticism in Nineteenth-Century Greenland

This talk examines the remarkable bidirectional flow of texts in mid-nineteenth-century Greenland, where European literature was translated into Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) while Indigenous narratives were collected and published. Drawing on previously overlooked archival material, I demonstrate how colonial printing functioned as a vital site of cultural exchange rather than mere imposition. The research reveals how European texts—including the tale of Robinson Crusoe, Hans Christian Andersen’s poetry and Wieland’s Oberon—acquired distinctive meanings when recontextualised within Greenlandic concerns, while Indigenous narratives were simultaneously collected as part of a cultural revival initiative. I argue that the Greenlandic printing programme, which featured Indigenous visual representations, constituted a distinctive form of colonial Romanticism that simultaneously served to strengthen Indigenous pride and recover what was seen as a vanishing culture.

Co-organised with Freezing Cold Seminar.