We don't just eat to survive; we also use food to negotiate cultural affiliations, individuality and community. In other words: We are what we eat. This is why (non-)eating also plays an important role in Scandinavian literature. Be it Michel's soup bowl, the ascetic refusal to eat in Knut Hamsun's Hunger or the great feast in Karen Blixen's Babette's Feast.

Together with scholars from Germany and abroad, we are investigating the functions of food in the literature of Northern European countries. We want to investigate what can be told with and about food, and why we can also devour texts.

Programme:
10:00 Welcome
10:15 Mia Österlund (Åbo Akademi): Size, Scale and Style. Reading Fat in Contemporary Nordic Picturebooks.
11:00 Merle Heiduzcek (University of Bremen): Starving together, eating alone. Community and social distance in Han Kang's The Vegetarian and Karolina Ramqvist's Bread and Milk.
11:30: Sophie Wennerscheid (University of Copenhagen): "Better to eat porridge together than pork chops alone." Food as a lived community in Scandinavian film and literature.
12:15 Lunch
13:45 Stefanie von Schnurbein (HU Berlin): Kitchen Talk: Cooking and Starvation in Karen Blixen and August Strindberg (in conversation with Clemens Räthel).
14:30: Hanna Rinderle (HU Berlin): Colonial Cuisine. Culinary practices as cultural positioning in Karen Blixen's Den afrikanske Farm.
15:15: Conclusion
16:00 End of the conference

Organisation: Clemens Räthel (University of Greifswald), Marie-Luis Quinn Westfeld (University of Greifswald)

Monday, 11 May 2026
11:00 a.m.
Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg