Karl Emil Rosenbæk

PhD Project: Unearthing Nordic North Sea – Contemporary petrofiction in Denmark and Norway

My study is inspired by the Petroculture-studies from US and Canada where we have seen an increased focus on oil, not only as a political and economic factor, but also as a component in the development of our modern cultural ideations. Hence, our understanding and valorization of mobility, individualism, ingenuity/frontierism, freedom, masculinity, conservation, consumption are heavily influenced by this cheap and vast energy form.

This understanding of oil as culture is however a fairly understudied subject in the two Nordic oil nations, Denmark and Norway. As such, in an effort to transport the insights from the America based Petroculture-studies to the North Sea, my project details instances of Nordic contemporary petrofictions. In short, it is a preliminary study of the Nordic North Sea nations as a way to introduce a cultural component to the discussion of a post-fossil way of life. That is, how is oil and all its cultural imaginaries present in fiction, what is it capable of, how does it matter, and what do this mean for the vital response to the climate crisis?