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John David Crosby

John David Crosby is a PhD Candidate in Nordic Literature at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). A member of the Research Council of Norway-funded project Imagination 1814-1905: Mapping the Imagined Geographies of Norway, his project looks at the philosophy and concept of the motif ‘home,’ used extensively in New Norwegian poetry and fiction between 1840 and 1925. He is most interested in the aesthetic and philosophical discourses that appear in Nynorsk literature during this nation-building period.

After completing degrees in French and Norwegian literature, he has worked as well as a translator from these languages, most recently translating a book by Frode Helland, former director of the Centre for Ibsen Studies at the University of Oslo.

In the fall semester of 2025, he will be a visiting scholar with the research group Nordic Blue Humanities at the Sorbonne in Paris.

NTNU Trondheim

Department of Language and Literature
Dragvoll Campus
Building 3
N-7049 Trondheim
Norway

john.d.crosby[at]ntnu.no

Personal site at NTNU Trondheim

ORCID

Between Nation, World and Universe: The Philosophy of Home in Nynorsk Literature. 1840-1925.

This project begins by observing the fact that the motif of heim (the New Norwegian word for home) appears constantly in Nynorsk literature’s beginnings and well into the modern breakthrough. This motif has hardly been commented on, aside from its definition as a symbol of topographical place, to where one belongs or returns, or from where one departs. Yet, out of this fixed meaning, heim develops a second meaning that becomes a primary symbol in poetry and prose. It is this second meaning which this thesis argues is paramount to the literature of Nynorsk.

Not only is this symbol unique to this corpus, but the Nynorsk texts I examine are in fact constituted by the continually present concept and symbol of heimen, the home. The conception of home, therefore, expresses not simply lived space, but mankind, the world, the nation, the universe, heaven or hell, good or evil, futurism, modernism, expressionism, Heimat and the Fatherland, the uncanny, joy and the soul of humanity. These various definitions and allegories are visible in the works of, among many others, Aasen, Vinje, Garborg, Sivle, Ørjasæter, Nygard and Uppdal.

That the meaning of heim is articulated in such an array of conceptual notions – the geographical, the metaphysical, the philosophical, the mythological, the national, the religious, the metaphorical – illustrates that its meaning is couched beneath several layers. This project therefore looks to map how the meaning of home, as a concept, travels across time periods, linguistic changes, artistic periods and ideological differences.

“The New Norwegian Peer Gynt: On the Nynorsk Versions of Ibsen’s Last Drama in Verse,” Ibsen Studies, 25,1 (2025)

Translations

Helland in Retrospect: Ten Essays on Ibsen. Novus Forlag. 2024

“Litt om Kamau Brathwaite.” Mellom Tidsskrift for omsett litteratur. 2024

“Extracts from Jacques Derrida’s La bête et le souverain.” Mellom Tidsskrift for omsett litteratur. 2023.

“Excess against Apocalypse” by Julian Blaue. Academic lecture at University of Oslo (Nov. 2023).

  • “The Nynorsk Philosophy of Home.” Conference presentation at The Digital 19th Century, Trondheim, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), December 12, 2024.
  • “Å gje ei ny røyst. Jon Fosses Peer Gynt.” Conference presentation at Nynorsk Festspela, Volda University College, Volda, June 6th 2024.
  • “A History of Nynorsk Translation.” Conference presentation at Text, Imagine, Sound, Room, Humbolt University, Berlin, Germany, May 23, 2024.

University studies and degrees

  • Since 2024
  • PhD Candidate at the Department of Language and Literature, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
  • 2023
  • MPhil in Ibsen Studies, University of Oslo. Thesis title: “To speak Mysteries of the Spirit: On the Two Nynorsk Translations of Peer Gynt“.
  • 2013 – 2017
  • BA in French Literature, Sarah Lawrence College, New York, USA.
  • 2015 – 2016
  • Exchange year, Sorbonne University, Paris

Professional Background

  • Fall Semester 2025 (forthcoming)
  • Visiting Scholar, Sorbonne University, Paris
  • 2023-2024
  • Research Assistant, Centre for Ibsen Studies, University of Oslo

Teaching

  • Spring 2024
  • NORD1104. Theory, genre, analysis (Norwegian Literature) Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)