The notion of the Robinsoniad is curiously alive in today's culture, not only because of reality shows, popular movies and other fictions on the castaway theme, but also because of a deeper cultural anxiety of and fascination with isolation. This course proposes to examine a number of cultural texts that are manifestations of these dynamics and the tensions between isolation/self-reliance; nature/civilization; savagery and privitivity/education and scientific knowledge, subaltern/coloniser etc. etc.

Read an interesting article about the pervasive presence of the Robinsoniad as a cultural text:
Frederick Zackel: Robinson Crusoe and the Ethnic Sidekick in Bright Lights Film Journal


In a course such as this some texts are unavoidable, of course primarily Defoe’s original novel, Robinson Crusoe...

Other texts will include J.M. Coetzee: Foe as a postcolonial/postmodern version of the original palimpsest; and Adrian Mitchell’s play Man Friday, where Friday writes back to the Empire...

Group Robinsoniads detailing young folks’ adventures/horrors in the South seas, such as Marianne Wiggins’ John Dollar and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies...

Movies such as Castaway and other, more direct Robinson adaptations (such as the Pierce Brosnan film of Robinson Crusoe)...

Robinson poetry, f.ex. Elisabeth Bishop, Derek Walcott and others...

Robinson parodies...

Reality shows...



Course plan:

7 /2 - 10.00 - 11.45 - Andrew Fish: The paradigm  - Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (1719) pp. 1-150 , plus “Contexts” pp. 227-245 (all page numbers refer to the Norton Critical Ed., which you can buy at Centerboghandelen)
- If for some reason you want another version of the text (for free!) you can download it here: (on-line version) (on-line version 2)

21/2 - 8.00 - 9.45 - Andrew Fish: The paradigm  - Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (1719) pp. 151-238, plus various critical texts (optional) pp. 246-432 (Norton Critical Ed.)

21/2 - 10.00 - 11.45 - Camelia Elias: Female Robinsons: Unca Eliza Winkfield: The Female American (1767) (Session description) (Slides)
(Winkfield's short novel is in the course master box for copying)

28/2 - 10.00 - 11.45 - Bent Sørensen: Postmodern interventions - J.M. Coetzee: Foe (1986) (Read a paper on this) (Read these short notices as preparation)
(You must buy Coetzee's novel from Centerboghandelen)

7/3 - 10.00 -11.45 - Søren Balle: Robinson poetry: Elisabeth Bishop’s “Crusoe in England” and Derek Walcott’s “Crusoe's Island” and others
(Read a paper by Rajeev Patke on this)

7/3 - 12.15 - 14.00 - Lissi Daber: Postcolonial Robinsoniad: Writing back - Adrian Mitchell: Man Friday (a play (1974) and a movie (1975)) (Excerpts are in the course master box)

14/3 - 10.00 - 11.45 - Jens Kirk: Robinson for the 21st Century: Tibor Fischer's Voyage to the End of the Room (2003) (Info)

4/4 - 10.00 - 11.45 - Steen Christiansen & Torben Poulsen: Robinson films/adaptations/remediations + Reality Robinson and the Mock-documentary (Read this paper as preparation)

4/4 - 12.15 - 14.00 - Steen Christiansen & Torben Poulsen: Analyses of Robinson Crusoe on Mars & Enemy Mine; Robinson Ekspeditionen & Castaway 2000

11/4 - 12.00 - 13.00 - Torben Ditlevsen: Group Robinsoniads - R.M. Ballantyne: Coral Island, William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954) and Marianne Wiggins: John Dollar (1988) (No readings for this lecture!!) PS: The Nobelprize.org site has several links worth pursuing, including a “Lord of the Flies Game”

11/4 - 13.00 - 15.00 - A screening of Man Friday (the 1975 film version w. Peter O'Toole and Richard Roundtree)