CV

CV

Personalia:

Name: Bent Sørensen
Born: April 20, 1958
Citizenship: Danish
Address: Rosenfeldtparken 82, DK-9400 Norresundby, Denmark
E-mail: i12bent@hum.aau.dk
Telephone number: +45 9819 2608 or +45 9635 9166; Fax: +45 9815 2304
Current academic affiliation: Associate Professor of English, Dept. of Languages and Intercultural Studies, Aalborg University (AAU), Denmark

Education:

BA, English, Aalborg University, 1990

MA, English, Aalborg University, 1994

PhD, English, Aalborg University, 2001

Teaching:

English and American literature

Literary theory

Cultural Studies

General research areas:

Cultural Text Studies

Theory

Literary genres

American literature and culture, esp. 20. and 21 C.

Transatlantic literary manifestations

Images of Europe in fiction and travel literature

Prior appointments:

Student Teaching Assistant (Hjælpelærer), AAU, 1981–1984 & 1991–1992

Teaching Assistant (UA), AAU, 1992–1994

PhD Candidate – salaried research appointment (Ph.d studerende), AAU, 1994–1996

Part-time Lecturer (Ekstern lektor), AAU, 1996–1998 & 2000–2001

Full-time Lecturer (Amanuensis), AAU, 1999

Assistant Professor (Adjunkt), AAU, 2001–2004

Current appointments:

Member of the Board of External Examiners for the Danish Teacher Training Colleges, English, 2002 –

Associate Professor (Lektor), AAU, September 2004 –

Administrative experience:

Student member of governing bodies of AAU, all levels, several terms 1977–84

Coordinator of the freshman program, Dept. of Languages and Intercultural Studies, 1998–2001

Coordinator of MA thesis program, English, 1998 –

Department Coordinator, English, 1999–2001, September 2004 –

Editorial experience:

General editor of Cultural Text Studies, monograph series of Dept. of Languages and Intercultural Studies

Co-editor of Cultural Text Studies 1: An Introduction (w. Torben Ditlevsen), Cultural Text Studies 2: Complexity (w. Jens Kirk & Tore Rye Andersen), Cultural Text Studies 3: Disorder (w. Christoph Ribbat), Cultural Text Studies 5: Memory (w. Camelia Elias)

Editor of 5 Faces of Derrida, Working Papers on Languages and Intercultural Studies, vol 35, January 2005

Conference organising experience:

Co-organiser (w. Jens Kirk) of international conference: “Complexity”, AAU, January 2004

Workshop moderator – 14th Conference on British and American Studies, Timisoara, Romania, May 2004

Panel convener (w. Camelia Elias) at Memory Haunting Discourse/Discourse Haunting Memory Conference, Karlstad, June 2004, Panel title: “Memory and potentiality as narrative strategies in the work of Raymond Federman”

Session Chair – “Invention”, BCLA Conference, Leeds, July 2004

Seminar convener (w. Christoph Ribbat) at ESSE-7 Conference, Zaragoza, Spain, September 2004, Seminar title: “Disorders of the Mind in Literature and Film”

Workshop moderator at SSSS Conference, Alcalá, Spain, October 2004, Workshop title: “Postmodern Maneuvres”

Workshop convener (w. Søren H. Balle) at NAAS-2005, Växjö, Sweden, May 2005, Workshop title: “Poetics and Non-Conformity”

International contacts:

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada: Visiting Graduate Student at English Dept. (Dr. L. Ricou) February 1 – July 31, 1996

Resident at Green College, UBC, Vancouver, February – June 1996; Member of Green College Society 1996 –

Columbia University in the City of New York (Prof. Karl Kroeber), Research sabbatical, September 1 – November 1, 2001

Center for Comparative Studies, U. of Lisbon (Prof. Helena Buescu), Research sabbatical, September 1 – December 1, 2003

Brenau University, Gainesville, GA, Faculty exchange, October 1 – October 15, 2003, follow-up visit November 2004

Oulu University, Finland (Prof. Anthony Johnson). Faculty exchange, April 2005

Professional associations:

Member of the Nordic and European Associations of American Studies: NAAS & EAAS

Member of The European Society for the Study of English: ESSE

Member of the British Comparative Literature Association: BCLA

Member of The Society for the Study of the Short Story: SSSS

Publications:

Books:

Love, Identity and Reason in the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (84 pp.), “Arbejdspapirer fra Institut for Sprog og Internationale Kulturstudier”, no. 23, 1995 (Based on MA thesis)

Labelling a Generation - Generationing the Text (324 pp.), “Publikationer fra Institut for Sprog og Internationale Kulturstudier”, Vol. 35-E (ISBN 87-89170-70-9), 2001 (PhD dissertation)

Edited volumes:

5 Faces of Derrida, Working Papers on Languages and Intercultural Studies, vol. 35, January 2005

Cultural Text Studies 1, English Department anthology, Aalborg University Press, forthcoming February 2005 (w/ Torben Ditlevsen)

Complexity - Cultural Text Studies 2, Aalborg University Press, forthcoming February 2005 (w/ Jens Kirk & Tore Rye Andersen)

Disorder - Cultural Text Studies 3, Aalborg University Press, forthcoming September 2005 (w/Christoph Ribbat)

Memory - Cultural Text Studies 5, Aalborg University Press, forthcoming February 2006 (w/Camelia Elias)

Articles and book chapters:

“‘Tereu’ as lexical fragment or vocative in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land” (w. Camelia Elias), The Explicator, Vol. 62, Number 2 - Winter 2004

“Youth and Innocence as Textual Constructs in the short stories of J.D. Salinger and Douglas Coupland”, OASIS 62, SDU, Denmark, February 2004

“An On & Off Beat: Kerouac’s Beat Etymologies”, Philament 3 (“Off-Beat” Issue, April 2004)

“Derrida, 911 and Cultural Analysis” (in Culture, Media, Theory, Practice: Perspectives, ed. Ben Dorfman. Aalborg University Press, September 2004)

“Freudian Economies and Constructions of Love in Poe’s Tales”, Nordic Journal of English Studies, vol 3, no.3, 2004

“Jewishness and Identity in Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn” (Forthcoming on CD-ROM version of the Conference Proceedings of the Ninth Nordic Conference of English Studies, ed. Tim Caudery)

“Katabasis in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian” , Orbis Litterarum, Vol. 60, Issue 1, 2005

“Introduction: Facing Derrida?”, “Forgiving Derrida for Dying”, “5 Faces of Derrida: Dialogue”, 5 Faces of Derrida, Working Papers on Languages and Intercultural Studies, vol. 35, ed. Bent Sørensen, January 2005

“Introduction: On Titles and Un-titles”, “Tales, Titles, Tails: Negotiations of Genre in the (Short) Fiction of Alasdair Gray”, Untitled, Working Papers on Languages and Intercultural Studies, vol. 37, ed. Camelia Elias, March 2005

“Adaptation in Adaptation: A Real Fictitious Story(line), or ‘Dad, you're going to be a character in a Hollywood movie’” (Forthcoming in Adaptations, eds. Kyle Nicholas & Jørgen Riber Christensen, Aalborg University Press, 2005)

“Otherness in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Passing” (Forthcoming in Cultural Text Studies 1, English Department anthology, Aalborg University Press, February 2005)

“Cultural Acceleration and Labelling of Generations” (Complexity, Aalborg, January ’04) (Forthcoming in Complexity – Cultural Text Studies 2, February 2005)

“Physicists in the Field of Fiction” (Forthcoming in Comparative Critical Studies, “Invention” proceedings issue, 2005)

“The Celtic Ray: Representations of Diaspora Identities in Van Morrison Lyrics” (Forthcoming in Michael Böss, Irene Gilsenan Nordin & Britta Olinder (eds.): Exile: Realities and Metaphors in Irish History and Literature, Dolphin Press, Aarhus, 2005)

“Postmodern Gothic and Juvenalian/Menippean Satire in Bret Easton Ellis’s The Informers” (Forthcoming in Literary Research, 2005)

“Some remarks on lexical fragments and Romanian echoes in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land” (Forthcoming in conference proceedings of the 14th Conference on British and American Studies, Timisoara, Romania, May 2005)

“Sacred and profane icon-work: Jane Fonda and Elvis Presley” (Forthcoming in US Icons and Iconicity, Conference publication: AAAS Conference 2003, Graz – LIT Verlag, August 2005)

“Negotiations of Genre in the Short Fiction of Alasdair Gray” (Forthcoming in the Proceedings of the 8th International. Conf. on the Short Story in English, Alcalá, Spain, 2005 (CD-ROM))

“‘Small, but exalted’ – Negotiating Differences: Personal Identity and Othering in Nella Larsen” (Forthcoming in ACT 11 proceedings volume, Edições Colibri/CEC, Lisbon, 2005)

“Theorising Belonging: The Short Story Sequences of Salinger, Updike and Coupland” (Forthcoming (2005) in the proceedings of conference on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Short Fiction Theory and Criticism, U. of Salamanca, Spain)

“Images of Europe in Generational Novels” (Forthcoming in Transatlantic – Cultural Text Studies 4, September 2005)

Manuscripts under review:

“Negotiations of Genre in the Short Fiction of Alasdair Gray” (Under review for book version of Proceedings of the 8th International. Conf. on the Short Story in English, Alcalá, Spain)

Invited presentations and lectures:

“Constructing a Generation ‑ X Marks the Spot”, UBC, Green College, April 1996

“Generational Novels”, Comp.Lit. (Litteraturhistorie), Aarhus University, 1997

“The Use of Doubles in Poe’s Love Stories”, Brenau University, October 2003

“Images of Europe in Generational Novels”, Brenau University, October 2003

“‘Small, but exalted’ – Difference and Otherness in Nella Larsen’s Life and Work”, Brenau University, October, 2003

“Images of Europe in Generational Novels”, FLUP (Faculty of Letters, University of Porto), November 2003

“Sacred and profane icon-work: Jane Fonda and Elvis Presley”, FLUL (Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon), November 2003

“‘Small, but exalted’ – Negotiating Differences: Personal Identity and Othering in Nella Larsen”, ACT 11 - plenary lecture, University of Lisbon, March 2004

“Negotiations of Genre in the Short Fiction of Alasdair Gray”, 8th Internat. Conf. on the Short Story in English, Alcalá, Spain, October 2004
“Frank Grevil: Iraq War Whistleblower - a Danish Perspective”, Brenau University, November 2004

“Sacred and profane icon-work: Jane Fonda and Elvis Presley”, Renvall Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland, April 2005

Selected conference papers:

“Cultural and Individual Memory in Raymond Federman’s The Twofold Vibration” (Cultural Memory Conference, Nicosia, February 2004)

“The Tic'ing Detective: Tourette’s Syndrome as Post-modern Trope” (20th C. Literature, Louisville, Kentucky, February 2004)

“Images of Europe in Two Generational Novels: From Bohemia to Eurotrash” (BAAS, Manchester, April 2004)

“Katabasis in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian” (EAAS, Prague, April 2004)

“The Celtic Ray: Representations of Diaspora Identities in Van Morrison Lyrics” (Eagle & Maple Leaf, Helsinki, May 2004)

“Some remarks on lexical fragments and Romanian echoes in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land” (14th Conference on British and American Studies, Timisoara, Romania, May 2004)

“Jewishness and Identity in Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn” (NAES, Aarhus, May 2004)

“Future and Past Memory in Raymond Federman’s The Twofold Vibration” (Memory, Haunting, Discourse/Discourse, Haunting, Memory Conference, Karlstad, June 2004)

“Better than Text? – Textuality as Sexuality in Postmodern North American Prose Poems” (Poetry and Sexuality, Stirling U., Scotland, July 2004)

“Physicists in the Field of Fiction” (Invention: Literature and Science, U. of Leeds, UK, July 2004)

“Postmodern Gothic and Juvenalian/Menippean Satire in Easton Ellis’s The Informers” (ESSE-7, Zaragoza, “The Gothic”-seminar, Sept. 2004)

“Let us Space”: Chaos and Order in M. Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves (Chaos & Order, CRIIILLA, Reims, France, March, 2005)

“The horror of the iconic page: Concrete prose icons in Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves” (Fifth Symposium On Iconicity In Language And Literature, Krakow, Poland, March 2005)

“The Spools and Loops of A.R. Ammons and Jack Kerouac” (NAAS-2005, Växjö, Sweden, May 2005)
“Tourette in Fiction: Lethem, Hecht, Rubio, Byalick”, (IPSA 22, Cordoba, Spain, June 2005 + (Re)Constructing Pain and Joy in Language, Literature, and Culture, Athens, Greece, October 2005)

Pedagogy:

Pros and Cons of Project Based Learning – Presentation of the AAU Project Model: 2 Personal Narratives (w. Camelia Elias)

Thesis direction:

A Sociological and Literary Quest: the Best Minds of a Generation Investigated - William S. Burroughsm Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac - a comparison (Brit Jørgensen)

Mythical Realism - The Rôle of Mythology in Magical Realism: A Case Study of Salman Rushdie’s “The Ground Beneath Her Feet” (Sámal Kristian Jacobsen)

Interfictional Pockets: A Narratological Investigation of Temporal Hypotheses and Hypertrophied-Hypothesis in Postmodern Literature (Jesper Christensen)

Racial Affirmation in Langston Hughes’ Early Poetry (Rikke Bach Larsen)

The Recognition of Identites: An Analysis of Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” (Gitte Østergaard Sørensen)

“A Manager of Narrative”: A Postcolonial Perspective on V.S. Naipaul’s Muslim Travel Books - An Analysis of Genre, Character and Narrator (Helle Byskov Jensen)

Identity Issues in Contemporary U.S. Immigrant Literature (Using Models from Modern Psychology) (Muriel Hoequist)

Victims of Status - Status of Victims: An Analysis of the Relation between Status Positions and Victimology in “The Bonfire of the Vanities” by Tom Wolfe (Lene Carlsen Luther)

Resistance Happens... Tradition versus the new: The New York School of Poetry as counter cultural manifestation in 1950s USA (Janni Olesen)

Let Me Be Your Voice! A Historical, Cultural, Theoretical and Literary Analysis of Spokemanship in 1960s and 1970s America (Helen Møllerskov)

Challenging the Alienating Society: an Existentialist Journey into the Beat Generation (Elisa Knude Gårdbo)

QUE? - An analysis and comparison of concepts within postmodern culture and postmodern literature (Ole Mølgaard)

Crisis of Knowledge, Commodification and Decadent Reality: An Analysis of Don DeLillo’s “White Noise” (Kent Oluf Hytten)

The Reader in the Postmodern Text: Transtextuality in “Possession - a Romance” by A. S. Byatt (Rikke Bergmann Johansen)

Tunnel Infinity: Mirror into Mirror: A reading of William Gibson’s cyberspace trilogy (Steen L. Christiansen)

Women and Science Fiction (Mette Kathrine Nielsen)

Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut's Quest for Style and Meaning (Inge Høyer)

Blank Fiction, Commodification and Decline: An Analysis of “Less Than Zero”, “Bright Lights, Big City”, and “Slaves of New York” (Anne Bjørnskov Langballe)

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here: An analysis of surfaces in “Less Than Zero”, “American Psycho” and “Glamorama” (Søren Winther Johannsen)

Textual Ghosts - A Palimpsestuous Reading of Paul Auster's “The New York Trilogy” with a Specific Focus on Hypertextuality (Søren Abilgaard Thomsen & Thomas Lund)

There is no Paul Auster here: An analysis of Paul Auster’s “City of Glass” (Thomas Bjerg Danielsen)

Text in Reflection: Metafiction and Intrinsic Criticism in Paul Auster’s “The New York Trilogy” (Berit Vestergaard)

The American Southwest: A reading of Leslie Marmon Silko, Denise Chávez, and Barbara Kingsolver (Susanne Smith)