My biggest debt of gratitude goes out to the Carlsberg Foundation. In 2007, it supported me with a three-year postdoc grant and thus made it possible for me to embark on the first expeditions of this large book project. Then, in April 2019 I received a Semper Ardens grant, again by the Carlsberg Foundation, which made it possible for me to complete the book. Finally, a publication grant from the Carlsberg Foundation made it possible to publish the book not only as a hardback edition, but also as a paperback edition and a digital Open Access edition.
In 2011, I had the privilege of holding a six-month Senior Fellowship at the Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie (ikkm) at the Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar, in Germany. At the ikkm, I want to thank Bernhard Siegert for inviting me; I am also indebted to Oliver Tege, my personal assistant in Weimar; among my Senior Fellow colleagues, I would like to thank and Linda D. Henderson, Brian Larkin, Reinhold Martin, and Joseph Vogl; among the scientific and administrative staff I particularly want to thank Jörg Braun, Michael Cuntz, Ulrike Engelbert, Lorenz Engell, Laura Frahm, Kristina Hellmann, Harun Maye, Leander Scholz, André Wendler, and the entire Herman Melville Group.
While writing the book, I benefitted from two intense periods at Stanford University in 2008 and 2013. Here, and at an early stage of the project, I held stimulating talks with Joshua Landy, Margaret Cohen, and Robert Pogue Harrison. I also want to reserve a special thank you for Margaret Tompkins, who contributed to making my stays at Stanford so enjoyable. Above all, I owe my deepest gratitude to Sepp Gumbrecht.
Several colleagues from abroad have been important to me while writing this book: Julie K. Allen (Brigham Young), Per Thomas Andersen (Oslo), Sibylle Baumbach (Innsbrück), César Domínguez (Santiago de Compostela), Knut Ove Eliassen (Trondheim), Jesper Gulddal (Newcastle), B. Venkat Mani (Madison), and Thomas G. Pavel (Chicago). I also wish to thank Mary K. Bercaw Edwards (Mystic) for making maritime existence as tangible as possible to me, and Peter Michael Martin (Mattapoisett) whose paper cutting art on Moby-Dick was a revelation to me that summer of 2015 in Tokyo—both were also kind enough to invite me to stay with them during my Melville Tour in the autumn of 2016. Thank you as well to Dawn Coleman (Knoxville), Timothy Marr (Chapel Hill) and John Bryant (Hofstra) for stimulating conversations on Melville.
In Denmark, I wish to thank Christian Benne and Frederik Tygstrup at Copenhagen University as well as Frits Andersen, Tore Rye Andersen, Mads
I owe a big thank you to the board of the San Cataldo convent on the Amalfi Coast, Italy, who granted me a two-week writing retreat in the summer of 2017. I went back to San Cataldo in 2018, and both stays were crucial for the book’s progress. In 2019 and 2020, I also benefitted from two stays at Ørslevkloster thanks to its lovely staff and beautiful setting. Thank you as well to the entire 3ROceans group in Trondheim and abroad.
At the University of Southern Denmark, my home university, I owe a big thank you to Sten Pultz Moslund, Anders Engberg-Pedersen, Erik Granly Jensen, Torsten Bøgh Thomsen, Benjamin Boysen, Rasmus Thorning Hansen, Leif Søndergaard, and the late Jørgen Dines Johansen, all present or previous colleagues in Comparative Literature; to Peter Simonsen, Moritz Schramm, Bo Kampmann Walther, Rune Graulund, Kathrin Maurer, Lars Ole Sauerberg, Lars Handesten, Anne-Marie Mai, Rita Felski, Lars Bøje Mortensen, Christian Høgel, Esben Nedenskov Petersen, Alexandra Holsting, Malene Breunig, Anita Nell Bech Albertsen, Jon Helt Haarder, Hjørdis Brandrup Kortbek, and Kirsten Drotner; to Sophy Kohler and Marlene Marcussen, my two talented and former PhD students; to Michael Karlsson Pedersen, who set me on the Conrad-Heidegger-Ihde track; to Johs Nørregaard Frandsen, Per Krogh Hansen, Anne Jensen, Lars Grassme Binderup, Simon Møberg Torp, Lone Granhøj, Lotte Bloch, Peter Hemmersam, Karen Fog Rasmussen, Ingelise Nielsen, and Signe Østergaard Christensen.
I am especially grateful to my two colleagues Sofie Kluge and Adam Paulsen, both in Comparative Literature. Sofie was so kind to let me stay in her apartment in Athens for two weeks to write. While in Athens, I also benefitted from the hospitality of the Nordic Library. Adam read two of the book’s chapters intensely, and I profited greatly from his comments.
I would like to express my gratitude to the students who attended my three seminars on maritime literature and culture in 2010, 2013, and 2015. Our fruitful discussions have seeped into this book. Also a big thank you to the students with whom I created
At Brill, I wish to thank Clovis Jaillet and Masja Horn, my two editors, and Theo d’Haen who was kind enough to invite me into the “Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature” series. I also want to express my gratitude to the two anonymous readers of my manuscript for their generous reviews and perceptive suggestions. Pamela Starbird deserves special praise for her meticulous work on the manuscript.
Some of the chapters in this book have previously been published in different versions in journals and anthologies. Elements of “Histories” were published as “Litteraturhistoriske fragmenter: Billeder af havet” in Digtning og virkelighed: Studier i fiktion, an anthology edited by Søren Frank, Leif Søndergaard, and John Thobo-Carlsen (Odense: Syddansk Universitet, Institut for Kulturvidenskaber, 2013). The chapter on Cooper builds on a Danish article, “7. januar 1824: James Fenimore Cooper og den maritime romans fødsel” published in Kritik 198 (2010). Elements of the chapter on Jonas Lie first appeared as “The Tensions between Domestic Life and Maritime Life in Sea Novels” in Navigating Cultural Spaces: Maritime Places edited by Anna-Margaretha Horatschek, Yvonne Rosenberg, and Daniel Schäbler (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014) and later as “Jonas Lie mellem det maritime og det hjemlige: Stedets rolle i Lodsen og hans Hustru, Rutland og Gaa Paa!,” co-written with Marlene Marcussen, in K & K 118 (2015). My reading of Moby-Dick featured in an early version as “Melville’s Broad Present: Nostalgia, Presentiment, and Prophecy in Moby-Dick” in Aktuel Forskning (March 2015). I have also drawn on ideas and passages published in “The Seven Seas: Maritime Modernity in Nordic Literature,” which appeared in Nordic Literature: A Comparative History, edited by Tom DuBois and Dan Ringgaard (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2017). “Rhythms” was published in an early Danish version as “Maritime rytmer: En analyse af livet ombord på skibet” in Stedsvandringer: Analyser af stedets betydning i kunst, kultur og medier, an anthology edited by Malene Breunig, Søren Frank, Hjørdis Brandrup Kortbek, and Sten Moslund (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2013). It was also published in a later revised version in English, “Rhythms at Sea: Lefebvre and Maritime Fiction,” in Rhythms Now: Henri Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis Revisited, edited by Steen Ledet Christiansen and Mirjam Gebauer (Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag, 2019). The chapter on Jacobsen’s Havbrevene draws on “Her regerer havet” published in NLvT 2 (2021). Finally, the chapter on Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la mer came out in a Danish version as “Havets og dybets kræfter i Les Travailleurs de la mer: Forvarsler om det antropocæne og Victor Hugos ambivalente antropocentrisme” in Passage 37.3 (2022). I wish to thank all the publishers and editors for permission to recycle and reuse the material.
A note on translations: With only a few exceptions, I cite from the English translations of non-English sources, and if I have modified the translation, I state it in the footnote. Whenever I quote from a non-English text and I reference the original title in the footnote, it is my own translation.