The Watery Line: A Blue Literary History of Danmark

This project develops the first blue literary history of Denmark by examining how literature engages with the sea and the coast as vital yet neglected dimensions of national identity. As a low-lying coastal country, Denmark is vulnerable to sea-level rise, storm surges, and ecological disruption. While green paradigms have dominated environmental thought, this project argues for a blue turn that reflects marine instability and the necessity of adaptation. Drawing on blue humanities and chronotope theory, the project explores how literature narrates life with water - across crises, transitions, and everyday endurance. Through close readings of works from Romanticism to the present, it shows how Danish literature registers human-marine entanglements and offers a cultural resource for imagining and inhabiting a wetter world. The project contributes new insight into how literary form helps us understand - and live with - climate change in a time of planetary uncertainty.