PhD students at the School for Communication and Culture

My research will be about... Controversies surrounding meat and cutting back on meat consumption taking place on social media. Climate change has become an unavoidable subject to deal with - both for private individuals, companies and political parties. And it is not enough to acknowledge the subject, it has also become clear that action is necessary. One of the areas that many suggest changing is what we eat or how we put together our meals, e.g. by reducing our meat consumption. However, there are many different attitudes to what we should put on our plate, which results in large discussions in the comment sections on e.g. Facebook. These are the discussions I will investigate in my project.

When I'm at a social event and wish to explain what my project is about, I say... I will be looking at people's different opinions on and attitudes towards meat and meat consumption, and how these attitudes are expressed in comments on Facebook. Most often, this in itself sets off a debate at the family party.

If you want to know more about my topic, you can check out... First of all, think about your own attitudes towards what you eat. Have you changed what goes in the shopping basket when you are in the supermarket? What comes into play when deciding on today's dinner? And how do you experience the tone of social media? Do you actively contribute by e.g. commenting, liking, or sharing posts, or is it something you refrain from?

My research will be about... the increasing number of young Danish TikTok users. I am interested in investigating what kind of content they watch and interacts with on TikTok and how they experience and use TikTok as media.

When I'm at a social event and wish to explain what my project is about, I say... You have probably heard about TikTok in the media and you're probably wondering why young people waste their time staring at irrelevant videos on yet another new social media platform? And I understand why you're wondering - we don't actually know a lot about it. That's why I want to investigate what makes TikTok so likable for young Danes and what they get out of using the app - whether it's more than just "digital crack cocaine" and pastime.

If you want to know more about my topic, you should... first of all install TikTok and start using the app yourself. If you want to read a little more then Frederik Kulager has written some good articles about TikTok for Zetland. You can also find a wide range of academic articles, talks and other materials about TikTok through TikTok Cultures Research Network.

My research will be about... Literary productions of "The New World" from England and Spain in the 1500s and 1600s. My project will investigate America's role especially in drama but also in travel descriptions, prose and poetry from the period where Spain and England were arch rivals while also building great colonial empires. I'm both interested in concrete intertextual connections between the two countries' literary history and in the general motives and topics that are processed across country borders.

When I’m at a social event and wish to explain what my project is about, I say... That I'm trying to find El Dorado. And when the awkward silence becomes unbearable, I tell them that I'm investigating literary connections between Spanish and English works that directly (and indirectly) depicts the "discovery" and the colonization of The New World. If it needs to be more precise, I tell them that I'm currently investigating gold and the emotions and affects that are connected to the different Spanish and English texts.

If you want to know more about my topic, you should...  read the Bulgarian-French philosophe Tzvetan Todorov's book The Conquest of America (1982) which is a classic literary and ideological introduction to the field. Gavin Hollis' The Absence of America (2015) which discusses the (surprising) absence of The New World in English drama, and Barbara Fuchs' Mimesis & Empire (2001) which investigates the connection between literature, imitation and empire formation, are also good places to start.

A more colorful approach would be to read the Mexican author Álvaro Enrigue's rambling postmodern og baroque novel Sudden Death (2013) which entails the conquest of the Aztec Empire and connections between baroque Europe and the New World (besides the history of the game of tennis, the painter Caravaggio and other goods - read it!)