Nordic Noir Research Articles

“Inviting people into our experience in a powerful way”: Indigenous Representation in the Television Series Burden of Truth and Midnattssol

Abstract: Introducing diversity into the white-dominated media business is part of mainstreaming social justice movements. This article addresses Indigenous themes’ and talents’ inclusion in two television series by mainstream production companies from the perspectives of organic representation, inclusivity, and justice. The analysis focuses on Canadian legal drama Burden of Truth (2018–2021) and French-Swedish Nordic Noir Midnattssol ( Midnight Sun , 2016). It considers the participation of Indigenous talents and their realistic address of social concerns and argues that both series work within the constraints of their political economies while offering modes for representation that demonstrate possibilities for creating inclusive and socially impactful, yet entertaining, productions.

On top of the world: mapping the Nordic crime fiction boom based on translation data

ABSTRACT Nordic Noir – crime fiction originating in the Nordic region – is one of the most significant international publishing success stories of the twenty-first century. Despite its importance, no one has mapped and analysed the circulation of Nordic Noir as world literature. The present study addresses this knowledge gap by quantitatively mapping the global translation flows of Nordic Noir during the period of its greatest international success, from 2000 to 2020. Drawing on the “Nordic Noir in Translation Database” containing 8,886 translations from all five main Nordic languages – Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish – this study is the first to chart the so-called “boom” in a comparative macro perspective, bringing to light the nuances of its international dissemination and impact. Key findings relate to the chronological structure of the boom, the scale of Swedish dominance and the role of a small group of top authors in driving overall translation rates.

Book Review: Geopolitics, Northern Europe, And Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us About World Politics

Book Review: Geopolitics, Northern Europe, And Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us About World Politics

Book Review: Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us About World Politics

Book Review: Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us About World Politics

Dreamworld or Dystopia?: The Nordic Model and Its Influence in the 21st Century

Dreamworld or Dystopia?: The Nordic Model and Its Influence in the 21st Century

Global TV Horror

Global TV Horror

“Nordic (Scandinavian) Noir” vs Scandinavian Detective: a Debatable Aspect of Study

The phenomenon of “Nordic (Scandinavian) noir”, which has formed in the literature of Northern Europe in the last two decades, is studied. The author considers the works of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian prose writers and proves the insufficient legitimacy of their attribution to “noir”. The term noir is substantiated. Based on the analysis of the novels by S. Larsson, J. Nesbø, H. Flood, M. Lindstein, A. Mette Hancock, the relevance of the term detective in relation to the work of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish prose writers is stated. It has been established that the definition of “Scandinavian (Nordic) noir” is not applicable to any of the newest Scandinavian novels. In terms of genre, in fact, each of these works is a detective story that combines other genre elements. “Millennium” by S. Larsson, “The Snowman”, “Leopard”, “Redneck” by J. Nesbø, “Corpse Flower” by A. M. Hancock synthesize elements of a detective, family and social novel. “The Therapist” H. Flod is a synthesis of a psychological thriller and a detective story. “A sect from a misty island” by M. Lindsteen combines the properties of a gothic novel (a closed chronotope of a manor, which is an analogue of a castle chronotope; the presence of a villain hero who determines the plot deployment) and a psychological detective story (an investigating heroine who reconstructs the events of the past, relying on logic to solve the mystery and giving realistic motivation to what is happening).

Application of Personality Theory of Criminal Psychology to Nordic Noir: A Study

Crime fiction is a genre in literature that is mainly focused on crime, its detection, its solution, the criminal and his motives. Similar to the genre of crime fiction is the sub- genre within it called ‘Nordic Noir’ which is also known as ‘Scandinavian Noir’. It is a term given to the literature coming from the Nordic or Scandinavian countries like Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland etc. It is mainly known for its dark and bleak settings, description of its landscape and strong female characters. There have been various approaches that have tried to understand criminal mind and behaviour. Relating crime fiction and criminal psychology and its various theories will yield new insight as psychology and literature share a very close bond. The Personality Theory argues that there are a number of personality traits which are associated with an act of crime or violent behaviour. Eysenck in his book Crime and Personality published in 1964 established a relationship between criminal behaviour and personality. According to him, personality traits play a key role in criminality. He was of the view that some genetic traits along with certain environmental forces lead to criminal behaviour or conduct. The three super factors about which Eysenck talks about and upon which the PEN model is based are psychoticism (P), extraversion (E) and neuroticism (N). This paper aims at the application of Personality Theory as given by Hans Eysenck to the new emerging sub-genre of Nordic noir. As the genre deals with crime and criminals, therefore it would be highly insightful to study it in the light of criminal psychology.

Europa Blues (L’Europe de l’Est des romans policiers scandinaves)

"The Scandinavian detective novel (or at least some of its authors) elaborates on local materials in an increasingly global or European context. From the perspective of its social relevance, the detective novel provides some of the most influential representations of Otherness. What interests us here is the place of Eastern Europe in the novels of certain Nordic Noir authors: Inger Wolf, Arne Dahl and Jo Nesbø. The dynamics between private and public, individual and collective, as well as the rich representation of different forms of mobility make it possible to build a wide variety of character identities, and to embrace both the local and the European/global."

NORDIC NOIR INNOVATIONS – “ FOLLOW THE MONEY ” AND “ THIN ICE ”

The phenomenon of Nordic noir involves a dual legacy – the tradition of social realism and the tradition of Gothic thrillers. The article focuses on the following question: How do these traditions support innovation in recent Nordic noir TV series? The answer implies an evaluation of the following issues: To which degree has it been possible to develop and sophisticate the trend of social realism? Which main functions does the Gothic tradition provide? How do the two traditions relate to production contexts? The analysis is based on two cases, the Danish public service TV drama “Follow the Money” and the Swedish “Thin Ice”, produced by Yellowbird.

Post-Nordic-noir landscapes: Competition through localisation in Finnish streaming media

This article discusses the ways locality and sense of place are used in the production and promotion of streaming media from small nations. We concentrate on location-related decisions behind Man in Room 301, a Finnish thriller series produced by VOD service Elisa Viihde Viaplay. While locality acts as a significant tool for Nordic Noir, a genre of film and TV characterised by a distinct ‘localised’ style, this article explores how the Finnish streaming industry is progressing towards a ‘post-Nordic-noir’ framework, a direction that focuses on an intense sense of place, both on the level of representation and production-related decisions.

Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us about World Politics

Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us about World Politics

About the Authors

Other| October 01 2022 About the Authors Music and the Moving Image (2022) 15 (3): 60. https://doi.org/10.5406/19407610.15.3.04 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation About the Authors. Music and the Moving Image 1 October 2022; 15 (3): 60. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/19407610.15.3.04 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressMusic and the Moving Image Search Advanced Search heidi hart is an art and humanities fellow at SixtyEight Art Institute in Copenhagen. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a PhD in German Studies from Duke University (2016). She completed a postdoc at Utah State University and is a regular guest instructor at Linnaeus University in Sweden. She has received an ACLS-Mellon fellowship and several grants for environmental curriculum development. Heidi's publications include the monographs Hanns Eisler's Art Songs: Arguing with Beauty (Camden House, 2018) and Music and the Environment in Dystopian Narrative: Sounding the Disaster (Palgrave Studies in Music and Literature, 2018). Her curatorial book Climate Thanatology is forthcoming in 2022 (Really Simple Syndication Press).kaapo huttunen is currently a PhD student at the University of Turku, the Faculty of Humanities. He conducts research on the role of music and sound design in the aesthetics of Nordic noir, the crime fiction style from the... You do not currently have access to this content.

The Ideological Recontextualisation of Modern Fatherhood in Scandinavian and British Nordic Noir Crime Series

Nordic Noir crime series have enjoyed much popularity and positive critical attention in Britain, as have many other aspects of Scandinavian ways of life, and the extent and nature of this cultural curiosity in the years following the international release of the originary <em>Forbrydelsen/The Killing</em> (2007) deserves further analytical attention. This article investigates one important manner in which culturally specific and ideologically charged content was received and negotiated in Britain in this period by comparing how conceptions of modern fatherhood are expressed in Scandinavian crime drama and British adaptations of the Nordic Noir crime genre. Nordic Noir series based in both cultures can be seen to share a strong thematic focus on fatherhood, especially centred on characters that embody features associated with openly affectionate and hands-on fatherhood, or “modern dads”. However, there are notable differences in how the figure of the modern dad is represented in Scandinavian crime drama and British series that appropriate key genre features of Nordic Noir, which suggests that the construct has undergone what is termed “ideological recontextualisation”. The Scandinavian modern dad characters tend to be heroes, their capacity for involved, selfless love and care for their children unproblematised and uncontested within the story worlds, while their British counterparts are far more suspect entities. Their seemingly close and loving interaction with children may be potentially sexually motivated, immaturely or selfishly handled, or even serve to mask their criminal intent, and they typically turn out to be the villains of the stories. The Scandinavian ideology connected to modern fatherhood appears, then, to have been an object of both fascination and contestation in British culture in this period, and may have been more resistant to undisputed cultural importation than female main characters with attachment issues and woolly jumpers.

Analysing the melancholy of Nordic Noir as stimmung: Affective world-building inThe Bridge

Scholars of crime fiction continuously discuss what Nordic Noir series have in common, arguing that it is a genre, a brand and a style respectively. Instead, this article explores Nordic Noir as an atmosphere, observed through the concept of stimmung, and argues that affective world-building in TV-series should be analysed beyond matters of style and narrative. Based on an analysis of The Bridge (2011–2018), the article discusses the aesthetic and critical potentialities of attuning oneself to the melancholic world of Nordic Noir and demonstrates that the affective quality of a series impacts how its themes can be read.

Ikeafication: The Bridge and the rise of Nordic noir

This article explores how international audiences identify with Nordic noir, and The Bridge in particular, as a way of mediating complex identity discourses and the economics of social welfare. It will be suggested that, while the influence of Scandinavian culture on the United Kingdom can be framed as an idealistic touristic projection, the appeal of Nordic noir is more complicated. On the surface, it may seem to embody positional cultural consumption and middle-class privilege; however, it is also a barometer of anxiety about dark undercurrents in UK politics at a time of change and uncertainty. At the beginning of the time of writing (2020), Britain had yet to negotiate its future relationship with the European Union following the result of the 2016 Referendum: the intervening four years having seen a rise of right-wing populism in the United Kingdom and polarization over Brexit. Overshadowing this had been the presidency of Donald Trump in the United States and an ongoing migrant crisis emanating from the war in Syria. As one respondent, invoking Shakespeare’s Hamlet, stated: ‘There’s something rotten in the state of…’. Building on the work of Creeber, Robbins Nielsen, Waade, and Alexi, it will be argued that, far from being a unique dreamland, The Bridge is a symbol of both Diaspora (Bhaba) and postmodernity (Baudrillard), and that the popularity of Scandinavian noir with international audiences is concomitant to an awareness that their own worlds are less singular.

Scandinavian success as European policy dilemma: creative Europe’s funding for TV drama co-productions, 2014-20

ABSTRACT This article surveys the fiction productions that received funding from Creative Europe’s TV Programming scheme 2014–2020. The evaluation shows that most funding went to North-Western Europe with Scandinavia surpassing Europe’s big TV producing nations. The geographical and genre imbalances in the TV scheme must be seen in the light of the long-established close collaboration between Germany and primarily the Scandinavian countries and the profiled position of ‘Nordic Noir’ crime fiction as the engine that drives forward international collaboration. This trend exemplifies European policy dilemmas emerging from television’s role in the intersections of economy and culture. North-European countries appear well-equipped in advance to meet the criteria of Creative Europe through established collaboration, while differences in the media systems and production cultures have kept producers in the South and East of Europe from even applying. The EU funding scheme may, thus, have strengthened already strong relationships rather than creating new ones.

Robert A. Saunders.Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us about World Politics

Robert A. Saunders.<i>Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us about World Politics</i>

Book Review: Nordic Noir, Adaptation, Appropriation

Book Review: Nordic Noir, Adaptation, Appropriation

Vengeance Unbound: Henning Mankell's The Man from Beijing

Abstract: The Man from Beijing depicts ethnic Chinese workers on the US transcontinental railroad, a literary development that challenges the linguistic boundaries nominally associated with Asian American Studies. Of equal importance, I argue, is the way Mankell expands the cartography of Nordic Noir to encompass capitalism's old-new frontiers in China (PRC).