Graduate opportunity: Masterclass with Holberg Prize Laureate 2015

26.03.2015

The Holberg Prize is now offering scholarships to Nordic PhD students for the first ever Holberg Prize Masterclass.

Nordic PhD students can now apply to participate in an exclusive Masterclass with Holberg Laureate 2015, Marina Warner, in Bergen on June 8th. Travel and accommodation will be covered, and the students will also be given the opportunity to participate in the official Holberg Prize Program from 8th-10th of June.

Historian and mythographer

Marina Warner is a British scholar, writer and critic. She will come to Bergen in June to receive the Holberg Prize 2015 for her work on analyzing stories and myths and how they reflect their time and place. Warner is a historian and mythographer with research on religion, magic, orientalism, colonialism, cultural exchange, gender roles and feminism. She has won several awards, among them the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism (2012) and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism (2012). Warner is former president of the British Comparative Literature Association, Chair of the Man Booker International Prize 2015 and has, amongst others, two Honorary Fellowships at the University of Oxford.

Questions for discussion in the Masterclass

  • In times of conflict, migration, and economic tumult; what happens to the culture and history of people who have lost their homes?
  • What are the processes that remember the lost or disfigured home?
  • How important is it to keep hold of your mother tongue and its cultural manifestations?
  • What role can the legacy of mythology play?
  • The French classical scholar Jean-Pierre Vernant argued for 'the reason of myth', against detractors who point to such stories' irrationality. But experience reveals that mythic stories and tradition  often deepen grudges and excite atavistic forms of  nationalism. Can myths enlighten and can literature informed by myth be strong enough to help?

Readings

- Jean -Pierre Vernant, 'The Reason of myth'
- Seamus Heaney, The Cure at Troy ( translation of Philoctetes by Sophocles)
- Alice Oswald, Memorial ('excavation' of the Iliad)
- The final one of the Marina Warner Reith lectures: Managing Monsters

Apply for the Masterclass by sending a letter of motivation to info@holbergprisen.no by May 6.
Use the same e-mail address if you have any questions.

Please also note in your application where you first heard of the opportunity.

The Holberg Prize awards outstanding achivements in the arts and humanities, social science, law and theology.