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Staff photo Maria Lindgren Leavenworth

Maria Lindgren Leavenworth

Professor of Modern English literature. Research interests: speculative fiction, travel writing, fan fiction, the Arctic.

Research qualifications: Docent

Works at

Affiliation
Professor at Department of Language Studies Section: English
Location
A, Humanisthuset, korridor HUM.J.2 Umeå universitet, 901 87 Umeå

In my 2000 dissertation The Second Journey (revised 2010), I focused on contemporary trips in the footsteps of an earlier traveler. The original travelogue works as an explicit map guiding the second traveler not only to a geographical destination but to a perception of authenticity. The form of the second journey draws attention to imitation and repetition: aspects that are commonly played down in travel literature, but descriptions often work to transform places that are already mapped (figuratively and literally) into partly new landscapes. See also “Footsteps” in The Routledge Research Companion to Travel Writing, 2020

Following my dissertation work I was a member of the research project Foreign North and contunied work on travel literature from the long nineteenth century (see publication list). In my ongoing research, I continue examinations of how outsiders’ representations of northern areas in fiction can be tied to and highlight cultural discourses. More specifically, I am interested in how the Arctic functions and changes in speculative fiction: texts that in various ways present events and circumstances that cannot be aligned with the reader's understanding of reality. I examine how specific speculative discourses emerge in relation to the Arctic, and how images of the Arctic change through speculative fiction. Both traditional representations of the Arctic as empty and unfamiliar and contemporary (and future) images of, among other things, climate change are part of the material analysed. The monograph The Imagined Arctic in Speculative Fiction was published by Routledge in 2024.


I have for many years worked with fan fiction:online-published stories starting from already existing fictional worlds. The project FAN(G)S: The vampire in contemporary fan fiction was funded by the Swedish Research Council 2011-2014. Together with my project partner Malin Isaksson I analyzed fan engagement in three contemporary vampire worlds and examined how fanfic authors on the one hand retained strong intertextual links to the source texts on both character- and plot levels, on the other expressed different forms of resistance to it. The project resulted in a large number of articles and anthology chapters (see publication list) and monograph Fanged Fan Fiction was published in 2013. The work with fan fiction has sparked an interest in theoretical and methodological issues connected to paratexts as they appear in digital archives. Key publications here are "The Paratext of Fan Fiction" (2015) and "Paratextual Navigation as a Research Method" (2016).

 

 

Routledge Studies in World Literatures and the Environment
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Le repos de la guerrière: textes en l'honneur de Barbro Nilsson Sharp, Umeå: Umeå University 2023 : 71-86
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Cold waters: tangible and symbolic seascapes of the north, Springer Nature 2022 : 225-241
Hansson, Heidi; Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Fafnir: Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, Oulu: The Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 2022, Vol. 9, (2) : 118-133
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; Leavenworth, Van
Environmental Education Research, Routledge 2021, Vol. 27, (5) : 727-742
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; Manni, Annika
Children's literature and culture
Hansson, Heidi; Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; Ryall, Anka
Translocal: Culturas Contemporâneas Locais e Urbanas, UMa-CIERL/CMF/IA 2020, Vol. 5
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
The Arctic in literature for children and young adults, New York: Routledge 2020 : 217-229
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Interférences Littéraires, Vol. 23 : 128-140
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
The Routledge research companion to travel writing, Abingdon: Routledge 2019 : 86-98
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
L1 Educational Studies in Language and Literature, Vol. 19
Wintersparv, Spoke; Sullivan, Kirk P. H.; Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap, Umeå universitet 2018, Vol. 3 : 39-49
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Journal of Gender Studies, Taylor & Francis 2017, Vol. 26, (4) : 462-472
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Fafnir: Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, Oulu: The Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 2017, Vol. 4, (2) : 22-33
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; Leavenworth, Van
Research methods for reading digital data in the digital humanities, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2016 : 51-71
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Human IT, Borås: Högskolan i Borås 2015, Vol. 13, (1) : 100-127
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, University of Nebraska Press 2015, Vol. 7, (2) : 93-110
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Narrative (Columbus, Ohio), Vol. 23, (1) : 40-60
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Journal of Fandom Studies, Intellect Ltd. 2014, Vol. 2, (2) : 127-145
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 2014 : 315-331
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Jefferson, North Carolina, USA: McFarland 2013
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; Isaksson, Malin
Nordic Journal of English Studies, Vol. 11, (3) : 36-54
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Litteraturens nätverk: Berättande på internet, Lund: Studentlitteratur 2012 : 77-92
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; Isaksson, Malin
Transformative Works and Cultures, Organization for Transformative Works 2011, (8)
Gregersdotter, Katarina; Isaksson, Malin; Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; et al.
Interdisciplinary approaches to Twilight: studies in fiction, media and a contemporary cultural experience, Lund: Nordic Academic Press 2011 : 127-142
Isaksson, Malin; Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Bringing Light to Twilight: Perspectives on the Pop Culture Phenomenon, New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2011 : 69-81
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Transformative Works and Cultures, Organization for Transformative Works 2011, Vol. 8
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Fanpires: Audience Consumption of the Modern Vampire, Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing 2011 : 239-254
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; Isaksson, Malin
Regionernas bilder: estetiska uttryck från och om periferin, Umeå: Print & Media 2010 : 7-14
Hansson, Heidi; Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; Pettersson, Lennart
Studier i språk och litteratur från Umeå universitet, 12
Hansson, Heidi; Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; Pettersson, Lennart
Arctic Discourses, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars 2010 : 199-217
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Regionernas bilder: estetiska uttryck från och om periferin, Umeå: Print & Media 2010 : 65-73
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Studier i språk och litteratur från Umeå universitet, 9
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Nordlit, Tromsö: Septentrip Academic Publishing 2010, Vol. 26 : 1-14
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Journal of Popular Culture, Hoboken N. J.: Wiley Periodicals Inc. 2010, Vol. 43, (3) : 503-523
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap, Lund: Föreningen för utgivandet av Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap 2009, Vol. 39, (3-4) : 23-37
Isaksson, Malin; Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Extrapolation, Brownsville: The University of Texas at Brownsville 2009, Vol. 50, (3) : 442-462
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Cold matters: cultural perceptions of snow, ice and cold, Umeå: 2009 : 141-155
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
New Contexts: Re-Framing Nineteenth-Century Irish Women's Prose, Cork: Cork Univerity Press 2008 : 55-77
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria
Utsikter, insikter, avsikter: universitetspedagogisk konferens i Umeå 27 – 28 februari 2007 : konferensrapport, Umeå: Universitetspedagogiskt Centrum, Umeå universitet 2008 : 283-292
Lindgren Leavenworth, Maria; Örnberg Berglund, Therese
Umeå: Umeå University 2000
Lindgren, Maria
From Runes to Romance: A Festschrift for Gunnar Persson on his Sixtieth Birthday
Lindgren, Maria
Villfarelsens blick: Essäer om resan som kultur
Lindgren, Maria

Research groups

Contact
North View

Research projects

30 June 2014 until 31 December 2014
3 May 2011 until 30 December 2011
7 April 2011 until 31 December 2013