“As an African American scholar who has studied the Harlem Renaissance and the experiences of Black Americans living in Denmark, a country I’ve visited 18 times, I have been retracing Larsen’s footsteps in Copenhagen for the last two years.”
— Dr. Ethelene Whitmire in “Looking for the Restless Soul of Nella Larsen in Copenhagen”
Published today in the New York Times, Dr. Ethelene Whitmire explores the life and literature of transcendent American writer Nella Larsen during her time abroad in Copenhagen before the publication of her two novels, “Quicksand” (1928) and “Passing”(1929). Whitmire examines the context of the city that once surrounded Larsen’s life and highlights how one of “Quicksand”‘s characters, Helga Crane, reexamined views on Blackness in Denmark compared to her experience in the United States; these observations led some to believe the novel to be semi-autobiographical.
Read Whitmire’s full piece here.
Dr. Ethelene Whitmire is a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison affiliated with the Departments of African American Studies, German, Nordic, and Slavic, and Gender & Women’s Studies. She was a 2016-2017 Fulbright Scholar and visiting professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Transnational American Studies. Her studies focus on African American experience, Scandinavian studies, 20th-century United States history, and transnational African American experience.