2019_Seminar Guest: Sigfrid Kjeldaas

Sigfrid Kjeldaas is a postdoctoral fellow on the GenØk ReWrite project (Advancing humanities-based knowledge on human/nature relations in biotechnology). She investigates the representation of new techniques of genome editing in public debates, with a focus on the way in which these techniques challenge environmental ethics and traditional Western perceptions of human relationships with the environment. Through discourse analysis and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, she will uncover central narratives and metaphors of the debate, as well as the norms and rules through which some arguments and visions of the future take precedence. Kjeldaas’ educational background is in ecology and literature. She received her PhD in literature and culture at UiT The Arctic University of Norway in 2017 with the dissertation Nature Writing as Contact Zone. Her publications focus on the relationality and aesthetics of nature writing and exploration literature about the Arctic.

Kjeldaas has been active in the work for gender equality at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, where she headed the 2016-2018 “Career Development Program for Women” and acted as coordinator for the project “Prestige: Gender Balance in She is currently part of the research project “Arctic Voices in Art and Literature in the Long Nineteenth Century” at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and coordinates a collaborative reading group in posthumanist and feminist theory with GenØk and the UiT Centre for Women’s and Gender studies. Recent research interests include science and technology studies, ecocriticism, posthuman and feminist theory, and animal studies.