New Directions Series
Associate Professor; Scan|Design Foundation Endowed Chair in Danish Studies | Ph.D. UC Berkeley, 1990
Tel. +1-206-543-6084 | Email marianne@u.washington.edu
Books:
Danish Writers from the Reformation to Decadence, 1550-1900 
in Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 300 (Gale Group, 2004)
Twentieth-Century Danish Writers in Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol 214 (Gale Group, 1999)
History Revisited: Fact and Fiction in Thorkild Hansen's Documentary Works (Camden House, 1997)
Selected Articles:
“Soldier’s Daughter: Karen Blixen and Nazism – ‘Breve fra et Land i Krig,’” Forthcoming in Scandinavian Studies 82 (2010).
“Thorkild Hansen and the Critique of Empire” in A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures: Continental Europe and its Empires (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U Press, 2008): 74 – 77.
“Romantic and Modern Metatexts: Commemorating Andersen and the Self-Referential Text,” in Hans Christian Andersen between Children’s Literature and Adult Literature, (Odense: University of Southern Denmark Press). 2008.
“H. C. Andersen’s ‘Historien om en Moder’: Allegory and Symbol in the Danish Golden Age” in Hans Christian Andersen: Old Problems and New Readings (Odense: U Press of Southern Denmark): 97-116.
"Both Sacred and Secretly Gay: Isak Dinesen's 'The Blank Page,'" in Short Story Criticism: Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers, 75 (Thomson Gale, 2004): 46-51.
“Whose Hamsun? Author and Artifice: Knut Hamsun, Thorkild Hansen, and Per Olov Enquist,” Edda (1999): 245-251.
Marianne Stecher-Hansen enjoys teaching and research in Scandinavian literature, especially Danish literature and cultural studies. She is particularly dedicated to the work of Hans Christian Andersen and Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) as well as Scandinavian literature of the World War II period. She has published a monograph on the documentary work of Thorkild Hansen and edited two reference works covering Danish literary history from the Reformation through the Twentieth Century. Most recently, Marianne has been engaged in studies of Nordic colonialism from a postcolonial perspective. Her current book deals with the essays and ideology of Karen Blixen and builds on extensive archival research. Some of her new work on Blixen is forthcoming in Scandinavian Studies in early 2010.
As the first holder of the Scan|Design Endowed Chair in Danish Studies, Marianne directs the Copenhagen Classroom summer program and the Scan|Design Fellowship program at UW. Both programs reflect her dedication to cross-disciplinary studies and international education, her outreach across campus and her efforts to build strong ties between the UW and Danish universities.
