Celia Aijmer Rydsjö

Research interest

My research interests are primarily in 19th and 20th century fiction, modernism, art history, and Trans-Atlantic studies. My doctoral work, begun as a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University, was on Henry James, a classic American writer of High modernism, and dealt with architectural metaphor, the home and the role interior decoration in his authorship. My postdoctoral research dealt with Anglo-American modernist little Magazines published in Europe in the 1920s and 30s. The focus is on how this small-scale publishing form contributed to shaping a Modernist canon, but also on how the formation of an aesthetic category, Modernism, took place in relation to economic concerns, reading audiences, and an elevation of ‘exile’ which is shown to intersect with tourism.

I have also carried out research that relates to the past and contemporary role of the humanities, as well as literary didactics. In particular, I am interested in the role of Bildung in our time and how reading and the study of literature relates to existential and ethical issues.

Currently I am working on two studies. One on Graham Greene, focusing on economic anxieties related to writing for a living, and one on the American poet John Ashbery, which deals with metaphors of sweetness, and the role of sentimentality in contemporary poetry.

Teaching / supervision

I teach British, American and postcolonial literature, as well as cultural history, critical theory and literary didactics. I also have long experience of teaching academic writing. My teaching is carried out within the framework of teacher education, and in freestanding English courses, ranging from basic to advanced levels. As a supervisor, I mainly work with students who are writing their thesis with a literary specialization, but also within the field of education.

Publications

Forthcoming: Aijmer Rydsjö, Celia. ” “We Do No Harm, We Say What We Want, and We Get Paid for It”: Academic Work and Dignity in Stoner by John Williams. Exploring Work in English Studies: A Practice-Based Engagement, edited by Alistair Henry and Åke Persson, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. 

Forthcoming: Aijmer Rydsjö, Celia and Åke Persson. “Afterword: Working to Take English Studies into the World”. Exploring Work in English Studies: A Practice-Based Engagement, edited by Alistair Henry and Åke Persson, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. 

Forthcoming: Andersson Hval, Ulrika and Celia Aijmer Rydsjö. ”Klimatkrisen i klassrummet: klimatpsykologi och blivande ämneslärares reflektioner kring användandet av litteratur i undervisning om hållbar utveckling. Utbildning och lärande. Vol. 15, nr 1, 2021. 

Aijmer Rydsjö, Celia and Ann-Katrin Jonsson. “Making It News: Money and Marketing in Expatriate Modernist Little Magazines in Europe.” European Journal of Periodical Studies. Vol 1, no1, 2016, pp. 71-90.  

Aijmer Rydsjö, Celia and Ann-Katrin Jonsson. Exiles in Print: Modernism and Little Magazines in Paris 1921-1939. Peter Lang, 2016.

Aijmer Rydsjö, Celia and Ann-Katrin Jonsson. “Published by Us, Written by Us, Read by Us: Little Magazine Networks.” Global Review: A Bi-Annual Special Topics Journal - Archives & Networks of Modernism, edited by James Gifford, James Clawson and Fiona Tomkinson,  vol.1, no.1, 2013, pp. 39-67.

Aijmer Rydsjö, Celia and Ann-Katrin Jonsson. “Transition and Internationalism as Praxis.” Transnationality, Internationalism and Nationhood: European Avant-Garde in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. Groningen Studies on Cultural Change 48, edited by Hubert van den Berg and Lydia Gluchowska, Peeters, 2013.

Aijmer Rydsjö, Celia and Ann-Katrin Jonsson. “An Addition to the Bibliography of Virginia Woolf: The first translation into French.” Notes and Queries, vol. 58, no. 4, 2011, pp. 585-586.

Aijmer Rydsjö, Celia and Ann-Katrin Jonsson. “An Addition to the Bibliography of Virginia Woolf: Early translation into French.” Notes and Queries, vol. 58, no. 4, 2011, p. 586.

Aijmer, Celia and Gert Buelens. “Henry James and Senses of the Past”. Palgrave Advances in Henry James Studies, edited by Peter Rawlings. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Aijmer, Celia. Houses of Fiction: Henry James and the Art of Homelessness. Gothenburg Studies in English, 2003.