HDCB01142U DCC H.C. Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard: The Quest for Identity in Modernity

H. C. Andersen & Søren Kierkegaard: The Quest for Identity in Modernity is a course in English for all International Students offered each semester.
 

The questions concerning personal identity and transformation raised by the two Golden-Age writers, H.C Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard, are no less relevant today than they were almost 200 years ago. How is it that a person becomes himself? How does a person attain wholeness and truth?

“Searching for one´s identity,” refers to the process of self-examination, self-definition, and inner exploration. It aims at understanding one´s values, beliefs, passions, and purpose in life. Together with Andersen and Kierkegaard, we will explore these themes in their connection to cultural, social, emotional, and personal dimensions.
Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard hold a pivotal position in Danish Cultural Heritage. Though both writers are intimately connected to their contemporary society, there is something in their works that far surpasses the limits of the national and historical consciousness to which they adhere, and extend to a wider, global, and modern consciousness. This is what has made them not only internationally renowned but also given them continual actuality and relevance to this day.

We will explore what it is in their writings that merits such a prolonged actuality and such an extensive, modern appeal. In addition to lectures, the course offers two excursions. The first excursion explores sites in Copenhagen connected to Søren Kierkegaard, while the second takes students to Odense to visit Hans Christian Andersen’s childhood home.

Through a vast proliferation of conceptual, fictive, and allegorical narratives, Andersen and Kierkegaard outline a map for the individual to navigate a path toward self-realization, without giving any definite directions nor any fixed points of orientation. The answer, as we know, lies in the search itself, for as Kierkegaard writes, “The truth is the way”; or in Andersen´s words: “Every man´s life is a fairy-tale, written by God´s fingers.

Danish Culture Courses – University of Copenhagen

Name of Exam: HDCB01141E Danish Literature and Philosophy in Context of Danish Culture and Society.