Speculating from the North

Locating Ourselves in Speculative Fiction and Research

Authors

Keywords:

The North, The Arctic, climate fiction, Children’s fantasy fiction

Author Biographies

  • Lena Leimgruber Haraldsson, Department of Language Studies, Umeå University

    Lena Leimgruber Haraldsson is pursuing a PhD in English Literature at Umeå University, where she studies how the Arctic is represented in contemporary fiction. Her work explores the cultural afterlives of colonialism, the pressures of the climate crisis, and the agency of Arctic ecologies and non-human beings. She is particularly interested in the role of speculative storytelling in reshaping how we imagine northern futures.

  • Marie Östling, Department of Culture and Media Studies, Umeå University

    Marie Östling is a doctoral student in literary studies at Umeå University, Sweden. Her thesis centers Northern Swedish fantastic children’s literature, focusing on how place and identity is portrayed, problematized and renegotiated in relation to both international genres and local literary tradition. A proud member of the Swedish network for speculative fiction and the Fantasy Online Research Seminar (FORS), Marie is always enthusiastic about collaboration and dialogue in the field of the Fantastic.

Downloads

Published

2026-07-17

Issue

Section

Conversations