Mikkel Krause Frantzen

Mikkel Krause Frantzen

Associate Professor

CURRICULUM VITAE

Mikkel Krause Frantzen, b. 1983

PhD, Postdoc

Address: Safirgangen 106, 2300 København S

Phone: +45 25213022

Email: mikkelfrantzen@hum.ku.dk or mikkelfrantzen@gmail.com

 

I am the author of four published books and more than 35 academic articles, in international journals such as boundary 2Third TextTheory, Culture and Society, and Differences. I am, moreover, an established literary critic at the Danish newspaper Politiken and a regular contributor to The Los Angeles Review of Books.

 

Education

2017                 PhD, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen (title: Going Nowhere, Slow – Scenes of Depression in Contemporary Literature and Culture)

2012                 M. A. in Comparative Literature, University of Copenhagen.

2011                 One semester at New School for Social Research, New York, US.

2009                 B. A. in Comparative Literature, University of Copenhagen.

2007                 One semester as MA student at Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany.

 

Employment record

2023-2026        Assistant professor, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH (part of the Velux-project OIKOS)

2022 Aug-Dec  Postdoc and Vice Director, Center for Applied Ecological Thinking, UCPH

2022 Apr-Jul     Fuldmægtig, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH (AC-consultant responsible for developing and formulating a research strategy and a funding plan for IKK within the area of environmental humanities and green research)

2019-2021        Postdoc, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH (part of the DFF2-researchproject Finance Fiction – Financialization and Culture in the Early 21st Century)

2018-2019        Postdoc, Department of Communication and Psychology, University of Aalborg (individual Carlsberg-grant, affiliated with the research project The Culture of Grief).

2017-2018        External lecturer, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH

2015-               Literary critic at Dagbladet Politiken.

2013-2017        PhD, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH

2013-2013        External lecturer, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH

2011-2014        External lecturer, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH

2009-2010        Instructor, Art History, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, UCPH

 

Teaching experience

2020                 »Finance Fiction«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2020                 »Den moderne litteraturs og kulturs historie 2«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2017                 »Den politiske roman i dag«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2017                 »BA-projektforløb«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2017                 »Pessimisme og optimisme«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2017                 »Den moderne litteraturs historie 2«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2015                 »Going nowhere, slow - scenes of depression in contemporary literature and culture«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2014                 »Værkkursus: William Faulkners As I Lay Dying«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2013                 »Nyere Litteraturhistorie II«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2013                 »Nekroæstetik og nekropolitik«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2009/2010        »Æstetik«, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Art History, University of Copenhagen

 

List of publications

 

Monographs:

  1. Frantzen, M. K. (2021): Klodens fald. Æstetiske og økologiske perspektiver på olie, plastik og andre hyperabjekter [The Fall of the Planet: Aesthetic and Ecological Perspectives on Oil, Plastic and other Hyperabjects]. København. Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology. 160 pp.
  2. Frantzen, M. K. (2019): Going Nowhere, Slow – The Aesthetics and Politics of Depression. Zero Books. 229 pp.
  3. Frantzen, M. K. (2018) En Fremtid uden Fremtid [A Future Without Future]. København. Informations Forlag. 208 pp.
  4. Frantzen, M. K. (2013): Lars Skinnebach – en monografi [Lars Skinnebach – a Monograph]. København: Forlaget Arena. 172 pp.

 

Precontracts with publishers:

  1. Frantzen, M. K. (2024): The Birth of the Financial Thriller: Making a Killing in the 1970s. Precontract with: Edinburgh University Press (signed contract enclosed).

 

Further publications:

A) Publications with peer review process

  1. Frantzen, M. K., Monticelli, Lara (2023): Living (with)in Apocalyptic Times: Gotterdammerung Capitalism and the Subversive Power of Utopia in Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future (i.p.).
  2. Frantzen, M. K. (2022): A grief more deep than me. In: Grief Experiences: Cultural, Existential and Phenomenological Perspectives, eds. Kofod, E. H., Køster, A. (London: Routledge), 214-228.
  3. Frantzen, M. K. (2022): Destroying necessity with necessity – On László Krasznahorkai’s Satantango. In: Textual Practice 36:5, 751-775.
  4. Frantzen, M. K. (2021): William Gaddis’s J R and the Many Faces of Junk Bonds. In: Differences, 31, No. 3, 91-116.
  5. Frantzen, M. K. (2021): Sorgens slotte i den danske samtidslitteratur [Castles of Grief in Contemporary Danish Literature]. In: Menneskets sorg – Om et vilkår i forandring, eds. Brinkmann, S., Petersen, A. (Aarhus: Klim), 283-306.
  6. Frantzen, M. K., Andreasen, T., Tygstrup, F. (2020): Finance Fiction. In: The Routledge Handbook of Critical Finance Studies, eds. Borch, C., Wosnitzer, R. (London: Routledge), 358-379.
  7. Frantzen, M. K. (2020): Shooting the ambulance? Debt, depression, and human strike in the art of Claire Fontaine. In: Third Text 163, Vol. 34, No. 3, 393-414.
  8. Frantzen, M. K., Bjering, J. (2020): Ecology, Capitalism and Waste: From Hyperobject to Hyperabject. In: Theory, Culture and Society, 37, No. 6, 87-109.
  9. Frantzen, M. K. (2020): Infinite Resignation. In: SubStance 151, Vol. 49, No. 1, 97-109.
  10. Frantzen, M. K. (2020): En revolutionær lykke, en utopisk lykke? [Revolutionary happiness, utopian happiness?]. In: Jagten på lykken – perspektiver, potentialer, problemer, eds. Sköld, A. B., Brinkmann, S. (Aarhus: Klim), 173-198.
  11. Frantzen, M. K. (2020): Depressive klager og anklager i dansk samtidslitteratur [Depressive complaints and accusations in Danish literature]. In: LITTERATUR OG … Om litteraturens tværfaglige engagement, Gregersen, M., & Jørgensen, J., L. (Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag), 31-58.
  12. Frantzen, M. K. (2018): Finding the Unlovable Object Lovable: Empathy and Depression in David Foster Wallace. In Studies in American fiction, 45, No. 2, 259-279.
  13. Frantzen, M. K. (2017): The Demonic Comedy of Thomas Bernhard. In: Journal of Austrian Studies, 50, No. 1-2, 89-108.
  14. Frantzen, M. K. (2017): Poesi i den antropocæne tidsalder: Tid, affekt og fabulation i Theis Ørntoft’s Digte 2014 [Poetry in the Age of the Anthropocene: Time, Affect and Fabulation in Theis Ørntoft’s Digte 2014]. In: Nordisk samtidslyrik, Karlsen, O., Rustad, H., K. (Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag), 37-60.
  15. Frantzen, M. K., Christensen, C. E. (2017): i am a little bit more depressed than you are – Tao Lin as an example of a contemporary poetry of depression and other negative feelings. In: Dialogues on Poetry. Mediatization and New Sensibilities, Kjerkegaard, S., Ringgard, D. (Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag), 191-212.
  16. Frantzen, M. K. (2016): The Forensic Fiction of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. In: Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 58, No. 4, 1-12.
  17. Frantzen, M. K.; Bjering, J. (2015): Depression og/eller apokalypse: Lars von Triers Melancholia [Depression and/or apocalypse: Lars von Trier’s Melancholia]. In: K&K, 120, 165-184.
  18. Frantzen, M. K. (2015): Kunst, køn og nekropolitik i mexicansk samtidskunst [Art, Gender and Necropolitics in Contemporary Mexican Art]. In: Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 24, No. 2, 63-76.
  19. Frantzen, M. K. (2015): ’Der er så mange følelser der søger asyl i min krop.’ Om affekt og politik i Lars Skinnebacs poesi [‘So many feelings are seeking asylum in my body’. On affect and politics in the poetry of Lars Skinnebach]. In: Studies in Contemporary Poetry, eds. Larsen, P., S., Mønster, L. (Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag), 121-141.
  20. Frantzen, M. K., Nielsen, CB. (2013): Hvad taler vi om, når vi taler om Bernhard? [What Do We Talk About When We Walk About Bernhard?] In: Passage, 70, 7-19.
  21. Frantzen, M. K. (2010): You only die twice: Claus Beck-Nielsen zom zombie [You Only Die Twice: Claus Beck-Nielsen as Zombie]. In: Kritik, 198, 109-121.

 

 B) Publications without peer review process

  1. Frantzen, M. K., (2023): 1000 kriser, 100 økologier, 10 utopier. In: En anden økologi: Anti-kapitalistisk håndbog, Dias, T. (Aarhus: Antipyrine), forthcoming.
  2. Frantzen, M. K., Andreasen, T., Tygstrup, F. (2020): Introduction: Aesthetics of Finance. In: Nordic Journal of Aesthetics 60, 4-9.
  3. Frantzen, M. K. (2019): To the Moon and Back? In: Unexpected Encounters – Possible Futures, eds. Opstrup, K. (Aarhus: Antipyrine), 204-217.
  4. Frantzen, M. K. (2019): Kommentarerne kommenteret – eller fem nedslag i Inger Christensens utopiske ordbog [The comments commented – or five forrays into Inger Christensen’s utopian dictionary]. In: Trappe Tusind, special issue, 153-166
  5. Frantzen, M. K. (2019): Kære Mr. Antipyrine, tillykke med din ikke-død, men ellers er der jo ikke meget at råbe hurra for [Dear Mr. Antipyrine, congratulations on your non-death, but otherwise there is little reason to celebrate]. In: Antipyrine 4, unpaginated.
  6. Frantzen, M. K. (2018): Spredte betragtninger om sorgens poetik og politik [Scattered remarks on the poetics and politics of grief]. In: Reception, 77, 94-106.
  7. Frantzen, M. K. (2016): Fatalisme, venstremelankoli og fremtidens fremtid – et forsvar for kritikkens spirituelle funktion og konstruktive hvis ikke endda opbyggelige karakter [Fatalism, left melancholy and the future of the future – in defense of the spiritural function of critique]. In: K&K, 122, 33-36.
  8. Frantzen, M. K. (2015): Welcome to the World’s Happiest Nation. In: Depressionsscener i samtidslitteraturen, eds. Christensen, J. H. et al. (København: IKK Tryk), 8-17.
  9. Frantzen, M. K. (2015): Fakticitet og fabulation i Roberto Bolaños 2666 [Facticity and fabulation in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666]. In: Trappe Tusind, 12, 70-80.
  10. Frantzen, M. K. (2013): Ligvariationer. Udkast til en nekroæstetisk teori [Corpse variations – towards a necroaesthetic theory]. In: Kulturo, 35, 26-32
  11. Frantzen, M. K. (2012): Torben Ulrichs kropskrystal. Et essay om tid, bevægelse og krop i Jørgen Leths film Motion Picture [The body crystal of Torben Ulrich. An essay on time, movement and body in Jørgen Leth’s film Motion Picture]. In: Krystalbilleder, Vol. 1, 75-88.
  12. Frantzen, M. K. (2010): Spøgelsesdans, skyggeboksning og lammeskyer. Spekulation over fantomet Mikkel Thykier [Ghost Dance, Shadow Boxing and Altocumulus Clouds. Speculation on the Phantom Mikkel Thykier]. In: Trappe Tusind, Vol. 5, 88-99.
  13. Frantzen, M. K. (2010): Brutalt. Eventuelt. Radikalt. Som om [Brutal. Radical. As If.]. In: Kulturo, Vol. 31, 12-19.
  14. Frantzen, M. K. (2009): Det er svært at vende ryggen til vand i bevægelse – 5 kommentarer om celler, bevægelser, tal og marxisme hos Inger Christensen [It’s difficult to turn your back on water in motion – 5 comments on cells, movements, numbers and Marxism in Inger Christensen]. In: Trappe Tusind, special issue on Inger Christensen, 29-33.
  15. Frantzen, M. K. (2008): Manglende engagement, kunsten at lave en scene og små, små flugtlinjer – et ikke-komparativt skrift om politik og kunst hos Adorno, Ranciére og Deleuze [No commitment, the art of making a scene and small, small lines of flight – a non-comparative text on art and politics in Adorno, Ranciére and Deleuze]. In: Trappe Tusind, Vol. 1, 27-38.

 

C) Translations:

  1. Frantzen, M. K., Andersen, I. E. (2015): Krigens Rammer (translation of Judith Butler’s Frames of War). København: Arena.
  2. Frantzen, M. K. (2014). Katten indeni (translation of William Burroughs’ The Cat Inside). Aarhus: Antipyrine.

 

D) Essays online

  1. Frantzen, M. K. (2021). Revenge: A User’s Manual. Review of Leslie Kaplan’s Disorder. In: Los Angeles Review of Books, March 20, 2021. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/revenge-a-users-manual/
  2. Frantzen, M. K. (2020): Has capitalism become psychologically unsustainable? Six tentative theses on COVID-19 and mental health. In: boundary2, July 21, 2020. http://www.boundary2.org/2020/07/mikkel-krause-frantzen-has-capitalism-become-psychologically-unsustainable-six-tentative-theses-on-covid-19-and-mental-health/
  3. Frantzen, M. K. (2019): A Future with No Future: Depression, the Left, and the Politics of Mental Health. In: Los Angeles Review of Books, December 16, 2019. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/future-no-future-depression-left-politics-mental-health/
  4. Frantzen, M. K. (2019): To the Moon and Back? On Russian Comism. In: Alienocene, March 1, 2019. https://alienocene.com/2019/03/01/to-the-moon-and-back-on-russian-cosmism/
  5. Frantzen, M. K. (2019): 1982: A Factory Odyssey: On Leslie Kaplan’s Excess — The Factory. In: Los Angeles Review of Books, May 3, 2019. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/1982-a-factory-odyssey-on-leslie-kaplans-excess-the-factory/
  6. Frantzen, M. K. (2019): No utopia, not now? On Miguel Abensour’s Utopia from Thomas More to Walter Benjamin. In: boundary2, January 2019. https://www.boundary2.org/2019/01/mikkel-krause-frantzen-no-utopia-not-now-on-miguel-abensours-utopia-from-thomas-more-to-walter-benjamin/
  7. Frantzen, M. K. (2018): Economic and Literary Speculations. In: Los Angeles Review of Books, 20, 2018. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/economic-and-literary-speculations/
  8. Frantzen, M. K. (2015): It’s the Spirit, Stupid! In: Salon 55, 2015 http://www.salon55.dk/its-the-spirit-stupid/
  9. Frantzen, M. K. (2012): Introduction to Public Hearing. http://public.automaticmoving.com/docs/Introduction%20to%20Public%20Hearing.pdf

 

E) Selected literary reviews, essays and interviews

  1. Frantzen, M. K. (2022): Mange af os har det ad helvede til, uden at kunne forandre det, der får os til at have det ad helvede til (review of Britt Wray’s Generation Dread and Solveig Roepstorff’s Klimapsykologi). In: Politiken, August 2, 2022.
  2. Frantzen, M. K. (2021): Klimasorg skal bruges til at ændre verden. Ikke behandles som et individuelt problem (essay). In: Information, December 30, 2021.
  3. Frantzen, M. K. (2021): Affaldet er overalt, og vi bliver nødt til at finde ud af, hvordan vi taler om det (interview). In Information, March 6, 2021.
  4. Frantzen, M. K. (2021): Der findes ikke myrer på planeten, der ikke har spor af plastik i sig (essay). In: Politiken, February 20, 2021.
  5. Frantzen, M. K. (2020): Hvem gjorde det, og hvem har ansvaret? Kapitalismen gjorde det, lyder svaret. (Review af Asta Olivia Nordenhof’s Penge på Lommen). In: Politiken, January 24, 2020.
  6. Frantzen, M. K. (2020): Hun taler direkte ind i vores tid. (Review of two books by Simone Weil). In: Politiken, December 2, 2020.
  7. Frantzen, M. K. (2019): Kræftafdelingen var et grusomt demokrati. (Review of Anne Boyer’s The Undying). In: Politiken, October 19, 2019.
  8. Frantzen, M. K. (2019): Klimakampen handler også om vores drømme, vores begær, og omkvædene til vores sange. In: Politiken, October 5, 2019.
  9. Frantzen, M. K. (2018): Samtaler med træer er ikke en forbrydelse. (Review of C.Y.Frostholm’s Træmuseet). In: Politiken, September 13, 2018.
  10. Frantzen, M. K. (2018): Jeg smiler og smiler (essay). In: Politiken, June 17, 2018.
  11. Frantzen, M. K. (2018): Depression er et symptom på et samfund, der har mistet troen på fremtiden (essay). In: Information, June 12, 2018.
  12. Frantzen, M. K. (2017): Fantasier om junglen og Jylland. (Review of Christina Hagen’s Jungle). In: Politiken, March 7, 2017.
  13. Frantzen, M. K. (2014): Her er kun kulde. (Review of Thomas Bernhard’s Kulden), In: Information, August 8, 2014.
  14. Frantzen, M. K. (2013): Oversat, men overset. (Review of books by Maurice Blanchot and Lars Norén). In: Information, February 1, 2013.
  15. Frantzen, M. K. (2012): Nat nu! (Review of Anne Carson’s NOX). In: Information, August 23, 2012.
  16. Frantzen, M. K. (2012): De myrdede kvinders by (essay). In: Information, June 28, 2012.
  17. Frantzen, M. K. (2012): Poetisk materialisme (essay). In: Information, May 31, 2012.
  18. Frantzen, M. K. (2011): Et forsigtigt ’fuck you’ til den voldelige normalitet. (Interview with Judith Butler). In: Information, June 17, 2011.

 

Conference papers

  • »Ecological Grief – between the Personal, the Political and the Planetary«, at the conference Earth Sensations, Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, October 2022.
  • »The Abyss that is You, the Bridge that is Us«, keynote at the art exhibition Abysses, at the gallery A Promise of Kneropy, Bratislava, Slovakia, April 2022
  • »Junk Bonds and the So-Called Democratization of Finance: On William Gaddis’s JR«, at the seminar “Finance and Fiction”, CalArts, January 2020
  • »The fictions of finance and the never-ending story of the 1970s«, at the TBLR Graduate Symposium “After fiction”, University of Chicago, November 2019
  • »Junk bonds and the fiction of the democratization of finance: William Gaddis’s JR«, at the Norlit conference “Wealth, Finance, Aesthetics”, University of Copenhagen, August 2019
  • »Not all milk and honey, but still a Utopia: Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed«, at the SLSAeu conference “SpaceTime”, Athens, June 2019
  • »The long goodbye to 1973 – finance and fiction in Paul Erdman’s The Billion Dollar Sure Thing«, at the 2019 APL Conference “Truth, fiction, illusion”, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, May/June 2019
  • »The long goodbye to 1973 – finance and fiction in Paul Erdman’s The Billion Dollar Sure Thing«, at the Macau Winter Doctoral Seminar “Research in Contemporary Cinema and Culture”, University of Saint Joseph in Macau (China), January 2019
  • »Danish Design: Apocalypse and Melancholia«, at the CERCOP-conference “The Experiments in Contemporary Poetry”, Aalborg University, December 2015
  • »The Spirit of Depression«, at the conference The Social Pathologies of Contempoary Civilization”, Aalborg University, October 2015
  • »Going nowhere slow and yet going to utopia«, at the Phd seminar “Border Trafficking in the Aesthetics: Rethinking Methodologies, Rethinking Legitimacy”, Sandbjerg, April 2015
  • »i am a little bit more depressed than you are – Tao Lin and a contemporary poetry or poetics of depression«, at the conference “Poetry, Mediatization and New Sensibilities”, Aarhus University, December 2014
  • »Imagination dead imagine«, at the conference “The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization”, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, October 2014
  • »Something has caught fire that cannot burn«, at the PhD seminar Arrays, Assemblages, Technologies of the Social”, New York, May 2014
  • »’Der er så mange følelser der søger asyl i min krop’ – affekt og politik i Lars Skinnebachs poesi«, at the CERCOP conference ”New Perspectives on Contemporary Poetry”, Aalborg University, April 2014
  • »At the border of death: The necroaesthetic cartography of Roberto Bolano’s 2666«, at the seminar “Innovative Cartographies”, University of Copenhagen, February 2014

 

Areas of Interest and Expertise

Contemporary literature, art and culture (Danish, Scandinavian and American); critical and affect theory; financialization and finance fiction; depression, melancholy and the psychopathologies of the present; grief and mourning; ecology and aesthetics; the Anthropocene.

 

Languages

Danish (native), English (5), Swedish (5), Norwegian (5), German (4), French (1)

 

External funding (successful applications)

2022     OIKOS – A Cultural Analysis of Care and Crisis in the 21st Century (Velux, The Core Group Programme). University of Copenhagen. Project period: 2023-2026.

2018     Finance Fiction – Financialization and Culture in the Early 21st Century (Danish Independent Research Fund, DFF2-project, with Frederik Tygstrup as PI). University of Copenhagen. Project period: 2018-2022.

2018     Utopia without Future (Danish Independent Research Fund, DFF1-project, with Tue Andersen Nexø as PI). University of Copenhagen. Project period: 1. Jan. – 31. Jul. 2021.

2017     The Poetics and Politics of Grief – a Literary History (Carlsbergfondets postdoc-stipendier i Danmark). Aalborg University. Project period: 1 Jan. 2018 - 31. Dec. 2019.

 

Media appearances/interviews/podcasts

 

Other relevant experience

  • Nominated by HUM, KU, to teach the course “Art and Ecology” for high-school teachers, as part of a collaboration between GSC and Gymnasiefællesskabet, forthcoming, September 2023
  • Co-organizer of the talk “Climate Sorrow”, by Judith Butler, at Centre for Applied Ecological Thinking, forthcoming, May 2023
  • Co-editor with Arne De Boever of a special issue of boundary 2 online, “Finance and Fiction”, forthcoming 2023
  • Co-editor of the anthology Finance Aesthetics: A Critical Glossary (confirmed contributors include Saskia Sassen, Kara Keeling, Goldin+Senneby, Jason W. Moore, Michel Feher, Sarah Brouillette, Joshua Clover, Annie McClanahan, Zachary Formwalt, and the novelist Tom McCarthy), Goldsmiths Press, forthcoming 2023
  • Co-organizer (with Stefanie Heine) of the seminar “Breathing in, Wearing out”, at Centre for Applied Ecological Thinking, October 11 2022
  • Organizer of a talk and workshop with Jane Bennett on new materialism, ecology and art, at Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Fall of 2022
  • Co-organizer of the online lecture series “&Utopia” with speakers such as Francoise Vergès, Sophie Lewis and Kim Stanley Robinson, Fall of 2021
  • Co-editor of Nordic Journal of Aesthetics 60, 2020
  • Co-organizer with Arne De Boever of the seminar “Finance and fiction” at CalArts, January 2020
  • Co-organizer of the NorLit conference “Money and Literature: Wealth, Finance, Aesthetics” at The University of Copenhagen, August 2019
  • Co-founder and co-editor of the journal Trappe Tusind, 2008-2010

Education

PhD, postdoc

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