Nordic Humanities Center launches new book series
The humanities are crucial to our ability to understand and address society's grand challenges. The Nordic Humanities Centre is now launching a series of short, poignant and timely books that bring humanities knowledge into the public debate to nuance, strengthen and challenge the public conversation. "Udfordringer" is the short title of the series.
The books show how climate change, war, polarisation, misinformation, new technologies and other pervasive societal challenges require historical, cultural and critical perspectives.
- The aim of the series is to strengthen and challenge the public conversation with some sharp perspectives from the humanities. But we have lacked a format that brings together serious research and lively communication around society's major challenges. Now we have that," says Anders Engberg-Pedersen, head of the Nordic Humanities Centre and professor of literature at SDU.
Concrete concepts as tools
Each book in the series sheds a different light on familiar notions, provides a concrete concept that can be used as a tool for better orientation, and challenges the reader to rethink the challenges facing society.”- We have been missing a format that brings together serious research and lively communication around society's major challenges.
"Udfordringer" is published by Nord Academic/Gads Forlag alongside a podcast series and is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation.
The book series originates from the Nordic Humanities Centre, an interdisciplinary research environment at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Southern Denmark supported by the A.P. Møller Foundation. The series is developed by Anders Engberg-Pedersen and Anna Cornelia Ploug, who are the subject editors of the books.
Small book for your pocket
- The books in the Challenge series are not just entertaining, nuanced perspectives that you can enjoy relaxed over your evening coffee in your armchair. They demand something of the reader - both specific political actors and the general public - and actively intervene in the most important dilemmas we face as a society today. Each book is small enough to put in your pocket and give you a concept that can be used as a tool to orientate yourself in a complex reality. I hope people will enjoy using the books as a kind of humanistic tool," says Anna Cornelia Ploug, a postdoc at the centre.
Book launch programme for 20 March
The first two books in the series – Vild Vækst and Udsat Natur – will be launched on 20 March. You can meet the authors in a conversation moderated by science journalist Tor Arnbjørn.
Challenge 1: Can economic growth and ecological sustainability go hand in hand?
Vild Vækst – by Niklas Olsen and Tue Andersen Nexø
Challenge 2: What do we do with wild nature?
Udsat Natur – by Johanne Gormsen Schmidt
• With the ambiguous concept of vulnerable nature and examples from the current debate about horses and wolves in Denmark, writer Johanne Gormsen Schmidt points out how our cultural perceptions of large animals harbour an ambivalence towards the nature we want to both protect and control. In the company of Morten D.D. Hansen, a biologist, nature educator and former curator of the Natural History Museum in Aarhus, she discusses the perspectives of rewilding initiatives and understanding nature today.
The launch will take place from 16.00 - 18.00 at a joint event with the Centre for Applied Ecological Thinking at Læderstræde 20 in Copenhagen. Free registration here.
You can read more about the two books:
The next books in the series are Billedtræthed by Mette Sandbye and Førkrigstid by Frederik Forrai Ørskov.
They will be published on 18 May 2026 and 3 September 2026 respectively.