Previous research

Postcolonial critique, with a particular focus on anglophone South African literature, especially J. M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer and Njabulo Ndebele. Helgesson participated 2000-2006 in the research programme “Literature and Literary History in Global Contexts”, funded by VR. In a separate, individual project, Helgesson broadened his scope to include literature in Portuguese from Angola and Mozambique (with writers such as Rui Knopfli, Mário Pinto de Andrade and Noémia de Sousa). His subsequent project, “Inventing World Literature”, focused on the tension between the subjectivity of the writer and multi-network system of literature in translation.

Current research

Helgesson is currently on the board of the research programme “Time, Memory and Representation” funded by RJ (see histcon.se). His project is entitled “Illegitimate History: Postcolonial Temporalities and Literary Language” and is a comparative study of literary narrative and historical time in African and Latin American literature from around 1900. In 2011 he published two edited volumes, one on translation and the other on endings in literature.

Categories

Postcolonial literature, world literature, comparative literature, literary theory, translation studies