Kirsten Blinkenberg Hastrup (born 1948) is a Danish
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
and professor of anthropology at the
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...
. She has taken a special interest in the conjunction between the history and culture of both Iceland and Greenland, publishing widely on both, while also examining the relationship between the theatre and anthropology. Hastrup was president of the
Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
{{Infobox organization
, name = The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
, full_name =
, native_name = Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab
, native_name_lang =
, logo = Royal ...
from 2008 to 2016.
Biography
Born on 20 February 1948 in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
, Hastrup is one of the five daughters of the physician Bent Faurschou Hastrup (1922–85) and his wife Else Blinkenberg, an educator. After matriculating from
Aarhus Cathedral School
Aarhus Katedralskole is a cathedral school, an institution of secondary education, a Danish Gymnasium and a listed building in Aarhus, Denmark. The school is situated in the neighborhood Midtbyen, in the Latin Quarter, bounded by the streets Mej ...
in 1965, she studied geography and biology at
Aarhus University
Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Gr ...
. She went on to study
ethnography
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...
at
Copenhagen University
The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public research university in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia after Uppsala Unive ...
, receiving an M.Sc. in 1973. The following year, she was awarded the university's gold medal for researching the woman's place in anthropology.
[
In 1968, she married her colleague Jan Ovesen, with whom she had four children. She moved with her children to ]Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
in 1974, embarking on a doctorate course which took her to Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
in India. She was unable to complete the assignment as the area was soon closed off to visitors as a result of political conflicts. She therefore decided to join the staff of Aarhus University in 1976, hoping to undertake field work in Iceland. She learnt Icelandic and studied the country's history, taking a special interest in the Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
. With the agreement of Oxford, she wrote her thesis on
''Cultural Classification and History with Special Reference to Medieval Iceland'' (1979), earning a doctorate in 1980. The same year, her work led to the creation of historical anthropology
Historical anthropology is a historiographical movement which applies methodologies and objectives from social and cultural anthropology to the study of historical societies. Like most such movements, it is understood in different ways by differe ...
as a new university subject in Denmark.[
In 1982, she travelled to Iceland, where she spent half a year at the ]Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies
The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies ( is, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum ) is an institute of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Iceland which conducts research in Icelandic and related academic s ...
where she comprehensively researched Iceland's history from 1400 to 1800 for the first time, showing that the general decline over the period was a result of the Icelanders' own approach and own management rather than external factors as had previously been thought. She published her findings as ''Nature and Policy in Iceland 1400–1800'' which ultimately earned her a second doctorate as dr.scient.soc or doctor of social sciences from the University of Copenhagen in 1990. She spent a further period carrying out field work on a farm and in a fishing village in Iceland, examining the relationship between the social history and cultural identity. Her work was documented in a trilogy covering ''Culture and History'' (1985), ''Nature and Policy'' (1990) and ''A Place Apart'' (1998). Hastrup also initiated a larger, two-year research project which led to the publication of ''Den nordiske verden'' (The Nordic World) in 1992.[
From 1985 to 1990, Hastrup was a professor of research at Aarhus University where her work focused on the relationship between the theatre and anthropology. This led to the partly auto-biographical play ''Talabot'' presented at Holsterbro's ]Odin Teatret Odin Teatret is an avant-garde theatre group based in Holstebro, Denmark. It was founded by Italian theatre director and investigator Eugenio Barba in 1964. Odin Teatret is a part of NTL, Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium, which also includes the Inter ...
and at other locations worldwide over a three-year period.[ In 1990, she was appointed professor at the University of Copenhagen where she continued her interest in theatre, arranging a large conference on theatre anthropology. In 1966, she travelled to England to research the history of the Shakespearean theatre tradition in collaboration with the ]Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...
. Her interest in the relationship between human structures and the process of change resulted in her appointment as the first head of research at the Danish Centre for Human Rights in 1998.[ This, in turn, led to her presidency of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters from April 2008 to June 2016.]
More recently, from 2009 to 2014, Hastrup ran ''Waterworlds'', a major European research project analysing social responses to climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
, followed by fieldwork in Greenland, where she researched the effects of the modern world on a small community of hunters.
Awards
Hastrup has received a number of awards including:
*2010: Ebbe Munck Award for her biography of the polar explorer Knud Rasmussen
Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (; 7 June 1879 – 21 December 1933) was a Greenlandic–Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" (now often known as Inuit Studies or Greenlandic and Arctic Studies ...
*2012: Gad Rausing Award for outstanding humanitarian research from the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities
The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities also called simply the Royal Academy of Letters or Vitterhetsakademin abbreviated KVHAA ( sv, Kungl. Vitterhetsakademien Historie och Antikvitets Akademien or or ) is the Swedish royal ...
Hastrup is a Fellow of the British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway.
History
The Royal Frederick Univer ...
Selected works
Hastrup has published some 40 books including:
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References
External links
Kirsten Blinkenberg Hastrup's profile at the University of Copenhagen
Performance of Talabot from mid-1990s
by Odin Teatret Odin Teatret is an avant-garde theatre group based in Holstebro, Denmark. It was founded by Italian theatre director and investigator Eugenio Barba in 1964. Odin Teatret is a part of NTL, Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium, which also includes the Inter ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hastrup, Kirsten
1948 births
Living people
Scientists from Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen alumni
Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen
Danish anthropologists
Danish women scientists
Danish women anthropologists
19th-century Danish non-fiction writers
20th-century Danish non-fiction writers
Danish women academics
21st-century Danish scientists
20th-century Danish scientists
20th-century Danish women writers
21st-century Danish women writers
Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy