My PhD project is called “Racism in Classic Danish Literature for Children 1900-2025” and in this project, I analyse and discuss racialization, racism and colonialism in Danish children’s literature from the last 125 years. The project’s main aim is to determine how racialized characters are portrayed in old children’s classics and in which way these portrayals have been reproduced, reinterpreted and/or challenged in new popular literature for children.

I am also interested in how publishers have dealt and continues to deal with children’s classics that raises controversy due to racialized character portrayals. Publishers sometimes choose to alter or remove words or passages they deem problematic, and I am interested in how these changes affect the works and character portrayals in question.

My PhD project is the first project to address racialization and colonialism in children’s literature in a Danish context, and the project will therefore also focus on how these concepts can be applied specifically to Danish literature for children.