Ken Runar Hanssen
Dr. Ken R. Hanssen is Professor of English at Nord University and Chair of the National Council for English. His research covers canonical Early Modern and Modern literature, and is grounded in literary-historical investigations, textual analysis, and engagement with aesthetic, cultural, and pedagogical questions. He is also concerned with the formative role of literature in education, including subject pedagogy assessment, national curriculum development, and the formulation of educational policy.
Dr. Hanssen is a national authority on Shakespeare, and he is currently working on a monograph on Shakespeare’s late plays, extending a long-standing area of research. In addition to forays into Chaucer’s dream poems, he has also made significant research contributions to modern British and American fiction, including essays on Sebald, Crews, and McCarthy, as well as more generalized topics like representations of time and memory, the American survey course, and Key West literature.
Across these areas, his writing has been described as exhibiting intellectual sophistication, analytical precision, deep erudition, and an elegant scholarly style. His work has appeared in leading journals like Journal of Modern Literature (L2), Southern Quarterly (L2), American Literary History (L2), Chaucer Review, Cormac McCarthy Review, Nordic Journal of English Studies, Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, Norwegian Shakespeare Review, and Norwegian Pedagogical Review, as well as in several scholarly anthologies.
Dr. Hanssen also has substantial experience within teaching, supervision, course design, and academic development in literature and subject pedagogy at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels. He is currently preparing a new master’s course in English Children’s Literature Classics for Nord’s Teacher Education program. He also participates actively in institutional, national, and international research and education networks, and has held a number of academic leadership and administrative positions.
Provides expert media commentary on: Shakespeare and his works.