CUNY Writing Fellows - Ken Nielsen

Growing up in a middle-sized industrial town of 50,000 people in Denmark I never dreamt that I would one day be living in New York City. I never dreamt that I would one day be pursuing a doctorate degree in the theory and history of theatre. Nevertheless, here I am.

I first left Denmark in 1994 to teach English and Danish in Vilnius, the capital of then, recently independent, Lithuania. I lived in Vilnius for little more than a year before returning to Denmark to serve as a conscientious objector to the Danish military. As a conscientious objector I was sent to work for a year in a children's theatre where I built sets and basically worked as a roadie on the troupe's seemingly endless tours. Throughout these years I flirted heavily with entering the acting profession, but it became clear to me and the world-though unfortunately to the world before me-that I was probably a much better writer and academic. Having made this realization I decided to study theatre research at the University of Copenhagen where I received my BA and MA in theatre research and the University's gold medal for academic excellence. The aspiring actor became a historian and the director became a playwright, and I entered a life of words, words, words. Since then writing (both scholarly and in form of fiction, poetry, and plays) has been an integral part of my private and professional life.

Much of my dissertation work focuses on issues of translation, in the greatest sense of that term. I analyze how five American plays about male homosexuality are produced and received in three Western European countries and languages (England, Denmark, and Germany) and through this how an idea of America and American identity is produced through scenic representation. What is the discrepancy between a localized identity and an imported identity represented through linguistic, visual, and cultural translation? How is a whole nation and a sense of an all encompassing gay male Western identity produced through the scenic reproduction of words on paper? And, what does that tell us about the function of theatre and the function of American culture once displaced? All of this of course relates to questions of writing as well; what constitutes this fictional, yet real, world initially constructed by the playwright through his words and what does that world become once critics and audiences write about it in their local languages?

Being interested in questions of cultural and linguistic translation (as if they were two different things) I am excited to work in the WAC program on such an ethnically diverse campus as Queens College. Writing is of course important in any education, but it holds specific challenges and advantages for the bilingual or international student who might be studying in a language different than his / her mother tongue. In that situation writing as a journey of understanding becomes vital. As a linguistic traveler myself I hope to be of assistance along the road of that journey for the students and faculty at Queens College.