Episode 52: Jim Phelan & Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen — Omar El Akkad’s “Factory Air”

In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan and Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen discuss Omar El Akkad’s “Factory Air,” first published in Guernica Magazine in March 2019 as part of their special issue on climate fiction. Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen is Associate Professor and Director of the Center for the Rise of Science and Fiction at Aarhus University in Denmark. Zetterberg-Nielsen’s research is driven by the question of why and how we engage with fictional stories. Zetterberg-Nielsen focuses on fictionality theory, the history of the 18th Century novel, and the intersections between the two. She has published widely on these topics in venues such as Narrative, Poetics Today, Style, and The Living Handbook of Narratology. Zetterberg-Nielsen has received the prestigious Nils Klim Prize, given by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research to a scholar from or in a Nordic country under the age of 40, who has made outstanding contributions to research in the humanities, social sciences, law, or theology. Zetterberg-Nielsen has also received a number of research grants that have enabled her to establish the Center for the Rise of Science and Fiction. Zetterberg-Nielsen collaborates closely with many scholars in the International Society for the Study of Narrative, which among other things have resulted in the co-edited volume, Fictionality and Literature: Core Concepts Revisited.