Catharine Walker Bergström

Catharine Walker Bergström is a senior lecturer at University West in Trollhättan, Sweden. In addition to teaching courses in literature and culture, she is the author of one textbook and is in the process of editng an anthology. Her area of research is American literature, in particular contemporary authors such as E. L. Doctorow, Toni Morrison, Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, and Jonathan Franzen. Her dissertation on seven novels by E. L. Doctorow, was grounded in theoretical studies of narrative ethics, Emmanuel Levinas' concept of moral obligation, and postmodern gnosticism.

Catharine's undergraduate degree is from Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA. Her M.A. and Ph.D. are from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. In the late 90s she and a colleague, Alastair Henry, collaborated on a project entitled Texts and Events: Cultural Narratives of Britain and the United States (Studentlitteratur 2001). An interactive teaching text, Texts and Events interweaves narratives of historical and literary events and is used by many Swedish universities to contextualize the literary works studied on their courses. An updated second edition is due to be published in 2012.