Gunhild Moltesen Agger

Gunhild Moltesen Agger
Born	(1945-03-18) March 18, 1945 Viby Jylland, Denmark
Nationality	Danish
Citizenship	Denmark
Alma mater	Aarhus University
Scientific career
Fields	Danish media history
Institutions	Aalborg University

Gunhild Moltesen Agger (born on March 18, 1945 in Viby Jylland, Denmark) is a professor in Danish media history at Aalborg University and holds a higher doctoral degree. She conducts research in media science, focusing on Danish television drama and film, crime fiction and national identity in a globalized world.

Educational background

Agger graduated as a Master of Arts (MA) in literary history from Aarhus University in 1971 with a MA thesis on the works of Leo Tolstoy. In 2005, she was awarded the higher doctoral degree on the basis of her higher doctoral thesis on Dansk TV- drama. Arvesølv og underholdning [Danish TV Drama. Family silver and entertainment].

Background and academic contributions

Agger’s mother is author Ragnhild Agger (born on January 25, 1918), who has written novels, short stories and poetry on women’s life in a social and realistic perspective.

Following her employment as a postgraduate fellow at Aarhus University in 1972, Agger was employed at Aalborg University in 1974 to teach primarily Danish and Media Studies.

Agger has contributed to Danish media interpretations of themes within both fiction and journalism. She has explained how streaming services have advanced due to their ability to act both nationally and globally, whereas the DVD medium remains as a guarantor of the “safe choice”.

By virtue of her role as TV drama expert, Gunhild Agger has been involved in the heated debate about the Danish TV series Badehotellet [The Seaside Hotel] and the reason for its success. While the debate on Badehotellet was running, Agger gave interviews to other media outlets, explaining the qualities of the TV series.

As a researcher, Agger has contributed to the books Dansk mediehistorie [Danish Media History] (1996–1997), Dansk TV’s historie [The History of Danish TV] (2006), MedieDK (2010) og Analyse af billedmedier [Analysis of Picture Media] (3rd edition 2015). She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema and of the Scientific Committee of the journal Series. She is also one of the main editors of the Medie- og Kommunikationsleksikon [Media and Communication Encyclopedia] (2009). This encyclopedia has been published in several editions, most recently in 2014, and is being regularly updated online.

Agger’s scientific publications in journals and anthologies include:

• ”Geopolitical location and plot in The Night Manager” (2017), in Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 7:1, pp. 27–42, doi: 10.1386/jsca.7.1.27_1
• ”Auteurteori og Sorg og glæde” (2016), in Jørgen Riber Christensen og Steen Ledet Christiansen (red.): Filmanalyse. Aarhus: Systime Academic.
• ”Strategies in Danish film culture – and the case of Susanne Bier” (2015), in Kosmorama #259
• “Imagined Places. Location in Lars von Trier Films in the Perspective of Carl Th. Dreyer and Andrey Tarkovsky” (2015), in Non-Place: Representing Placelessness in Literature, Media and Culture Edited by Mirjam Gebauer et al.

Professor Ib Bondebjerg, University of Copenhagen, called her higher doctoral thesis Dansk TV-drama Arvesølv og underholdning [Danish TV Drama Family Silver and Entertainment] a major quality leap in Danish TV research.

Agger has chaired a crime research project at Aalborg University, co-editing with Kim Toft Hansen a 6-volume book series published by Aalborg University Press in the period 2010-2016. For this series, Agger wrote the book Mord til tiden [Timely Murder] (2013), which investigates historical crime fiction and crime documentary. Professor Kirsten Drotner wrote about this work: "The book demonstrates an impressive overview of a very large volume of material and does so with a sense of national and epochal contexts." In collaboration with Anne Marit Waade, in 2010 she published what is now seen as a standard work within the topic, Den skandinaviske krimi – bestseller og blockbuster [Scandinavian Crime - bestseller and blockbuster].

Since 2014, Agger has been involved in the research project What Makes Danish TV Drama Series Travel?, which is investigating the international success of Danish TV drama in an effort to explain this. In connection with this project, she has published the following:

• ”The development of transnationality in Danish Noir – from Unit One to The Team” (2016), in Northern Lights, volume 14: Television drama in the age of media convergence
• ”Nordic Noir – Location, Identity and Emotion” (2016), in Alberto N. Garcia (ed.): Emotions in Contemporary TV Series. Palgrave Macmillan.

Agger has held a large number of positions in connection with her academic career; she was a board member (2003–2006) and deputy chair (2005-2006) of the Association of media researchers in Denmark, a member of the Danish Council for Independent Research Humanities (now FKK) 1997-2003, of the Research Committee of the Danish Ministry of Culture (1999-2003), and a member of the Prime Minister's Media Committee (1994-1996). Internally at Aalborg University, Gunhild has been a member of the University Board (2003–2007), a Dean (1983–1984) and a Pro-Dean (1982–1983). Agger is also a member of Det Danske Kriminalakademi [the Danish Crime Academy], whose purpose is to promote good Danish crime literature.

As a postgraduate student, Agger spent a semester at the Akademija Nauk in Moscow. Since then she has been a guest lecturer at Old Dominion University in the United States, the University of Greenland, the University of Iceland, Vilnius University as well as at a large number of Danish and Scandinavian universities. She is affiliated with the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus University as an external co-examiner.

In 2015, Agger was awarded the Danish Order of Dannebrog.