THE GRAND THEME : and other essays

ANDERS HALLENGREN is a Swedish author and scholar, a Harvard alumnus, and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. He received a doctorate for a dissertation on RW Emerson’s philosophy (The Code of Concord, 1994) and is an Associate Professor and Fellow of Stockholm University. The author of many books, including Gallery of Mirrors: Reflections on Swedenborgian Thought (Swedenborg Foundation, 1998) he is also the English translator of Swedenborg’s Dream Diary and other works. He has provided the revised translation of – and an introduction to – Carl Robsahm’s Memoirs of Swedenborg (Swedenborg Society, 2011). A prolific essayist and also a poet, Hallengren was awarded a prize by the Swedish Academy in 2008. In 2009 he lectured at the Swedenborg Association of Australia, the Hurstville Society, and the Linnean Society of New South Wales. He is currently translating a series of lectures on botany delivered by Carl Linneaus in the mid-1700s, a work commissioned by The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters. Since 2010, Anders has been the coordinator for Configurations of Desire, an international network of scholars researching expressions of desire in literature from antiquity through to the seventeenth century. The result of their research, PANGS OF LOVE AND LONGING: Configurations of Desire in Premodern Literature, will be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2013. A volume of Anders’ poetry was recently published in bilingual translation, Pentagrams | Pentagramme (Éditions Sander, 2012) Further information.