Terrorisme og verdensorden. Ansatser til en hermeneutisk analyse. Working Paper 1, September 2004, Center for Mellemøststudier, Syddansk Universitet

Hinsides ironi - 4 essays om Søren Kierkegaard. NSU: Nordisk Sommeruniversitet. Århus 1995. 116 sider

Henrik Bach in, Litteraturmagasinet Standard in May 1996, wrote the following about Beyond Irony:

Søren Ulrik Thomsen once said that anytime one puts two words down on a piece of paper they will inevitably cry out for a meaning. In saying this, he also describes deconstructivism, because he has not said which meaning the words cry out for.

Deconstructive reading is a non-method which offers an infinite number of interpretive possibilities, depending on who reads and interprets what. Or, in other words: when one is confronted with a text, three factors are at work; intentio auctoris - the intentions of the author-, intention operis - the intentions of the text-, and intentio lectoris - the intentions of the reader. This force field then yields more or less viable interpretations.

Lars Erslev Andersen's essays on Kierkegaard result from a (de)construction of Kierkegaard's own texts, which means that they may result in a meaning/an interpretation which is far removed from Kierkegaard's intentions, but which nevertheless, at the same time, constitute a product of the texts authored by the same Kierkegaard. Indeed, Kierkegaard himself - long before Derrida, Rorty, Fish, Hauge and whatever they are all called had ever even been thought of - was aware that a text does not present itself as one, immutable and fixed phenomenon. In "Either/ Or", Johannes the Seducer says: "You se, a book has the peculiar quality that it may be interpreted in any which manner".

Once this fact has become settled, there is then no reason to balk at any reading whatsoever, only to be alert to the construals which are applied to the open texts, because these are not necessarily neither equally valid nor insignificant. It is all a question of reading.

What is interesting about Erslev Andersen's four rewarding essays is the way in which Kierkegaard's words are placed in a modern context. He emerges as the modernist who wished to clear away history in order to represent "the new", whereby he is presented as being in opposition to Grundtvig, who is here presented as a representative of romanticism, with its dissolution of disharmony with recourse to traditional mythological symbols.

In the four essays - "Sørens Kierkegaards "skrivemaskine" (Sørens Kierkegaard's "Typewriter") ", "Gentagelse"("Repetition") -on the reading moment, "Selv, fremstilling, selvfremstilling" ("Self, Representation, Self-Representation") - on the autobiographical genre and Kierkegaards own views regarding his authorship, and finally "Ironi og humor" ("Irony and Humor") - which concerns thinking beyond irony, - the 150 year old division between Kierkegaard's words and our current textual theory and concept of writing is eliminated, and it is this fruitful elimination from which the book results.

This is particularly obvious when Rorty og Derrida are among those brought into the discussion. As for instance in the chapter on "Repetition" which, for Kierkegaard, constitutes the interest which prevents the metaphysic from creating identity between thought and being. I cannot begin to represent the discussion here. One might recall Rorty's words from "Consequences of Pragmatism", in which he says that it "is the intention of the interpreter to beat the text into a shape which serves his purpose". This also becomes the writing on the wall in Erslev Andersen's book, but in manner which also allows the text to emerge in its own right.

To paraphrase someone who - like Kierkegaard - is grounded half in romanticism and half in modernism, the dictum of Baudelaire, this book delves into the known in order to find the new. And it succeeds!

Allegori og Mimesis. Platon - Benjamin Tur/Retur (Allegory and Mimesis. Plato - Benjamin There and Back). Århus. Modtryk 1989. 92 pages.

On the publication of the book, author Per Højholt in Jyllands-Posten wrote the following about Allegori og Mimesis (Allegory and Mimesis):

Lars Erslev Andersen's is peculiar in the sense that all of the first and longest chapter consists of two threads, which means that one is in effect presented with an essays and a counter-essay at once. A bit confusing, but the reader easily takes the two by turns. It is not a problem. Erslev Andersen is an aggresive thinker.

Even Plato he cannot leave alone, he reads him eagerly and intensively, something to which one is not accustomed, yet he manages to give a fine account of Plato's concepts regarding what our writer calls "classical metaphysics' construction of a philosophical- aesthetic hierarchy of values" - which roughly speaking means the traditional conception of literature as a kind of representer of reality to which various superstructures in the form of allegory, imagery, symbols etc. are added. Meanwhile, the counter-essay is the domain of the destroyer Benjamin, and here this very same hierarchy is under attack, de-construction, as are also the values which it served to uphold.

This two-fold movement is nicely mastered by Erslev Andersen, but, what I in fact think is even better is this: He at the same time manages to provide a neat poetics for the modern poem! It is difficult, not really because it is obscure, but because as a reader one is forced to think against the current, so to speak, but thanks to Erslev Andersen's at times idiomatic language the rewards are considerable.

With Per Stounbjerg, Peter Brix Søndergaard, Erik Østerud, Løjper. Themes in Contemporary Reading (Temaer i aktuel tekstlæsning) (Århus Universitetsforlag 1988), 178 p. [In Danish]

With Hans Hauge, Text and Trope. Deconstruction in America (Tekst og Trope. Dekonstruktion i Amerika.) (Modtryk. Århus 1988), 152 p. [In Danish]

Contributions to Books

Tankens Magt. Vestens Idéhistorie. Redigeret af Hans Siggaard Jensen, Ole Knudsen, Frederik Stjernfelt. Tekstredaktion: Claus Bratt Østergaard. København: Lindhardt & Ringhof 2006:

"Islams fremvækst"; "Islamisk lov og ret"; "Sunni- og shia-islam" i Bind 1: Religion og Teologi 350-1350

"Det europæiske Osmannerrige" i Bind 1: Religion og Teologi 1350-1600

"Den europæiske orientalisme" i Bind 2: Menneske, Sprog og Samfund 1789-1857

"Euroislam og islamisme i Europa"; "Religiøs fundamentalisme" i Bind 3: Religion og Teologi 1973 og frem

"I frihedens Navn - krigen mod terror som den retfærdige krigs genkomst", i Carsten Selch Jensen (red.): Retfærdig Krig. Om legitimeringer af krig og voldsudøvelse i historien. Odense. Syddansk Universitetsforlag 2006, side 210-254

"Sårbarhedens retorik som apokalypse - postmoderne terrorismediskurs i Amerika", i Mia Rendix & Jakob Krohn (red.): Apokalypsens Amerika. Odense. Syddansk Universitetsforlag 2006, side 157-167

"Själv, framställning och självframställning. Självbiografin som genre och Søren Kierkegaards syn på sitt författerskap" in Christoffer Tigerstedt, J.P.Roos och Anni Vilkko (red.): Självbiografin, Kultur, Liv. Levnadshistoriska studier inom human- och samhällsvetenskap. Symposion. Stockholm 1992. 18 sider

"Selv, fremstilling og selvfremstilling: Om selvbiografien som genre og om Søren Kierkegaards synspunkter på sin skrift" i Hans Hauge (red.): Subjektets status. Om subjektfilosofi, metafysik og modernitet. Århus Universitetsforlag Århus 1990), 20 sider

"Benjamin on the move: Om brugen af Benjamin i Amerika" i Tore Eriksen (red.): Tankestreger en antologi om Walter Benjamin. Århus. Modtryk 1989. 14 sider

"Gentagelse - om læsningens øjeblik" i Lars Erslev Andersen, Per Stounbjerg, Peter Brix Søndergaard, Erik Østerud (red.): Løjper. Temaer i aktuel tekstlæsning. Århus Universitetsforlag 1988. 22 sider

"DeManding Allegory. Om læsningens allegori og dekonstruktiv kritik - en introduktion til Paul de Man" i Lars Erslev Andersen & Hans Hauge (red.): Tekst og Trope. Dekonstruktion i Amerika. Århus. Modtryk 1988. 26 sider

"Nietzsches æstetiske kritik af vesterlandets kultur" i Lars-Henrik Schmidt (red.): Nietzsche - en tragisk filosof. Århus. Modtryk 1985. 24 sider

Journal Articles

"Upprepning. Om läsningens ögenblick" i Aiolos. Tidsskrift för litteratur, teori og estetik nr. 6-7, Stockholm 1998. 21 sider

"Humor, kontingens og fællesskab" i Passage. Tidsskrift for Litteratur. Aarhus 1994. 18 sider

"Søren Kierkegaards "skrivemaskine"" i Kredsen nr. 2, årgang 54 København 1989. 14 sider

"Biografiens retorik. Liv og Skrift hos Paul de Man" i UNDR Nyt Nordisk Forum nr. 54 Århus 1988. 8 sider

"Eksistens og modernitet hos Søren Kierkegaard" i Slagmark nr. 4 Århus 1985. 22 sider