The Nordic Heritage Museum’s third annual Nordic Lights Film Festival, a cutting-edge cinematic festival offering an immersion into the world of hot Nordic films during the chilly winter season, is presented in partnership with Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF).

Denmark: In a Better World
Finland: Moomins and the Comet Chase; Lapland Odyssey
Iceland: Summerland
Norway: Suddenly Sami; King of Devil’s Island
Sweden: Miss Kicki; When the Pepper Blossoms; Inte Panik; The Regretters
Plus: Nordic Shorts, and more!

Friday – Sunday, January 6 – 8, 2012

For more information about the films or to buy tickets, visit: www.SIFF.net

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There will be two sessions on Strindberg and Lotta Gavel Adams will chair one session on Modern and Premodern Forms in August Strindberg.

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Students studying Swedish at the UW will combine with the Swedish Women’s Chorus, the Svea Male Chorus and the Swedish Cultural Center’s best bakers to help you feel the Lucia love! Come early for a good seat—this event fills up fast.

For more information, please visit the Swedish Cultural Center website.

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Where: Central Library, Level 1, Microsoft Auditorium
Audience: Children, Teens, Adults

Full Description: If you haven’t caught fire, if the fall color splendor and leaf falling haven’t lifted your spirit, the lively artists of Lithuania most certainly will. How could it be otherwise? It was Lithuanians, along with Latvians and Estonians, who fought and won their uprising against the Soviet regime with a song.

Join us for:

- Music from Lithuanian composer M. K. Čiurlionis, performed by Dainius Vaicekonis
- Vakarai, a Lithuanian choir
- Lietutis, a Lithuanian Folk Dance Group
- Great singers and more!

Event Notes: Library events and programs are free and everyone is welcome. Registration is not required.

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Film historian and Bergman specialist, Peter Cowie, will be leading a live discussion and Q&A with audience members at this special online screening. This is a great opportunity for students who are fans of Bergman and/or classic film to engage with a global audience and an expert on this film. The Q&A discussion will take place in Constellation’s virtual movie theater platform with Peter Cowie live via webcam:

Screening Details:
WHAT: The Seventh Seal hosted by Peter Cowie
WHEN: Friday December 2, 2011 at 5:30PM EST
WHERE: https://www.constellation.tv/seventhseal

Peter Cowie is a film historian and author of more than thirty books on film. His books include definitive surveys of the Scandinavian Cinema, in particular the work of Swedish film director, Ingmar Bergman. Other aspects of his work in the area of Scandinavian cinema include his service on the “Quality Awards” Jury of the Swedish Film Institute for 11 years from the 1970s where he was its only non-Nordic member. In 1989 he was decorated by the King of Sweden with the Royal Order of the Polar Star for his services to Swedish culture. During the 1980’s he spent several years in Finland, and in 1983 was director of the Nordic Film Festival in Hanasaari Hanaholmen.

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WHERE: IPE Office, 459 Schmitz Hall
WHEN: Thursday, December 1st from 1-4pm
WHAT: Join Uppsala International Summer Session representative Emma Bendz and current Swedish UW students in discussing the following Swedish Study Abroad options:
Stockholm University
University of Gothenburg
Uppsala University
Uppsala International Summer Session
Summer Language Opportunities

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Bianca Hermansen, Architect + Urban Planner, Gehl Architects, Copenhagen

Does design for livable cities lead to gentrification and displacement?
Come hear about Copenhagen’s last decade of work to revitalize its neighborhoods while respecting existing neighborhood residents, culture and identity. Bianca Hermansen will show examples from the last decade of work in Copenhagen that demonstrate deliberate strategies to spatially democratize renewal projects.

Tuesday, November 29, 6:30 pm
UW Architecture Hall 147

Bianca Hermansen, Architect MAA, is an Urban Designer at Gehl Architects and a PhD Fellow at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen.

Sponsored by the UW Green Futures Lab, the UW Department of Landscape Architecture, and the Scan|Design Foundation.

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Is Dinesen to Christianity what Salman Rushdie is to Islam? This talk will explore themes of intertextuality, blasphemy and subversive repetitions in Dinesen’s late work.

Dag Heede is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark. He has undertaken a megalomanic project of queering the canon of Danish Literature. The result so far has been an introduction to Michel Foucault and monographies on Karen Blixen, Herman Bang and Hans Christian Andersen.

Please join the Masterpieces of Scandinavian Literature course in Communications Hall, Room 326 for a guest lecture.

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In Raitt Hall Room 314

The University of Washington Baltic Studies Program presents a talk by Ivars Ijabs titled “Latvia: Dilemmas of Change Twenty Years after the End of USSR.”

Latvia has seen great political crises in 2011, and life has not settled down even after an unprecedented midterm election in September this year. Ijabs will present an up-to-the-minute summary of political affairs, followed by a discussion of possible developments in the short and long term. Among issues to be addressed are the influence of “oligarchs”, the relevance of “Russian-speaking” political parties, and the long-term prospects for democracy and civil society in Latvia.

Professor Ivars Ijabs (University of Latvia, Department of Political Science) is author of numerous articles and book chapters about Latvia’s civil society, ethnic relations, and European Union integration. He is co-author of the book, Civil Society in Latvian Parliamentary Discourse (in Latvian, Riga: Soros Foundation Latvia, 2007), and Editor of the United Nations Human Development Report for Latvia in 2008/2009.

Ijabs was Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Rutgers University in 2010, recipient of Konrad Adenauer Foundation Scholarships (2005-2007), a Eurofaculty PhD Grant (2004-2005), and a DAAD Scholarship (2002).

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The Swedish author Steve Sem-Sandberg will discuss his new book Emperor of Lies (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux) on November 17, 2011, at 7pm at the Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122.

For more info call 206-624-6640

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All undergraduate students registered in our first and second year language courses as well as our general Scandinavian Studies courses are invited to learn more about our course offerings, study abroad programs, and meet the faculty in our department. Please join us on November 9th in the Walker Ames room in Kane Hall from 9:30 to 10:20 or from 10:30 to 11:20. Feel free to contact the Undergraduate Advisor, Ia Dubois or e-mail uwscand@uw.edu if you have any questions about this event.

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The Creative Dialectic in Karen Blixen’s Essays – On Colonialism, Feminism, and War is topic of the lecture by Professor Stecher-Hansen regarding her recently completed book manuscript about the essays and broadcast orations of Karen Blixen (“Isak Dinesen”), a widely celebrated literary figure in Scandinavia and the Anglo-American world. Overlooked in existing critical studies of Blixen’s literary fiction is the fact that the author functioned as a sage contributor to contemporary debates in Denmark, particularly during the 1950s when her distinct voice on the Danish radio became familiar to a nation of listeners. Blixen’s essays were often aired as readings on Danish radio, contributing her voice to the public debates of the day. European Colonialism and its devastating legacy on the African continent, Feminism and its new significance for modern midcentury women, Hitler’s Germany and totalitarian regimes governed by repressive ideologies; these are among the major concerns of twentieth-century Scandinavians and central questions to which Karen Blixen makes provocatively philosophical contributions that deserve further scholarly attention. Stecher-Hansen’s study is framed by the concept of a “creative dialectic;” the title refers to the dialectic method in the essays, a dialogue between two or more different points of view, as well as to Blixen’s aesthetic principle that a meeting of opposing forces is necessary to form a creative synthesis.

Marianne Stecher-Hansen, Associate Professor (UC Berkeley, Ph.D. 1990), is celebrating this autumn her twentieth year as a faculty member in the Department of Scandinavian Studies at UW where she has taught the works of Karen Blixen in undergraduate and graduate courses in Scandinavian literature and published numerous articles in scholarly journals, including two recent articles on Blixen’s essays in Scandinavian Studies, a monograph on Thorkild Hansen’s documentary works entitled History Revisited, and served as volume editor for two substantial reference works in Danish literature. Marianne is recently appointed the College of Arts and Sciences Term Professor in Danish.

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Dr. Sofia Wijkmark will lecture on Selma Lagerlöf’s Gösta Berling’s Saga. Dr. Wijkmark teaches at Karlstad University in Sweden. Her research focus is on the the Uncanny (det kusliga/das unheimliche) in the works by Selma Lagerlöf and in contemporary novels. Her theoretical interests are ecocriticism and narratology.

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St. Martin’s Eve Dinner and Marketplace at Latvian Hall, 11710 3rd Ave NE, Seattle 98125

St. Martin’s Eve comes to life re-imagined as a street festival and marketplace! All proceeds benefit the University of Washington Baltic Studies Program. We are inaugurating a new theme this year.

Come to the whimsical festivities in your best dress or disguise. Indulge in the costume parade, the singing, the dancing, the games. Feast on great food, beer, wine, and soft drinks.

Support the Baltic Studies Program through a silent auction or by making a pledge or a donation.

Music: Marketplace street musicians

Fundraiser Admission: Adults - $25, Students $15, Kids under 10 free

Dinner included No-host bar

Event organized by the Baltic Studies Fund committee

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10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Mary Gates Hall (MGH)

Representatives from our university exchanges, affiliated study abroad programs, UW academic departments, and internship providers will be available to present hundreds of opportunities to study abroad. Staff from the UW Study Abroad Office, as well representatives from other UW student service offices will be available to answer questions about study abroad programs, funding and scholarship opportunities, and more. Workshops representing a variety of related topics will be presented throughout the day. More than 1400 UW students attend this fair every year to learn about the many opportunities to “Go Away!”

More information is available here.

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Limits to Capital? The Finnish Novel after the Neoliberal Turn

The lecture gives a brief introduction to capitalism as a thematic field in the contemporary Finnish novel, focusing on two examples that are interesting both in a literary sense and as thematicizations of the social construction of subjectivity: the novels of Arto Salminen and Kiltin yön lahjat (Good-Night Gifts, 1998) by Mari Mörö. These novels are read as literary reactions to a global and local context in which tension has grown between commodification and other modes of the social. While neo-liberalism asserts that merely one mode of relationality, the seller–buyer relation, is desirable, these texts remind us of the need for empathy, solidarity and other non-instrumental relations.

Jussi Ojajärvi is a Visiting Scholar in The Program in Literature at Duke University a fellow of the Academy of Finland.

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The Danish Cultural Conference is an annual opportunity to learn about Denmark and its links to the US, today and the past. Melissa Lucas, a Ph. D. candidate in our Department, will be discussing the history and development of the Scandinavian languages at the conference. Please see the brochure for more information.

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Thursday, June 2
314 Raitt
1:30 - 3:00pm

Lola Rogers is a graduate of the Masters program in Finnish language and literature at the University of Washington and has received continuing education at the FILI-Finnish Literature Exchange translation seminars and as a FILI translation intern. She has worked as a freelance literary translator full-time since 2007. Her translations have appeared in PEN America Journal, Words Without Borders, Books from Finland, and World Literature Today. Her translation of Sofi Oksanen’s novel Puhdistus (Purge) was published by Grove / Atlantic in 2010. At the moment, she is working on a translation of Riikka Pulkkinen’s 2010 novel Totta (True), to be published by Other Press.

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Thomas Bodström, Sweden’s former Minister of Justice, will give a talk in the course Sexuality in Scandinavia: Myth and Reality in Smith Hall 120 at 1.30 - 2.20 on Thursday, June 2nd. The title of his talk is “Trafficking, Criminalization of Prostitution in Sweden and the Strict Rape Laws.


This event is supported by the Swedish Embassy in Washington DC and the Scandinavian Department.

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Dr. Kåre Bremer, the President of Stockholm University, will visit the UW on May 26 to partcipate in a panel with Interim President Phyllis Wise on The University and the City, a capstone and a conversation about the global role of universities shaping present-day urban realities and future urban possibilites. The conversation, which will take place in Kane 120 at 6:30, is part of the 2010-2011 John E. Sawyer Seminar in the Study of Comparative Cultures at the University of Washington. It is a component of the NEXT CITY initiative, hosted by the Simpson Center for the Humanities. The event is free and open to the public.

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Please join Mads Bunch in Marianne Stecher-Hansen’s class on Thursday, May 26th at 1:30 for a Colloquium titled “Karen Blixen and Søren Kierkegaard: Narration and Unreliability” in Raitt Hall, Room 314


Søren Kierkegaard’s thinking has had a major impact on Karen Blixen’s production. Already as early as 1924, during her stay in Africa, she writes excited about Kierkegaard’s notion of “The Individual” in a letter to her brother Thomas Dinesen. Her interest in Kierkegaard lasted throughout her life and even intensified during the 1950s after meeting Danish Scholar Aage Henriksen. Karen Blixen was, however, not just inspired by Kierkegaard’s philosophical ideas, but also by the way he chose to present them. She, as him, used a variety of pseudonyms, but also adapted the Chinese Box composition system we find in Either/Or and Stages on Life’s Way and the sophisticated use of unreliable narrators that she developed to perfection. In this talk I will compare Blixen’s novella Ehrengard and Kierkegaard’s “The Seducer’s Diary” in order to point out similarities and differences in regards to narration and the use of unreliable narrators.


Mads Bunch (b. 1974) is Mag. Art. in Nordic Literature from The University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has been a Lecturer in Danish and Scandinavian Studies at The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada since 2006. He has published articles on August Strindberg, Henrik Ibsen, Lars von Trier and contemporary Scandinavian Literature. In 2009 he published the book Samtidsbilleder – realismen i yngre dansk litteratur 1994-2008 [Images of Time – Realism in Danish Literature 1994-2008) describing the new wave of realism in Danish and Scandinavian Literature around the Millennium. He is currently working on the research project Reading Blixen in the Light of Kierkegaard. He will be leaving UBC this summer and return to The University of Copenhagen to finish this project.

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Daniel Alfredson, director of the film adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2010), will be visiting the UW campus on Wed. May 25th at 11:30 in SIG 134. Alfredson will speak to students in the course Crime Scenes: Investigating the Cinema (SCAND 190/GERMAN 190), co-taught by Andrew Nestingen (Scandinavian) and Eric Ames (Germanics). Alfredson is the director of some ten previous films and numerous television programs. Mr. Alfredson’s visit is made possible by the Embassy of Sweden.

Read more in this article from UW Today.

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Māra Zālīte will be visiting the UW Campus on Tuesday, May 17th and on Wednesday, May 18th. Visitors are welcome to attend any of the following events:

Tuesday, May 17, 2011
10:30-11:20 am, Mary Gates Hall Room 238: Zālīte will give a guest lecture about the 1988 rock opera, “Bearslayer,” which captured the spirit of the “Singing Revolution” in Latvia.
Between 12:30 and 1:20 pm, Music Building Room 126: Meeting with the UW Chamber Singers, who will perform a song with words that Zālīte wrote during the Singing Revolution. (The Chamber Singers travelled to the Baltic countries on concert tours in 2000, 2005, and 2010.)
7:00 pm, poetry reading (in Latvian), sponsored by the UW Libraries: Allen Library, 4th floor, Petersen Room.


Wednesday, May 18
Zālīte will again visit the Baltic Cultures class in MGH room 238, 10:30-11:20, to discuss her libretto for the 1997 children’s opera, “Opera of the Birds,” a celebration of liberty, poetry and song: “To sing is to be!”

For a copy of the libretto and a link to streaming video of “Opera of the Birds” on reserve at the UW Media Center (UW students/staff/faculty only), write to guntiss@uw.edu

Māra Zālīte has authored fifteen blockbuster plays and many books of poetry. Today she is President of the Latvian Authors Association. Additional information appears at http://www.marazalite.lv/biografija/personiga-biografija/?lang=en

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Don’t forget to attend the annual Norwegian Constitution Day Parade in the wonderful Ballard neighborhood. More details are available at www.17thofmay.org.

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The 101st Annual Meeting of The Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study will take place in Chicago, April 28-30, 2011 at the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza, located downtown Chicago, with a beautiful view of the city and the Chicago River. The group code for discount room rates is “ADT”.

North Park University and The Center for Scandinavian Studies will produce and plan the conference.

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Please save the date to attend the Northwest Danish Association Gala Fund-Raising Auction on Saturday, April 23, 2011. This evening will celebrate HM Queen Margrethe’s Birthday and will be held at the Lynnwood Convention Center. More information is available here.

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The Royal Danish Guards Association - Pacific Northwest in collaboration with the Northwest Danish Association cordially invite you to attend A Royal Celebration honoring Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark on April 16, 2011 at the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 2995 - 4330 148th Ave, in Redmond, WA

Tickets are limited. Please RSVP by April 8th, $40.00 per person - Black Tie Optional. Check made payable to: Northwest Danish Association Mail to: 1833 N. 105th St. #101, Seattle, WA 98133-8973.

For additional information, please contact Kenneth Olsen 206-963-3334 or vko61@hotmail.com.

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The August Strindberg Society of Los Angeles (TASSLA) presents a reading of August Strindberg’s Dance of Death I in a new translation by Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey on Tuesday April 12, 2011, at 1.30 p.m. in Smith Hall 120

And

Tuesday April 12, 2011, at 7 p.m. at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard with Michael Harvey, Anne-Charlotte Harvey, Peter Larlham, and Sandy Johnson

A riveting and explosive drama of grotesque humor and hatred, about a bitter artillery captain and his wife, a former actress, isolated in their island fortress quarters during a storm. The surprise return from America of her cousin sets things really going, including a threat of divorce, a near-seduction, and a dance-induced stroke. Absurdly funny but not a light comedy! Vintage Strindberg!

August Strindberg, Sweden’s foremost dramatist, used a pending silver anniversary to show his mastery at portraying intriguing characters. Dance of Death is a biting, deadly—but also absurdly funny—verbal duel between an artillery captain and his wife—modeled on Strindberg’s sister and brother-in-law—facing their quarter-century anniversary in self-imposed isolation in a fortress off the west coast of Sweden. Evenly matched, they spend their evenings in mutual blame and game playing until an unexpected visitor disrupts the status quo and ups the stakes for them both. Through the dramatic revelations that result, Strindberg addresses the nature of life, death, and life after death—burning issues for the aging playwright.

This concert reading of a new translation by Anne-Charlotte Harvey, Professor Emerita of Theatre at San Diego State University, is produced by TASSLA (The August Strindberg Society of Los Angeles). Joining her in performing Dance of Death are Los Angeles-based TASSLA member Sandy Johnson and two San Diego actor colleagues, her husband Michael Harvey and Peter Larlham.

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Dr. Ia Dübois will be giving a lecture on Thursday, March 10th at the Nordic Heritage Museum.
Her research initially focused on issues of ethnic identity in Sweden and in Swedish literature. Dr. Dübois then changed the focus of her research from Scandinavian literature to a comparative study of sexuality in Scandinavia with the intent to find out if, and how, the Scandinavian countries differ in their perceptions of sexuality in society. More specifically, what made Sweden so progressive and liberal after the welfare state was established in 1933?

The Lecture begins at 7:00 p.m. and there is a suggested donation of $5 per person. More information can be found on the Nordic Heritage Museum Website.

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Please join us for a talk from Claus Elhom Andersen on March 3rd at 4:00 p.m. in Savery 139. The title of the talk is “Danish Mother Seeking.” The talk analyzes a video produced by the Danish Tourism Council. Analysis of the video and its reception helps illuminate political debate in Denmark and the United States. Claus Elhom Andersen has written extensively in the Danish press on both the culture and politics of the United States and Denmark. A link to his blog is available here: http://blogs.jp.dk/amerikanskeperspektiver/

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Applications are currently being accepted for fellowships to study in Denmark during Fall semester 2011, Spring semester 2012, or academic year 2011/12. The deadline for application is January 14, 2011 at 5pm. Please see the Study in Denmark website or contact Anni Fuller at 206-819-2137 or afuller@uw.edu for more information.

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Sunday, Dec 12. Lucia Celebration. Students from the UW’s Scandinavian Studies Department perform a Lucia tog plus traditional music by the Swedish Women’s Chorus and Svea Men’s Chorus, and dancing by Skandia Spelmanslag. Plus dancing around the Christmas tree, cookies and coffee. 3 pm.

For more information, please visit: http://www.swedishculturalcenter.org/index.htm

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Professor Charcot with patient Blanche Wittman

Thursday, December 2, 6:30 pm - Public Lecture at the Frye Art Museum.
Professor Lotta Gavel Adams will speak on “August Strindberg and the Occult Societies of Paris in the 1890s”

The lecture is part of a series presented in conjunction with the exhibition Séance: Albert von Keller and the Occult, the Frye Art Museum, the University of Washington’s Germanic Department, and the Simpson Center for the Humanities. The series explores how artists, writers, and intellectuals in the late nineteenth century were fascinated with the occult and how this fascination opened up new creative paths.

This program is supported in part by a grant from Humanities Washington.

Free entry and free parking.

You may reserve the free tickets in advance to guarantee seating. To reserve, call (206) 432-8289 or e-mail rsvp@fryemuseum.org

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In Raitt Hall, Room 314

The Greatest Finn in Foucault’s Cycle: Troublesome Sexuality and The Butterfly of the Urals presented by SANNA KARKULEHTOUNIVERSITY OF OULU / RICE UNIVERSITY

This paper examines the case of the ‘Gay Marshal’, the late Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim, president of Finland, supreme commander of Finnish military forces during World War Two, and often voted the ‘Greatest Finn’ in polls. Karkulehto explores the reception of the puppet-animation film Butterfly of the Urals, in which Mannerheim wears a purple corset and enjoys a relationship with a male servant. The film incited a media war. Drawing on her forthcoming book, The Foucault Cycle and the Media Market of Sex, Karkulehto shows how the films reception involves Foucault’s Cycle: while sexuality fascinates and attracts large audiences, it is both present and absent in the media, viable only under certain conditions, rules, and restrictions.

Sanna Karkulehto is University Lecturer of Literature at the University of Oulu. She is currently a visiting scholar at Rice University in The Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality.

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Wednesday November 24, 2010
2:00 - 4:00 pm
Donald E. Petersen Room, Allen Library, UW

Jan Teorell, Associate Professor of Political Science, Lund University

Presented by the Center for West European Studies, Political Science Department, and European Union Center of Excellence

For more information, contact cwes@uw.edu

This lecture will examine how and why electoral corruption was abolished in the case of Sweden, drawing on original data from second-instance election petitions filed in 1719-1909. These petitions reveal fraudulent practices in the electoral history of Sweden, most notably systematic procedural violations committed by local election administrators towards the end of the Age of Liberty in the 18th century. By the mid 19th century, however, Swedish elections had by and large been purged from fraud, and most petitions instead concerned unclear regulations pertaining to suffrage and eligibility criteria. Teorell argues that this development cannot be explained by changes in electoral rules, such as the secret ballot, or by shifts in economic inequality. Instead, the ebb and flow of electoral fraud in Sweden could best be understood as stemming from the combination of two factors: partisanship and administrative corruption.

Jan Teorell, Associate Professor of Political Science at Lund University and Research Fellow at the Quality of Government Institute, Gothenburg University, received his PhD in 1998 with a dissertation on intra-party democracy. His latest publications have appeared in Political Research Quarterly, Governance, and the Journal of Democracy, and he has a book (Determinants of Democratization: Explaining Regime Change in the World, 1972-2006) coming out with Cambridge University Press this fall. Teorell’s research interests include political methodology and comparative politics, particularly political participation, public opinion, corruption and comparative democratization. He is currently working on a research project on how and why electoral fraud was abolished historically in Sweden and other established democracies, and is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University for the academic year 2010-2011.

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Tuesday November 23, 2010 2:30 - 4:00 pm
317 Thomson Hall
Sabrina Ramet, Professor of Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim, and Senior Research Associate at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo

reecas@uw.edu

Myths of founding or of martyrdom can play important roles in legitimating states, their boundaries, or their dynasties, although there are differences between the uses to which myths of founding are typically put and the uses to which myths of martyrdom are put. In this lecture, Professor Ramet looks at the myths of Prince Lazar of Serbia, King Arthur of England, and King Olav Haraldsson of Norway, with passing references to the myth of King Istvan of Hungary, noting the political uses made of these myths. She also discusses some plausible alternative candidates for the role played by Prince Lazar in Serbia.

Sabrina P. Ramet is a professor of political science at the Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim, and a senior research associate at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. Born in London, England, she received her undergraduate degree in philosophy at Stanford University, her MA in international relations from the University of Arkansas, and her Ph.D. in political science at UCLA. She is the author of 12 scholarly books and editor or co-editor of 24 scholarly books, most recently of CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN POLITICS SINCE 1989, published by Cambridge University Press in spring 2010. She taught at the University of Washington from 1983 until 2001, when she moved to Norway to take up her present positions.

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Explore your options to spend an entire year or semester on exchange in locations such as Buenos Aires, Singapore, Queensland, Copenhagen, and New York City. International Programs and Exchanges and National Student Exchange have organized this exchange day event in Mary Gates Hall Commons on Thursday, November 18 from 11:30 to 2:30 p.m.

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Explore more than 500 study abroad opportunities ranging from direct exchanges to internships to UW faculty-led programs. Representatives from partner universities and study abroad programs will be available to talk with you from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Mary Gates Commons on Wednesday, October 27th, 2010. This event is hosted by IPE (The Office of International Programs & Exchanges).

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A celebration of life for Folke Nyberg, an emeritus professor of architecture and of urban design and planning, who died Aug. 15, will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 24, at the University of Washington Club.

Nyberg was a faculty member from 1969 to 1999, known as a strong advocate for affordable housing, public open space and neighborhood preservation.

Born in Sweden in 1934, Nyberg moved with his family to Seattle in 1947. His last several years at the UW, he held appointments in both Architecture and Scandinavian Studies.

Nyberg’s family requests that gifts in his memory be made to the Folke Nyberg Column 5 Editorship Endowment.

Credit card information or checks payable to the UW Foundation may be sent to UW Gift Processing, UW Tower Box 359505, Seattle, WA, 98195-9505. Gifts may also be made online here.

Link to article: http://uwnews.org/uweek/article.aspx?id=60873

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Celebrate the end of the fall harvest with the Latvian-Baltic version of Halloween at the Seattle Latvian Center. This event also serves as a fund-raising event for the Baltic Studies Program. Our Department will be represented by Professor Guntis Šmidchens, and by Professor and Chair, Jan Sjåvik. The Seattle Latvian Center is located at 11710 3rd Ave. N.E. and the festivities will begin at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday October 23rd.

Come in your best dress or disguise, indulge in the costume parade, the singing, the dancing and the games. There will be great food, beer, wine and soft drinks. Also, a silent auction will be held to support the Baltic Studies program or you can make a pledge or a donation. The music will be provided by the West Coast United Estonian Polka band. Admission prices are $25 per person, $70 per family, and $15 for college students.

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Please come to this panel discussion on Monday, October 11, at 7:00 p.m. in Kane Hall, Room 110. This event is sponsored by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry Holst Foreign Policy Symposium, the University of Washington — University of Bergen Exchange Program, the Nordic Council, the Center for West European Studies, and the Department of Scandinavian Studies.

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The Department welcomes students back to campus on September 29th, 2010 for the upcoming Fall Quarter. Have a great summer!

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Echoes of Three Woodlands—Scandinavia and the Baltics in the Northwest and at UW is the title of an exhibit running from April 19 through June 14, 2010 in Suzzallo Library, room 102, on the University of Washington Seattle campus. The exhibit features photographs of Pacific Northwest Baltic and Scandinavian American community life past and present, choral music excerpts, folklore and other materials from the UW Libraries’ collections highlighting the affinities of environment, commerce and culture that have drawn these three regions together in many ways over the past century and a half.

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Marianne Stølen will discuss her book The Story of Den Røde: A Danish-American Songbook (2010) at the Nordic Heritage Museum on Thursday, June 3rd beginning at 7:00 p.m. A native and resident of Copenhagen, Marianne holds graduate degrees from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Washington.

Her most recent book traces the fascinating origins and life of Sangbog for det Danske Folk i Amerika (Songbook for the Danish People in America), commonly known as Den Røde (The Red One). In Stølen’s analysis, “The Red One” is more than a songbook: it is a snapshot of cultural history and tradition extending from one home across an ocean to another.

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Sweden Week is from May 2nd through May 9th. Below is an agenda for events on campus:

Tuesday, May 4
Public lecture:
Ia Dubois “The Making of the Myth of the Swedish Sexuality and Ingmar Bergman’s Films in the 1950s 1:30 - 3:20 in Smith Hall 120

Wednesday, May 5
Public lecture:
Christine Ingebritsen “Sweden’s Global Role” 10:30 - 11:20 in Sieg Hall 134
Public lecture:
Olavi Hemmilä “Narratives on Sustainability: Gustaf Fröding, Tomas Tranströmer, and Others”
1:30 - 2:20 in Parrington Hall 120

Thursday, May 6
Public lecture:
Swedish Ambassador to the US, Jonas Hafström will discuss current issues in Swedish politics and diplomacy 10:30 - 11:20 in SIG 134
Public lecture:
Andrew Nestingen “Ulcers, Fat, and Tattoos: Swedish Crime Fiction since the 1960s”
11:30 - 1:20 in Communications 326

Friday, May 7
Visit by Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden

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www.dortemandrup.dk

Tuesday May 4, 2010
12:00 p.m. - Brown Bag Lecture @ the Seattle Public Library Microsoft Auditorium

Wednesday, May 5, 2010
5:30 p.m. - Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter Exhibit Reception @ Architecture Hall 250, UW
6:30 p.m. - The 2010 Scan|Design Lecture, GOING PUBLIC @ Architecture Hall 147, UW

Dorte Mandrup received her Master of Architecture degree from the Aarhus School of Architecture in 1991. After several years at Henning Larsen’s office, she began her private practice, at first with Niels Fuglsang, then on her own. In 1999, she founded Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter. The office engages in a wide variety of projects including housing, master plans and office buildings, as well as the renovation and alteration of historical buildings. They have received numerous national and international awards. Dorte Mandrup-Poulsen has been an Associate Professor with the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and is a board member of a number of significant Danish architecture and art organizations.

The lecture on May 5th will describe the addition and renovation of Arne Jacobsen’s Munkegårdsskole, the Herstedlund Culture Center and a number of other recent projects. These events are sponsored by the Scan|Design Foundation and the UW Department of Architecture. They are free and open to the public.

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Birgitta Steene, internationally-renowned scholar of Swedish literature, drama and film, will speak on the late Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.

Steene received a Special Jury Prize from the Theatre Library Association for her latest book Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide and was contributing author/editor of the multi-language volume The Bergman Archives, which was awarded the Swedish August (“Pulitzer”) prize as best non-fiction book of the year (2008).

Steene received her Ph.D. at the University of Washington in 1960. After returning to the UW as Full Professor in the Scandinavian Department, she served as Department Chair until 1978. In addition to her Department duties, she was also appointed the first Director of the new Cinema Studies Program at the University of Washington. In 1982, Steene’s undergraduate alma mater, Uppsala University in Sweden, bestowed upon her an honorary doctorate.

Allen Library Auditorium

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The Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study and the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Seattle from April 22nd through April 24th, 2010. Registration will open in January 2010. More details can be found at the SASS/AABS Website.

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The 30-member Helsinki Academic Male Choir KYL from Aalto University of Helsinki, Finland, will tour the Pacific Northwest and California with a final stop in Washington D.C. The tour consists of a stop in Seattle on March 30th, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. in the HUB Auditorium at the University of Washington. For more information and to make reservations, please visit www.finnsnw.com/FFSC/KYL.htm.

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The Swedish Club will be performing at the annual Lucia Celebration at the Swedish Cultural Center on Sunday, December 13th, from 3:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. To learn more about the Swedish Club, please visit their website: http://uwswedishclub.weebly.com

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The Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study and the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies welcome papers, panels, and roundtable presentations for the first joint conference of Scandinavian and Baltic Studies in the United States. The deadline for abstract submission is December 11, 2009.

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 5:30-6:30 pm in the Viking/SVEA room at the Swedish Cultural Center. A reception follows. For more information about this event, please click here. [PDF]

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Entrepreneur, Business Leader, Investor and Board Executive Katarina G. Bonde shares her insights into the corporate worlds of Sweden and the US as part of the Empowerment - Swedish Style: The Pippi Longstocking Effect, sponsored by the Swedish Institute in Stockholm. Her talk on campus will be from 12:30 p.m. - 1:20 p.m. in Room 310 at the BAEEC (Bank of America Executive Education Center) hosted by the Global Business Center. For more information about this event, please click here. [PDF]

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Fairmont Olympic Hotel – Spanish Ballroom
6:00 pm Reception • 7:30 pm Dinner and Program

All proceeds from this event will help create the Centennial Fund for Excellence in Nordic and Baltic Studies.

RSVP
Please RSVP for the Gala by September 14, 2009 by emailing scandgala@u.washington.edu or calling 206-616-4473.

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Ceremonial planting of a grove of eight oak trees in honor of the Nordic and Baltic countries, live music, exhibits, poster-presentations by current graduate students, refreshments.

The eight trees, symbolizing the eight countries studied in the Scandinavian Department, will be planted around the oldest footpath on campus, between Parrington Hall and William H. Gates Hall.

You can support the Nordic-Baltic Centennial Oak Grove with your donation.

This event is part of a year-long celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Department. Free to the public.

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The University of Washington, College of Arts & Sciences, The Icelandic Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture, The Consulate General of Iceland in New York, The Trade Council of Iceland, The Fisheries Association of Iceland and Icelandic® USA, Inc., request the pleasure of your company at the University of Washington at the Hogness Auditorium, Room A420, from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, September 10th, 2009.

Moderator:
Ph.D. Christine Ingebritsen, Professor of Political Science, Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington, College of Arts & Sciences.

Presenters:
Dr. Sigurgeir Thorgeirsson, Permanent Secretary, The Icelandic Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture. Dr. Thorgeirsson will present the Icelandic government’s fisheries policies. Mr. Daniel A. Murphy Jr., Executive Vice President, Icelandic® USA, Inc. Mr. Murphy will discuss Iceland’s project to document and communicate responsible fisheries and plans to certify the Icelandic fisheries.

Panel Discussion:
Dr. Sigurgeir Thorgeirsson, Permanent Secretary, The Icelandic Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture. Mr. Daniel A. Murphy Jr., Executive Vice President, Icelandic® USA, Inc. Mr. Hlynur Gudjonsson, Consul and Trade Commissioner, Consulate General of Iceland in New York.

Please RSVP to:
blax@mfa.is

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The Department is offering two courses this summer:
Term A: Sexuality in Scandinavia (SCAND 367) taught by Dr. Ia Dubois
Term B: Introduction to Folklore (SCAND 230) taught by Dr. Guntis Smidchens

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The Department will hold its Graduation Ceremony on June 12th in honor of matriculating Undergraduate and Graduate Students. Students who have not yet received their invitation and tickets should contact the Department Office for further details.

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The Spirit of Place
Johnson 102

Lene Tranberg is the principal partner of Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects, one of the most influential architecture firms practicing in Denmark today. Her office produces exemplary work at several scales, from lighting design to building in the urban context of Copenhagen and other Danish cities. Recent work includes a student dormitory for Copenhagen University (Tietgenkollegiet), the Copenhagen Business School (“Kilen”) in Fredericksberg, and the Playhouse for the Royal Danish Theater located at Nyhavn. These buildings have received numerous prizes in Scandinavia and Europe including a prestigious RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architecture) Award for the Playhouse this past June.

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Nordic Heritage Museum

The 2000s saw a burst of literary creativity in Sweden, as young authors—many of them second-generation immigrants—began writing their own stories, set in a diversifying society where citizens with many different ethnic backgrounds were making claims to full-fledged Swedish identity. Doctoral candidate Peter Leonard will explore the imaginative fiction of Khemiri, Wenger, and Bakhtiari for hints of a new, “post-ethnic” Nordic identity in this talk as part of the Museum’s Wallenberg Lecture Series.

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Latvia and the EU
HUB 108

The Department is honored to announce that the President of the Republic of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers, will visit the UW campus on Monday, May 18. President Zatlers will speak on “Latvia and the EU” in HUB Room 108, from 11:30am - 12:20 pm. During his visit, President Zatlers will also meet with University officials, members of the Department and Baltic Studies students. The public is invited.

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The Department will be sponsoring a 17th of May Concert featuring the Hellvik Male Chorus from Norway and the Ladies Chorus of Seattle in a concert of choral music.

Saturday, May 16, 7:30 pm
Kane Hall 130
Free Admission

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Pre-Dissertation Colloquium with Kirstine Kastbjerg
Raitt 314

Danish Gothic has gone unexamined despite canonical writers’ frequent and consistent use of Gothic conventions, renegotiated for a Danish context. Gothic conventions of evil, decay, fragmentation, perverse desire, supernatural spectacles, and sensory disorientation represent an onslaught of destructive forces, threatening to demolish the modern subject as it emerges in Romanticism. Ingemann, Andersen, Blixen and Høeg engage with nineteenth-century Danish discourses of identity and self formation, using the excesses of Gothic surface mechanisms, theatrical effects and cheap thrills to articulate ideas about the production of identity that ties into the Gothic aesthetic and ontology of the present day.

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Toward a Walkable Seattle: Drawing on International Examples
Architecture 147

Danish architect Helle Søholt will present a series of recommendations for improving the pedestrian experience within Seattle. Drawing from experience in cities around the globe, Ms. Søholt will illustrate the relationships between urban walkability and vibrant public life.

Helle Søholt is a founding partner at Gehl Architects, a firm renowned for its influence on urban life and public space. Gehl Architects’ unique methodology uses empirical survey and mapping methods to measure the human experience of urban space, and applies these lessons to their urban design solutions. Ms. Søholt has extensive experience consulting on international urban design projects. She has taught both Urban Design Theory and Studio Work, and is a frequent lecturer and keynote speaker. She received a MA in Architecture and Urban Design from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Denmark as well as a MArch from the University of Washington.

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Advisory Board member, Friend, Alumna

Margit Weingarten was born in Trondheim, Norway, and graduated from the UW in Art History. Margit established the Dr. Werner and Margit Weingarten Endowed Fund for Norwegian Studies and was a charter member of the Advisory Board.

Monday, April 20, 2pm
The Smith Room
Suzzallo Library
University of Washington Campus

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The Dance of Life: Edvard Munch and his life

Communications 202

The film “The Dance of Life” follows Edvard Munch through his life and focuses on the most significant events. This film shows how his life directly influenced his art and paintings, and how he developed into one of the most influential and important artists of his century.

Since the film opened it has been sold to a number of TV-channels all over the world. It was nominated for the Norwegian Amanda and won a prize in the film festival of Bratislava in1998. It was also chosen to represent Norway in the Film festival of Montreal in 2003 as a part of a Nordic film program.

This lecture will explore the way in which the film is telling the story of the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Is there such a thing as a Nordic film story? – A singularly Nordic way to tell a story?

Using clips from the film the lecture looks at both the script and the visuals and how the director chooses to portray the life of the painter and how his life translated into his art.

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Criminalizing the Johns to Protect Victims of Prostitution:
Meet the Architect of Sweden’s Controversial Sex Law to Discuss its Consequences and Effects
Women’s University Club

Co-sponsored by the Center for Women and Democracy. Registration and dinner reservation required online.

Margareta Winberg is the former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, Secretary of Labor and Minister of Gender Equality Policies. Her lecture is part of Empowerment — Swedish Style: The Pippi Longstocking Effect, sponsored by the Swedish Institute in Stockholm and SAS Seattle.

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Why Men and Women are More Equal in Sweden:
Proactive Policies in Swedish Legislation and Society
Smith 120

Margareta Winberg is the former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, Secretary of Labor and Minister of Gender Equality Policies. Her lecture is part of Empowerment — Swedish Style: The Pippi Longstocking Effect, sponsored by the Swedish Institute in Stockholm and SAS Seattle.

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Katharsis for Two-Year Olds: From Aristotle to the Puppet Theatre Tittut
Thompson 125

Do very small children really enjoy and benefit from live theatre performance? Does a 2-year old get anything out of seeing, e.g., Little Tiger and Little Bear? Stockholm’s Puppet Theatre Tittut thinks so—and they have 30 years experience to prove it. Sweden’s forward-looking culture policy recognizes the central role played by art and literature in the development of very young children. Find out in what special way theatre benefits its youngest audience members and how you can help enrich the lives of the children in your world.

Anne-Charlotte Harvey is Professor Emerita of Theatre at San Diego State University and an acclaimed singer, actress, and translator.

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Norwegians in Hollywood
Parrington Hall Commons (3rd floor)

Arne Lunde (Assistant Professor of Scandinavian, UCLA) provides an overview history of Norwegians in Hollywood cinema during the classic studio era. The talk will focus on the hyperwhite star persona of Sonja Henie at 20th Century-Fox in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as on lesser-known stars such as Greta Nissen and Sigrid Gurie. This illustrated lecture will also discuss how Norwegians have been represented on the American screen. Subjects include WWII-era films such as Casablanca and The Moon is Down, postwar family films like I Remember Mama, and the screen persona of Norwegian-American character actor John Qualen, Hollywood’s quintessential “squarehead.”

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Alternative Conceptions of Body and Gender in 19th-century Finnish Magic Narratives
Communications 202

Laura Stark is Professor of Ethnology at the University of Jyväskylä.

Scholars in archaeology, folklore studies and the history of religions have suggested that concepts and mentalities existing in Scandinavia and Finland during the Iron Age and Medieval period show large-scale similarities, even if specific expressions of these mentalities differed from culture to culture. In the interior of Finland, verbal and ritual traditions containing many layers of premodern mentality survived until the 20th century, which can be explained in part by the fact that some regions of the Finnish-Karelian culture area were not influenced by Christianity until the 14th-16th centuries. The longevity of the older worldview means that folklorists have been able to contribute to discussions regarding the mental world of the pre-Christian and Medieval Scandinavian eras.

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Saints and Politics in the Kalmar Union Period
Communications 202

Tracey Sands is a Ph.D. graduate of the Department and a former faculty member of the University of Colorado Department of German and Slavic.

The era of the Kalmar Union, which united all of the Nordic kingdoms and their possessions under the rule of a single monarch from the end of the fourteenth century into the 1520s, was certainly one of the most contentious periods in Nordic history. Although there is a good deal of material to document the major political events of the period, there is relatively little documentation of the thinking of individuals, even of those who played important roles in these events. To a great extent, this may arise out of the fact that medieval Scandinavians were not in the habit of keeping journals, nor of writing personal letters that outlined their political philosophies and the motivations for the actions that they took. While textual sources, not least in the form of rhymed chronicles, certainly exist, they are more likely to reflect propaganda concerns than to provide insight into the thinking of individuals. It is Sands’ contention, however, that in spite of the relative lack of textual sources, other kinds of sources exist that provide us, often in surprising ways, with a window into the concerns, affiliations, and alliances of high-ranking individuals, and in some cases, of institutions (such as cathedral chapters) at particular points in time. One such approach, which in itself requires working with a wide range of different sources, is to examine the medieval cult of the saints.

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Consul Erik D. Laursen and the Nordic Heritage Museum invite members of the Seattle community to meet a twenty-member delegation of Danish legislators from the Regions Capital.

The delegation is visiting the Seattle area to study regional development, technology transfer and commercialization.

Guests will have an opportunity meet and mingle with the visiting legislators at the reception.
Following the reception guests will be treated to a catered dinner and presentations from Marianne Stecher-Hansen, Professor of Danish Studies at the University of Washington and Consul Erik D. Laursen, KGL Dansk Konsulat. Stecher-Hansen will deliver a lecture “Nordic Connections in the Pacific Northwest” and Consul Laursen will present “Cultural Comparisons: Examples from the US and Denmark”.

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Since 1948, students in the Scandinavian Department have performed a Luciatåg (Lucia procession) to celebrate the beginning of the holiday season. Join us this year for a special Lucia Concert on Friday, December 5th at 2:30 PM in room 108 in the Husky Union Building (HUB) on campus. This event is free and open to the public. Coffee and refreshments will be served following the concert. The event is being sponsored by the Scandinavian Department and the UW Swedish Club.

This year, the concert will feature an impressive 43-voice choir of students from Södra Vätterbygdens Folkhögskola in Jönköping, Sweden, as well as the members of the UW Swedish Club who will perform the Luciatåg. All students interested in participating in the Luciatåg should contact Swedish Club president, Sarah McConkey.

A note on the tradition: Lucia celebrations are held in many places in Scandinavia on Dec. 13th, Lucia’s saint day. The tradition of a girl wearing a crown of candles on her head is full of symbolism, most notedly the theme of the return of light at the darkest time of winter (Dec. 13th was the winter solstice on the old Julian calendar).

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Staging Migration and Post-National Identities:
The Performance of Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Europe

Iranian-Swedish playwright and director Farnaz Arbabi discusses the performance of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality in contemporary Europe with members of Lotta Gavel-Adams’ Drama seminar.

In the past couple of years her work has awakened political and cultural debate and secured some of Sweden’s most prestigious theater awards. In her 2006 adaption of the literary classic The Emigrants, she recasts Vilhelm Moberg’s epic of 19th-century immigration to America as a narrative of today’s immigration to Sweden. Her production of Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s play Invasion! (2006) deals with questions of ethnicity and identity among first-generation young people whose parents immigrated to Sweden.

In 2007, she produced Normal for Camp X theatre in Copenhagen, a devised work about sexuality and sexual identity among teenagers. This year, she directed the musical Hedwig and The Angry Inch for Stockholm City Theatre. In her talk, Arbabi will show filmed clips from her productions and discuss recurring themes in her work: identity, ethnicity, gender, and alienation among minority groups in contemporary Europe.

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The Power of Scandinavia

Although Scandinavia may not be highly visible in world politics, the region has a quiet influence on global society. This lecture will highlight some of Scandinavia’s noteworthy contributions, such as institutionalizing “sustainable development” as a global practice; defining the possibilities for poverty elimination through generous and consistent aid to the poor; and awarding a prestigious prize for peace, a legacy of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel.

Celebrating its 100th anniversary, the Department will participate in The Centennial Series: Beyond the American Point of View with a lecture by Professor Christine Ingebritsen.

A century ago, the young University of Washington was growing and reaching out to the world, not only with the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, held on campus in 1909, but also with two new academic departments: Scandinavian Languages and Department of Oriental History, Literature, and Institutions.

Those two departments, each with a single faculty member in 1909, have since expanded and transformed to become four College of Arts & Sciences departments: Scandinavian Studies, Asian Languages and Literature, Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, and the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. The Centennial Lecture Series highlights these departments with presentations and panel discussions featuring the UW’s renowned faculty.

All four celebrate their centennial anniversary in 2009. Register for this free event, which will be held in from 7-9pm on November 12th in Kane 120.

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Architecture Hall 147

Bicycle Transportation in Portland: A Tale of Three Cities
Roger Geller
Bicycle Coordinator, City of Portland

There’s More to Walking Than Walking: Design for Copenhagen’s Public Realm
Louise Grassov, MAA
Associate, Gehl Architects - Copenhagen, Denmark

Walkable Design for a Sustainable Dockside Green
Jim Huffman, MAIBC, LEED A.P.
Associate Principal, Busby Perkins + Will - Vancouver, Canada

Discussion Moderator:
Anne Vernez Moudon, Dr. es Sc.
Professor, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Washington

This panel is part of Global Green: Sustainable Planning and Design in the Pacific Northwest and Denmark.

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The Tsar’s Dwarf

Danish author Peter Fogtdal comes to Seattle to talk about his new book The Tsar’s Dwarf, which has been translated into English by affiliate faculty member Tiina Nunnally. Søerine, a female dwarf from Denmark, is given as a gift to the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, during his visit to Copenhagen. Søerine travels to St. Petersburg where she becomes a jester at the Tsar’s functions. She enjoys her new life and falls in love with the Tsar’s favorite dwarf, but disaster strikes in the shape of a priest who wants to “save” her.

Fogtdal speaks in Jan Krogh Nielsen’s class on Scandinavian Literature.

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The Animal Style in Viking Art and Imagination

Nancy L. Wicker
Professor of Art History
The University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS

Wicker teaches several medieval courses, including Viking Art and Archaeology. She received her Ph.D. in interdisciplinary art history, archeology, and Old Norse language and literature at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Wicker has co-edited two books and has published on Scandinavian jewelry, animal-style art, female infanticide during the Viking Age, runic literacy, and gendered approaches to art and archaeology.

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Movie Showing and Lecture

Christiania: Our Heart is in Your Hands tells the story of the “free state” of Christiania, a 36-year-old anarchist squatter community occupying an abandoned military base in the heart of Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen.

After the movie showing there will be a question and answer session with the movie’s producers Richard Jackman and Robert Lawson. The Q and A session will be led by Marianne Stecher-Hansen.

More Information: Nordic Heritage Museum

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Conversation on the Environment: Denmark and the Pacific Northwest

Svend Auken, former Danish Minister on the Environment

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The Royal Danish Guards Association - Pacific Northwest & UW Dept. of Scandinavian Studies present:

A Royal Birthday Celebration
honoring
Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark

Saturday April 19, 2008
Hosted bar from 6:00 p.m.
Dinner at 7:00 p.m.
Dancing until 11:30 p.m.
Black Tie Optional

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Scandinavian Studies - Norway, America, and Life’s Vocations

Kjetil Flatin
2008 Distinguished Alumni Lecturer
Sverre Arestad Professorship Distinguished Lecture

Kjetil Flatin (Ph.D., 1971) has been chosen the 2008 Distinguished Alumni Lecturer by the Department of Scandinavian Studies. Dr. Flatin, who lives in Oslo, Norway, will visit the campus for several days in early March, 2008, and give the Distinguished Alumni Lecture on Monday, March 10.

Flatin earned his Ph.D. at the University of Washington in 1971 with a dissertation on the short stories of Norwegian writer Johan Borgen. It was the first Ph.D. formally granted by the Department of Scandinavian Studies since the establishment of its doctoral program in 1967.

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The Architecture of Private Life: Strindberg’s The Roofing Ceremony and the Modernist Novel

Anna Westerståhl Stenport is assistant professor of Swedish and Director of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Her publications include studies of August Strindberg, Swedish cinema, and Swedish popular fiction.

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The Sami in Norway: Cultural and Political Revitalization, 1970-2000

Bård Berg
Visiting Fulbright Professor (University of Tromsø)

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From a Cold War to a Cold Peace. Time for a Revival of Disarmament?

The Department of Scandinavian Studies and the Alumni Association were honored to welcome Swedish diplomat Dr. Hans Blix to campus for a guest lecture on October 18th. Now you can view Blix’s speech, From a Cold War to a Cold Peace. Time for a Revival of Disarmament? online in streaming and downloadable video. Blix underscores the impact of our current political climate on world affairs and feature his insight and expertise regarding instituting change via weapons control.

Born in 1928 in Uppsala, Sweden, Dr. Blix’s career has largely been in politics and public service. From January 2000 until June 2003, he was appointed Executive Chairman of the United Nations Mentoring, Verification and Inspection Commission for Iraq by the UN Secretary-General. In early 2004, Dr. Blix chaired the independent international Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission. He has received several honorary doctorates, is the recipient of many decorations and awards, and has written numerous books on international and constitutional law and articles relating to energy and the problems of the spread of nuclear weapons.

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Prize-winning Swedish author Heidi von Born visited the Department of Scadinavian Studies and Ia Dübois’ second-year Swedish class on May 11th, giving an overview of books recently published in Sweden.

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Is the Swede Human? Radical Individualism in the Land of Social Solidarity

In this talk, Trägårdh & Berggren will discuss their book “Är svensken människa?” which claims that the supposedly socialist Swedes are, in fact, individualists in extremis. At the heart of the Swedish social contract lies a deeply rooted conception, what the authors call “a Swedish theory of love,” according to which authentic love and friendship is only possible between individuals who are independent and equal. This moral logic, joining the ideal of independence to those of economic equality and social solidarity, has been institutionalized in modern Sweden through the radical alliance between the individual and the state, which the authors term “statist individualism.”

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Middleton has been the Director of the Office of Nordic and Baltic Affairs in the European Bureau at the Department of State since September 2006.  Prior to that, she served in Helsinki, Prague, and Tallinn. She will make two presentations in the Department on February 15, 2007 entitled: “A View from the State Department” and “The Best of Friends: US-Baltic relations today.

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Sweden’s Desperate Hunt for Diversity

Marjaneh Bakhtiari
Author and Critic

From the courtyards of multiracial housing projects to the backseats of immigrant-driven taxis, never have Swedish journalists been more eager to depict their nation’s new demographic reality. But what assumptions about religion, culture and language lie hidden behind this newfound obsession with multiculturalism?

Bakhtiari’s debut novel, Kalla det vad van du vill (Call It Whatever You Like), chronicles the lives of two Malmö families, Irandoust and Sundén, who meet when their two teenagers begin dating. In scenes alternately absurd and touching, Bakhtiari shines the spotlight on both “new” and “old” Swedes alike.

• Critique of “Mohammeds Taxi”, a TV program about integration


• Analysis of state radio’s outreach efforts in Rosengård

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Sweden and Europe and the Era of Globalization: How are Europe and Sweden Performing?

Gunnar Lund
Swedish Ambassador to the United States

Ambassador Lund will speak in Christine Ingebritsen’s International Political Economy course.

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Coercive Diplomacy: Theory and Practice

Peter Viggo Jakobsen
Visiting Scholar, MIT; Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen

Kristin Bakke, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science, will serve as discussant.

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Current Challenges and Future Prospects in the Arctic

Olav Orheim
Senior Advisor for the Ministry of Environment, Norway

During the Cold War, the Arctic was a stable area of little or no multilateral cooperation. The demise of the Soviet Union and the rise of oil prices have changed the dynamics considerably. The Arctic is now a major oil and gas province (USGS estimates that 25% of the global total of oil is in the Arctic). It is also a little-disturbed area, now undergoing faster climate change than the rest of the world. Orheim's talk will examine the new opportunities and challenges for industry and nation states posed by the Arctic region.

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The Evolution of the Modern State

Steinmo (University of Colorado, Boulder) examines the ways Sweden, Germany, Japan and the US have responded and adapted to the pressures of globalization, demographic change and the decline of public trust. He also introduces insights drawn from evolutionary theory and suggest that there is much to gain from this approach to improve our understandings of political and institutional change. This talk will focus on the case of Sweden.

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New Music by UW Student Cónan Mclemore

Three Poems of Vesaas, a sonata for flute & piano commissioned by Ed Egerdahl for the 25th anniversary of the Scandinavian Language Institute and based on three poems of Tarjei Vesaas: Vårlukten, Slik Var Den Draumen, and Gjennom Nakne Greiner.

Concertino for Alto Saxophone (a musical re-telling of Helge Kjellin’s Swedish fairy tale Leap the Elk and Little Princess Cottongrass.

Brechemin Auditorium (Music 128)

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Ecological Man and the Laponia World Heritage Site

Hugh Beach is Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Cultural Anthropology & Ethnology, Uppsala University, Sweden. His extensive body of research includes: Saami (Lapp) and Circumpolar Studies, Pastoralism, Minority Politics, the Social Effects of the Chernobyl Disaster, the “Politics of Ecology” (Global Environmentalism and Indigenous Rights). Sponsored by Program on the Environment and the Department of Anthropology

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