• View Department's 2008-09 course plan in pdf format
• Deadine for Scan|Design Fellowship Application: May 30. View details

Wallenberg Lectures at Nordic Heritage Museum feature Department Faculty

Nordic Heritage Museum, the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center and the Washington State Jewish Historical Society present a Lecture and Film Series on World War II in the North and the Annual Raoul Wallenberg Dinner with special guest speaker Manli Ho. The Lecture and Film Series on World War II in the North will take place from May 15 to September 10, 2008. As the featured part of
this series, the annual Raoul Wallenberg Dinner is scheduled for May 29, 2008.

• Thursday, May 15, 7pm: Lecture on the Norwegian resettlement of Jews after WWII, Dr. Eugene Normand
• Thursday, May 22, 7pm: Film & Lecture: The Rescue of the Danish Jews, Professor Marianne Stecher-Hansen
• Tuesday, June 3, 7pm: Film & Lecture: Finland During WWII, Professor Andrew Nestingen
• Tuesday, June 10, 7pm: Film: "Kampf um Norwegen - Feldzug 1940", Recently discovered German propaganda film introduced by Professor Terje Leiren

Lotta Gavel Adams, Professor of Swedish studies and a specialist on the writings of August Strindberg, has been appointed the Barbro Osher Endowed Professor of Swedish Studies. The appointment, following a formal vote by the UW Board of Regents, is for a five-year term. The Barbro Osher Endowed Professorship was established with a major gift from the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation and its President and founder Ms. Barbro Osher.

A popular teacher, Gavel Adams joined the faculty in 1991. She has published two well-received critical textual editions of Strindberg's Inferno and Legender in the Swedish National Edition of Strindberg's Collected Works. She is also the editor of a Dictionary of Literary Biography edition of Twentieth Century Swedish Writers, the author of several scholarly articles and reviews, and a passionate advocate for Swedish studies in North America.

Marianne Stecher-Hansen Appointed Scan|Design Foundation Term Professor in Danish Studies

Marianne Stecher-Hansen, Associate Professor of Danish and Scandinavian literature and culture, has been appointed to be Scan|Design Foundation Term Professor in Danish Studies.

A popular teacher and leading scholar of Danish studies and Scandinavian literature in cultural, historical and political contexts, Stecher-Hansen is the author of a critical study on the documentary works of Thorkild Hansen. In addition, she has edited two major volumes in the Dictionary of Literary Biography series: Danish Writers from the Reformation to Decadence, 1550-1900 and Twentieth Century Danish Writers.

Stecher-Hansen's appointment to the Scan|Design Foundation Term Professorship represents a continuing commitment to the Department of Scandinavian Studies and the University of Washington by the Scan|Design by Inger & Jens Bruun Foundation as well as a significant strengthening of the cooperation and interchange of scholars, programs and ideas between the United States and Denmark in many critical areas. Stecher-Hansen helped to establish and currently directs the highly successful Scan|Design Fellowship Program and is also the director of the Copenhagen Classroom which she coordinates on site with Jan Krogh Nielsen.

Three New Books from New Directions in Scandinavian Studies

The University of Washington Press series, "New Directions in Scandinavian Studies," will publish three books this year:

Andrew Nestingen, Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film and Social Change explores the changing nature of civil society in Scandinavia through the lens of popular culture.

Joan Templeton, Munch's Ibsen: A Painter's Visions of a Playwright, draws on a mass of printed and archival material to provide a comprehensive account of the relationship between the two great Norwegian modernists, Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Munch.

Terje I. Leiren, Selected Plays of Marcus Thrane, presents six translated plays from the Norwegian-American Theater of Norway's nineteenth-century political radical, Marcus Thrane. Published with the Norwegian-American Historical Association.

The co-General Editors of "New Directions in Scandinavian Studies" are Christine Ingebritsen and Terje Leiren, faculty members in the Department of Scandinavian Studies.

UW Press Book Series: New Directions in Scandinavian Studies

Graduate Student Wins Baldwin Fellowship

Ph.D. student Margareta Dancus has won a prestigious fellowship to study abroad in Scandinavia during the 2008-2009 academic year. Dancus is the recipient of a Birgit Baldwin Fellowship from the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study. Dancus is currently writing her dissertation on Norwegian popular film and TV produced in the last decade. The fellowship will allow her to do archival research and conduct interviews. She will spend one semester affiliated with the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and the Norwegian Film Institute. She will spend her second semester at the Department of Media Studies at the University of Bergen.

Graduate Student receives Textual Studies Award

Ph.D. student Ralitsa Lazarova has received a Textual Studies Award, which is granted by the Comparative Literature Department Textual Studies Program. The grant will enable Lazarova to conduct archival and reception research in Stockholm. Lazarova is currently working on her dissertation on contemporary Swedish fiction, with the preliminary title True Stories: Fiction and Emotion in Contemporary Sweden.

The Scan|Design by Inger & Jens Bruun Foundation of Seattle has awarded the Department of Scandinavian Studies a grant of $200,000 for 2008 to support Danish language instruction, student fellowships, and student exchanges between the UW and Danish institutions. The announcement was made on December 7 by Mark T. Schleck, President of the Foundation.

In a statement announcing the award, Schleck noted that: "In making this grant, the Scan|Design by Inger & Jens Bruun Foundation recognizes the valuable role the University of Washington has played in fostering the understanding and appreciation of Danish culture, technology, architecture, and environmental stewardship here in the U.S. It is our desire to strengthen that role by providing support for the University to develop programs which will increase the valuable interchange between the two countries."

Visit the Scan|Design by Inger & Jens Bruun Foundation website

New Publication on Swedish Seattle

Swedish Seattle, a photographic history of the Swedish community in Seattle was recently published by Affiliate Assistant Professor Paul Norlen. Part of the Arcadia Publishing "Images of America" series, Swedish Seattle presents a visual sampling of the many organizations, churches, businesses and cultural societies formed by Swedish immigrants after their arrival in the Pacific Northwest. The book is available in Seattle-area bookstores, online at Amazon.com, or directly from the publisher (arcadiapublishing.com). (2/08/08)

A newly endowed fund to support graduate student travel for study abroad, scholarly research, or to participate in scholarly conferences has been established in the memory of Leslie Ann Grove, former graduate student in the Department of Scandinavian Studies who passed away suddenly in 1997.

Leslie Grove earned two bachelor degrees from the University of Oregon before enrolling as a graduate student at the University of Washington where she earned Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in the Department of Scandinavian Studies. At the time of her death, Leslie was an Assistant Professor at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, where she was a member of the Department of Norwegian.

The Leslie Ann Grove Endowed Fund for Graduate Student Travel has been established by Leslie's mother, Loo-Ann Grove, in loving memory of her daughter, for the purpose of providing "support for graduate students in the Department of Scandinavian Studies, for study abroad, travel to conferences, or any other travel expense that supports academic research or study."

In Memoriam - Lars G. Warme (1928-2007)

Lars Gunnar Warme, associate professor emeritus of Scandinavian and Comparative Literature at the University of Washington, passed away October 4, 2007. Lars was born October 12, 1928 in Orrabäck, Småland, Sweden, the son of Svea and Joab Warme. After university studies at Lund and certification as a secondary school teacher, Lars came to the U.S. in 1957 intending to stay for one year. He worked in the travel industry and taught at the Cathedral School in San Francisco before beginning graduate school at age 40 at the University of California, Berkeley. After completing his PhD, he taught at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver for two years before joining the faculty at the UW Department of Scandinavian Studies in 1976.

A gifted and compassionate educator, Lars received an Excellence in Teaching award from the College of Arts and Sciences, but his teaching extended far beyond the classroom. Many former students were mentored by him as they wrote dissertations and established careers. His own publications include Per Olof Sundman: Writer of the North (1984) and A History of Swedish Literature (1996), which he edited for University of Nebraska Press.

In addition to his scholarly interests, Lars was an art collector and gourmet cook. Gardening remained an abiding passion for Lars, and in retirement he spent countless hours in the P-Patch near his home.

Lars is survived by his brother and sister-in-law, Olof and Shelagh Warme of Vargön, Sweden, several cousins in Sweden and the U.S., and the many friends and former students around the world whose lives he enriched and whose company and conversation he enjoyed so much.