New Directions Series
Our summer newsletter can be read on line by clicking here. Enjoy!
The Scan|Design Foundation sponsors UW graduate and advanced undergraduate students to study in Denmark, allowing students to earn UW credit for coursework taught in English at distinguished Danish educational institutions.
Standing with the President of the Scan|Design Foundation Mark Schleck, fellows for Fall 2009 include Nic Vondrak (Copenhagen Business School), Mona Johnston (Royal Danish Academy, Natalie Gulsrud (University of Copenhagen: Life Sciences), Thomas Godshalk (University of Copenhagen: Nordic, German and Comparative Literatures), Kimberly Cannady (University of Copenhagen: Musicology) and Elliott Schmitt (Aalborg University: Sustainable Energy Planning and Management).
The Swedish Women’s Educational Association held their inaugural Summer Dinner with Auction at the Vasa Park Ball Room in Bellevue. Part of the evening’s program was to begin fundraising for an endowed SWEA Scholarship Fund for the Department.
On May 18, Valdis Zatlers, President of the Republic of Latvia, came to the University of Washington to express his support for the UW Latvian Studies program, “one of the best in the world.” President Zatlers visited Christine Ingebritsen’s Scandinavian Politics class to give a lecture about Latvia’s role in the European Union and NATO.
Continue reading "Latvian President Visits" »
Helsinki University has published a profile of Andrew Nestingen, Associate Professor of Finnish in the Department.
A&S Perspectives writes on the new Bachelor of Arts in Finnish offered by the department.
Visiting Lecturer Karoliina Kuisma and Visiting Fulbright TA Anna Rönkkö
The Textual Studies Program in the Department of Comparative Literature has granted Doctoral student and Norwegian TA Rennesa Osterberg a Textual Studies Research Award in support of her research on metafiction in contemporary Norwegian literature.
On March 11, the Washington State Senate unanimously passed Senate Resolution 8643 to “honor the Department of Scandinavian Studies on its 100th anniversary for continuing to preserve and cultivate the Scandinavian and Baltic cultures not only in the state of Washington, but the entire United States of America.”
The resolution, sponsored by Senators Ken Jacobsen, Mary Margaret Haugen, Jeanne Kohl-Welles, and Karen Fraser, was passed on the centennial anniversary of the initial legislative bill which established the Department in 1909. Since then, the Department has grown to include 12 full-time faculty, 80 undergraduate majors and 20 graduate students.
Top photo back row: Kirstine Kastbjerg, Mark Safstrom, Terje Leiren, Senator Ken Jacobsen, Lotta Gavel Adams, Ia Dubois, Donna Miksys, Rimas Miksys. Front row: Andris Rogainis, Rennesa Osterberg, Mia Spangenberg, Peter Leonard. Bottom photo: Senator Ken Jacobsen
The Seattle Swedish Cultural Center held their 2009 Auction with the nautical theme “A Voyage Aboard the Swedish-American Line.” Part of the evening’s program was to begin fundraising for a Scholarship Fund for the Department.
The proposal by the Department of Scandinavian Studies to establish a BA degree in Finnish was approved by the State of Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board on December 17, 2008. Following an extensive review process taking more than two years, UW students can now major in Finnish language and literature along with long-standing majors in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Scandinavian Area Studies. Read More
Professor Christine Ingebritsen and Associate Professor Andrew Nestingen have published an Op-Ed piece in the Seattle Times explaining Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari’s contributions to conflict resolution worldwide. They argue his “convictions display broad-mindedness, honesty and tenacity.”
An article in University Week covers the Department’s 100-year history as part of both the University and the Seattle community.
The Seattle Times profiles a house designed by Peter Cohan, Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department. Cohan also has an abiding interest in Scandinavian architecture and has taught in the Department’s Copenhagen Classroom in 2008. He was awarded a Fulbright Grant to study architecture in Sweden in 1986 and is the director of an 8-week travel study seminar to Scandinavia, which is offered every third summer.
2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari is an example of a ‘norm entrepreneur’ — one who exercises influence abroad through moral leadership, according to Professor Christine Ingebritsen’s 2006 study Scandinavia in World Politics.
Ingebritsen, who teaches courses on Scandinavia in World Affairs, Environmental Norms in International Politics and Modern Scandinavian Politics in the department, offers a sustained appraisal of Scandinavia’s foreign policy and role in the global economy in the post-Cold War period. In an era when good citizenship in the global community has become a diplomatic priority for many states, Scandinavia has both the legitimacy and the domestic political attributes to be an important international player.
Photo: Joi Ito
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.
The University of Washington Press series, “New Directions in Scandinavian Studies,” will publish three books this year:
Andrew Nestingen, Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Film, Fiction and Social Changeexplores 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.
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.”
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.
The purpose of the UW Swedish Club is to promote and celebrate Swedish language and culture at the University of Washington and the surrounding community. The Club holds weekly fika meetings throughout the school year and special events from time to time, which include IKEA visits, Nordic Heritage Museum visits, movie nights, and more. The Club is involved in the annual Lucia pagent through the Swedish Cultural Center.
The Scan|Design by Inger & Jens Bruun Foundation President Mark Schleck presents a significant gift of $110,500 to the Department of Scandinavian Studies on Nov. 17th. This gift is given in support of two new UW programs developed in collaboration with Danish Universities by Associate Professor Marianne Stecher-Hansen (right) and Anni Fuller, Office of International Programs (left). The two new programs are the Copenhagen Classroom and the Scan|Design Fellowship.
Receiving their Degrees: (l-r) Mark Safstrom (MA), Anne
Toft Vestegaard (MA),
Margareta Dancus (MA), Kevin Karlin (Ph.D), Gergana May (Ph.D), Professor
Marianne Stecher-Hansen at the microphone. Not pictured: Eric
Sundholm (MA) and Mia Spangenberg (MA)
At its annual graduation ceremony on June 9, the Department
bestowed two Doctorates, three Advancements to Candidacy, five Masters
Degrees and twenty-four Bachelors Degrees. The Department also
awarded over $20,000 in scholarships to students in Scandinavian
and Baltic studies. Full list of graduates.
2003 graduate Tara Chace’s translation of Per Nilsson’s You & You & You from the Swedish has won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Young Adult Fiction.
The Goldwater Scholarship Program was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. Four UW students have been selected for the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship Awards, including Danish major Sean Hughes (second from right, above.) The 2006 Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,081 mathematics, science, and engineering students who were nominated by colleges and universities nationwide.
Article from the Royal Norwegian Embassy about Affiliate Faculty member Tiina Nunnally’s new translation of the Norwegian author Sigrid Undset’s trilogy: Translation of Undset’s “Kristin Lavransdatter” Trilogy Gets Much-Needed Face Lift
No Longer Lost in Translation
The Boston Globe praises Tiina Nunnaly’s translation of Kristin Lavransdatter.
Nunnally, an affiliate faculty member, recently received the prestigious Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and teaches occasional translation courses in the department.
BirgittaSteene, Professor Emerita in Department and in Cinema Studies, has just published an exhaustive guide to Bergman’s life and work.
Following Bergman’s career as a writer, filmmaker and theatre director, the guide combines detailed chronological surveys of his film and theatrical work with annotated lists of interviews and writings on Bergman.
A native of Sweden, Steene is the author of several books and articleson film and drama. She is the former president of the International Association of Scandinavian Studies and the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study.
The History Channel broadcast a new program featuring Professor Terje Leiren on November 22, 2005. The program, part of a new series called “The BIG BUILD,” asks what it takes to construct a Viking ship and presents the Viking past as an exciting “how to” project. In Anacortes, Washington, a half-size replica of the Gokstad ship takes shape under the supervision of Boatwright Jay Smith who leads a team of specialist using authentic Viking tools and techniques. Dr. Terje Leiren of the University of Washington provides historical commentary on the Viking age helping to put the project into historical context. In the end, the ship is given away to a local Society for Creative Anachonism from Tacoma.
The University of Washington Libraries and Department of Scandinavian Studies join together in recognition of Norway’s year-long celebration of its 100 years of independence.
Exhibition in Suzzalo Library 102, October - NovemberMarianne Stecher-Hansen was the invited plenary lecture at the Fourth International Hans Christian Andersen Conference, University of Southern Denmark, Odense.
The lecture, “From Romantic to Modernist Meta-texts: Commemorating Andersen and the Self-Referential Text,” will be published by University of Southern Denmark Press in a collection of selected conference papers.
Associate Professor Christine Ingebritsen has been named acting dean and acting vice provost in the Office of Undergraduate Education. Ingebritsen, who was formerly associate dean of the office, has been involved in developing learning goals across the campus and serving as the point person for teaching academy programs.
To celebrate the 200th birthday of Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875), Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington featured a special exhibition presenting the Danish author not only as a fairy tale writer but also as a great dramatist, novelist, poet, and travel writer who achieved fame during his life time. The exhibit consisted of a selection from the University’s Special Collections (the Elias Bredsdorff collection of Andersen’s work), including some rare nineteenth-century original editions, historical and contemporary illustrations of popular tales, foreign language translations, and photographic images of the author.
The exhibit was developed by Marianne Stecher-Hansen and Jan Henrik Krogh Nielsen.
2005 marks the 200 year anniversary of the birth of Hans Christian Andersen. At a time when children’s stories were formal, moral and didactic, Hans Christian Andersen revolutionized the genre, giving an anarchic twist to traditional folklore and creating a remarkably large body of original stories that sprang directly from his imagination. From the exuberant early stories such as The Emperor’s New Clothes, though poignant masterpieces such as The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling, to the darker, more subversive later tales written for adults, the stories are endlessly experimental, both humorous and irreverent, sorrowful and strange. Tina Nunnally’s recent translations capture the rawness and immediacy of Andersen’s style, for the first time enabling English readers to be as startled and amazed as his original readers were. Megan Sukys speaks with Tina Nunnally about translating the Andersen tales.
Graduate of the department and Affiliate Assistant Professor Paul Norlen, Ph.D. has been awarded the 25th annual American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prize for his English rendition of portions of A Toast to Your Ashes: The Life of the Poet Bellman from Beginning to End by the Swedish author Ernst Brunner.
The committee praised him for being “always accurate and extremely knowledgeable” and said “the English version is as entertainingand gripping as the Swedish original.” Mr. Norlen’s translation already has a committed publisher, Canongate in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The UK newspapers The Guardian and New Statesman have given glowing reviews to a new translation of Hans Christian Andersen by Tiina Nunnally, an affiliate member of the Department’s faculty.
The Guardian calls Nunnally’s translation of Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (to be published in the USA in March 2005 by Viking Penguin) “wonderfully apt, managing to catch [Andersen’s] lurching, staccato style and his anarchic, amoral universe.” The New Statesman says her “wonderful new translations of Andersen are an invitation to open-ended, mind-engaging reading.”
Nunnally, who has translated books by Sigrid Undset, P.O. Enquist and Peter Høeg, is a former graduate student in the Department and has taught seminars for a number of years focusing on translation.
Jens Lund, a folklorist and Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department has been awarded the 2004 Benjamin A. Botkin Prize by the American Folklore Society. The Botkin Prize is awarded yearly to an individual for “outstanding achievement in public folklore.” Lund was awarded this prize “for his legacy of positively affecting the lives of thousands of everyday people through his work in documenting community tradition-bearers across our nation.” His colleagues have identified him as”a model for the essential work of the profession.”
The Eleventh Annual Baltic Studies Summer Institute offered intensive Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian language courses during summer 2004 on the UW campus. BALSSI also included English-language courses about Baltic history and culture, as well as rich cultural enhancement programs. Learn more about UW’s Baltic Studies Program.
The Department hosted a reception to honor the one Ph.D., two MA, 31 BA and five BA Minor degrees conferred to students.
The first annual Scandinavian & Baltic Career Fair helped students maximize their collegiate and financial potential and bridge the gap between college and their future career.
Participants included: IKEA, Scandinavian Cultural Exchange, NW Danish Foundation, Nordic Heritage Museum, Swedish Cultural Center, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), Department of Scandinavian Studies and Baltic Studies, International Programs & Exchanges.
If your business/organization wishes to participate in similar events in the future, please contact Esther Foote
Three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, entered the European Union and the NATO Alliance in 2004. Do external threats to political security exist? Will there be economic growth? What are the destabilizing factors as European borders disappear?
In the program “The Baltic in the 21st Century,” broadcast on the Research Channel, a panel of four leading Baltic Studies scholars project the political, economic, social, and cultural developments in the region.
See it now via streaming video, and for more information visit the Baltic Studies Program.
The University of Washington’s Swedish Studies Program is one of the two best in the world, according to the Swedish Institute in Stockholm.
This award recognizes the UW Swedish program’s outstanding efforts in promoting the Swedish language and culture outside of Sweden. The program provides “American students the opportunity to pursue in-depth studies in Swedish society and culture within their (collegiate) majors.”
Particularly cited were UW Associate Professor Lotta Gavel Adams and Senior Lecturer Ia Dübois, both Swedish specialists on the faculty.
Press Release [44kb PDF]
Tiina Nunnally, affiliate member of the faculty, has won the prestigious Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Britain’s leading award for novels translated into English. She was awarded for her translation of Per Olov Enquist’s The Visit of the Royal Physician.
Nunnally is considered the foremost translator of Scandinavian literature to English. She won the PEN translation prize for her rendering of Sigrid Undset’s Nobel Prize winning novel Kristen Lavransdatter in 2001. She translated Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg and Linn Ullmann’s debut novel Before You Sleep.