New Directions Series
“In the Wake of the Terrorist Attacks: Teaching Social and Political Values in Norway after July 22.”
Thursday, May 31, 2012, 3:30 – 5:00 pm
The Commons (Room 308) Parrington Hall
University of Washington
Dr. Kjetil Børhaug
Associate Professor
Department of Administration & Organizational Science
University of Bergen, Norway
Kjetil Børhaug has published extensively on issues of the relationship between school curricula and political and democratic legitimacy in Norway. Dr. Børhaug examines how the educational system can be seen as a reflection of dominant ways of thinking about the political, economic and legal order and how it legitimizes the existing political order, especially in times of national stress, such as the terrorist attacks of July 22, 2011.
There is a general consensus within the social sciences that the Scandinavian welfare state represents a political and cultural paradigm that is unparalleled in certain respects. Many political controversies have revolved around the model, but it has also been negotiated with much fervor in postwar Scandinavian fiction. Lasse Horne Kjældgaard’s lecture, “The Poetics of the Scandinavian Welfare State” will address the literary energies unleashed by the Scandinavian welfare state model in Danish fiction written during the so-called “golden age of welfare,” from 1950 to 1980.
Monday, May 21st
Kane Hall Walker Ames Room 225, 4-5 p.m.
Guests are invited to attend a reception immediately after the lecture in the same room.
Lasse Horne Kjældgaard (born 1974) is the newly appointed director for the prestigious Danish Society for Language and Literature in Copenhagen and Professor of Danish literature at the University of Copenhagen. He serves as literary reviewer for the daily Politiken and is editor of the periodical Kritik. Most recent book publications include: Tolerance - eller hvordan man lærer at leve med dem, man hader (with Thomas Bredsdorff, 2008), Sjælen efter døden: Guldalderens moderne gennembrud (2007) and textual critical editions of Karen Blixen, Den afrikanske Farm (2007) and Syv fantastiske Fortællinger (2012).
April 29th, 2012 was the 27th Annual Nordic Heritage Museum Northern Lights Auktion. This auktion helps raise funds for operation expenses of the Museum. Several representatives of the department attended including six of our very own Graduate Students.
from left to right: Kimberly Kraft, Katja Shaye, Anna Rühl, Anna Peltomäki, Timothy Warburton, and Evan Wright
Do you want to attend the Small States Summer School at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik? The program starts on Sunday, June 17th and runs through Sunday, July 1st. For more information, please contact Professor Christine Ingebritsen.
The end of 2011 marked the end of the UW’s Finnish Program’s fundraising campaign. In the Tetri Challenge, Mr. Eero Tetri had promised to match all donations made to the program by the end of the year, up to $50,000.
We are proud to announce the $50,000 mark was hit - an amazing $62,000 was donated to the UW Finnish Program. Suurkiitokset, and a heartfelt thank you to all individuals and organizations that supported our important cause. With Mr. Tetri’s match, an additional $50,000, the program is well on its way to a steadier footing. We were happy to receive donations from both in and out of state, thus highlighting the value seen in the program both locally and nationally. A celebration will be organized later this spring. Thank you all!
Lecturer Aija Elg receiving Mr. Eero Tetri’s donation of $50,000 to the Finnish program in January.
Patricia L. Conroy, Associate Professor Emerita, passed away peacefully on Sunday, March 4, surrounded by close friends and family. She was 70 years old. Born in 1941 in Dayton, Ohio, Pat was raised in New Jersey. Intending to study medicine, she enrolled at Rutgers University where she was introduced to Icelandic literature. Following graduation in 1963, she took her small savings and bought a ticket to Reykjavik. There she found a job as a laboratory technologist and spent her spare time studying Modern and Old Icelandic languages, Icelandic literature, phonetics and semantics. In the summer of 1965, Pat studied Danish at the Folk High School in Rødding, Southern Jutland, before spending the academic year at the University of Copenhagen.
In 1966 she was admitted to the graduate school in Scandinavian studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned the M.A. degree in Danish linguistics in 1968 and, following a summer in the Faroe Islands, she began work on her Ph.D. focusing on Faroese ballads. Before completing her dissertation, Conroy accepted a position at the University of Washington as Acting Assistant Professor in 1972. With the completion of her dissertation in 1974, “Faroese Ballads and Oral-Formulaic Composition,” she was promoted to Assistant Professor. Subsequently promoted to Associate Professor in 1980, Conroy taught courses ranging from medieval literature and Scandinavian mythology to linguistics and Hans Christian Andersen. In 1977 she edited Ballads and Ballad Research, an anthology of selected papers from the International Conference on Nordic and Anglo-American Ballad Research. With her colleague Sven H. Rossel, she co-edited Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen (1980) and The Diaries of Hans Christian Andersen (1990), both published by the University of Washington Press. She had been working on a study of the ballad tradition of the Faroe Islands at the time of her death.
Professor Conroy was an active member of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study, the International Congress on Medieval Studies and the Modern Language Association. She was a dedicated teacher and devoted mentor to her students and a valued colleague to the other members of the faculty.
Dr. Guntis Smidchens, Assistant Professor of Baltic Studies, was awarded the ORDER OF THE CROSS OF TERRA MARIANA-4th Class, on February 23 in Tartu, Estonia, by Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, for “special service to the Republic of Estonia.” Smidchens was notified of the award on February 1 and flew to Estonia with his family to receive the honor.
Smidchens is the co-founder of the Baltic Studies Program at the University of Washington where he has been a faculty member since 1994. The Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana is given as a decoration to non-Estonians who have rendered special services to the Republic of Estonia. Under the leadership of Professor Smidchens, the Baltic Studies Program has become a jewel among the international programs at the University of Washington.
The Baltic-American communities join the members of the Department of Scandinavian Studies in congratulating Professor Smidchens for this distinguished honor and accomplishment.
For the second year in a row the consortium of Norwegian colleges in the mid-west have welcomed a University of Washington student to join a weekend of engagement, speeches, discussions around the ideas, norms and principles of the Nobel Peace Prize. When Norway awards the prize each year all eyes are on Oslo, and many world leaders and global organizations are carefully considered in a highly competitive process coordinated by a team of Norwegians. For students in Norwegian studies, this event provides a rare opportunity to interact with previous winners of the prize and consider which themes are gaining greater emphasis (sustainability, poverty, human rights) in recent years. We are honored to be sending Maren Anderson Johnson to Augsburg College, sponsored by a gift to the Department of Scandinavian Studies administered by Chair, Jan Sjavik. Maren specializes in Norwegian national identity formation, she speaks and educates students in Norwegian, and is seeking a career in the field of Scandinavian Studies. A special thanks to Maureen Reed and Frankie Schackelford who were instrumental in including the University of Washington among a distinguished group of Norwegian colleges and allowing us to participate in this event, March 1-3, 2012 in Minneapolis.
Maren’s essay can be read here (pdf).
Attend the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize Forum, March 1-4, 2012 in Minneapolis
Students are invited to submit a ten page essay to Professor Ingebritsen documenting the importance of the Nobel Peace Prize to Norway’s global role by January 15th. If your essay is selected, you will be invited to attend the 24th Annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum.
Attention peacemakers: The 24th annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum will take place in Minneapolis on March 1-4, 2012. The Nobel Peace Prize Forum is a unique civic learning experience that brings Nobel Laureates, civic leaders, and scholars together with students and other citizens. As the Norwegian Nobel Institute’s only such program or academic affiliation outside of Norway, the Nobel Peace Prize Forum has a special mission: to inspire peacemaking by celebrating the work of Nobel Peace Prize winners. The event is open to the public and people of all ages are encouraged to attend. The Forum is coordinated by Augsburg College and the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
The 2012 theme is “the price of peace.” More event information will be available over the next few months, but a number of dynamic speakers have already committed to speaking including:
F.W. de Klerk, former President of South Africa, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Sakumzi (“Saki”) Macozoma, business leader and former Member of the South African Parliament
Please visit the Forum Event page for more information.
Heather Short, a doctoral student in the Department of Scandinavian Studies, has been named the “Nadia Christensen Scholar in Nordic Studies” for 2011-2012. The award was made in recognition of Ms. Short’s outstanding academic performance and scholarly promise as judged by the department faculty.
Heather’s research centers on the connection between tradition and identity, and specifically how traditions inform and shape identity in contemporary society. Her current research is focused on two Norwegian clothing traditions: the folk-costume (bunad) and hand-knit clothing. The bunad is heavily steeped in tradition and a high degree of authenticity must be established for a variant to be recognized. While the folk costume is a piece of Norwegian nostalgia, it continues to be popular and worn by large numbers of people during 17. mai festivities, at Christmas, and other special occasions. Knitting patterns, on the other hand, while also traditional in nature, are not constrained by the same stringent claims of authenticity which characterizes the bunad tradition. Both types of clothing, however, continue to function as markers of Norwegian identity in contemporary society. In addition to the original, traditional patterns, both the bunad and knitting motifs have been used as inspiration for designers and continue to undergo processes of reinterpretation and evolution. Heather’s dissertation research will investigate the historical development of these two traditions, and explore their significance today by engaging with the discourses of identity in Norway as well as present results of field work among the crafts-people who are involved with both traditions.
The Nadia Christensen Endowment for Excellence in Nordic Studies was established through a generous gift from the Hognander Family Foundation of Minneapolis, Minnesota, in honor of Dr. Nadia Christensen, a doctoral graduate in Comparative Literature with an emphasis on Scandinavian languages and literature at the University of Washington. The purpose of the endowment is to recognize and reward outstanding academic performance and/or scholarship by an advanced graduate student in the Department of Scandinavian Studies.
Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer (1931 - ) won the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2011 today.
The Swedish Academy praised Tranströmer’s work for its “condensed, translucent images” through which “he gives us fresh access to reality.”
Dr. Ia Dubois, who teaches the Graduate Seminar on Nordic Poetry at the University of Washington, will speak this afternoon on NPR.
Autumn Quarter 2011 SCAND 427/GWSS 429
Scandinavian and Baltic Women Writers in English Translation
Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:30- 3:20 in SAV 138
Instructor: Prof. Lotta Gavel Adams - lotta@uw.edu
Office hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 9:30 – 10:20 in Raitt 305 Z
Course Content
This course will explore issues of power and gender, sexuality and nature in the works of Scandinavian and Baltic women writers from the 1890s to the present. We will examine how the position for women has evolved during the past 120 years from the advent of the Industrial Age in Scandinavia, when women did not have the right to vote, to the 21st century when women have gained control of almost half of the political power. We will examine how the literary texts by Scandinavian women writers reflect theses changes and how feminist issues and themes have developed – and remained the same – during the past 120 years.
We will look at the phenomenon of the powerful woman in a patriarchal world by applying Bourdieu’s microtheories of social power. We will also focus on is the role of nature and the environment in the fiction by these women writers. In recent decades, when the global warming has emerged as a serious threat to our earth, women writers have increasingly felt provoked to weave in environmental issues into their writing.
Learning Outcomes
1. to gain knowledge of the literary trends and feminist “waves” in the works of Scandinavian women writers, and to understand the works in their historical, social, and economic contexts,
2. to learn critical approaches to analysis and aesthetic responses to works of literature,
3. to improve skills for interpreting and writing about literature.
Required Reading
Books:
Lagerlöf, Selma. Gösta Berlings Saga (1893 / 2009)
Undset, Sigrid. Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath. (1920 / 1997)
Martinson, Moa. Women and Appletrees. (1933 / 1985)
Blixen, Karen. “Babette’s Feast” in Anecdotes of Destiny (1958)
Brantenberg, Gerd. Egalia’s Daughters (1977 / 1985)
Wassmo, Herbjorg. Dina’s Book. (1989 / 1994)
Sinisalo, Johanna. Troll: A Love Story. (2000 / 2003)
Oksanen, Sofi. Purge. (2008 / 2010)
In 2007, a generous gift from the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation allowed the Department to establish the Barbro Osher Endowed Professorship of Swedish Studies. In 2008, Professor Lotta Gavel Adams was appointed to hold the Barbro Osher Endowed Professorship in Swedish Studies for a period of five years.
In 2011, the Foundation donated an additional $250,000 into the existing endowment, thereby further strengthening and fortifying Swedish studies at the University of Washington. Barbro Osher, Consul General of Sweden in San Francisco, has been called the “Ambassador of Swedishness.” What inspires this passionate benefactor of Swedish Studies? According to Barbro Osher: “I feel that Scandinavia, on the whole, stands for social awareness and responsibility towards others both locally and globally. We exercise vision and long-term solutions in society and have, despite our small size, been at the forefront in social sciences as well as scientific research. We have well-defined policies to deal with issues such as global warming and sustainable development. Thus, Scandinavian Departments do not only stand for the study of languages and literature, they stand for developing vision, reason and responsible attitudes on a global scale.”
Andrew Nestingen’s most recent book project, SCANDINAVIAN CRIME FICTION, which he edited with Paula Arvas, is now published. For now, it is only for sale in the UK, but should be out in the US sometime soon. It is available through Amazon. The US distributor is the University of Chicago Press, where the book is also listed.
Congratulations Andy!
Reg Keeland is really Steve Murray. He told Publishers Weekly why he translates Scandinavian Literature. Please click here to read the article: Why I Write (or Translate).
The Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington is pleased to announce the establishment of the Nadia Christensen Endowment for Excellence in Nordic Studies to “recognize and reward outstanding academic performance and or scholarship by an advanced graduate student” who will be designated as a “Nadia Christensen Scholar.”
Created through a gift by the Hognander Foundation of Minneapolis, Minnesota, the endowment honors Dr. Nadia Christensen for her substantial contributions promoting a greater understanding of and appreciation for Nordic cultures. Christensen received her Ph.D. in 1972, and went on to become one of the foremost translators of Scandinavian literature. By establishing this award, the Hognander Foundation wishes to recognize and encourage students who, like Christensen, demonstrate excellence in Nordic studies.
Born in Minneapolis to parents of Norwegian and Danish descent, Christensen grew up in a home where the family’s Nordic heritage was deeply valued. She graduated magna cum laude from Augsburg College in 1959 and went on to earn graduate degrees in comparative literature at the University of Minnesota (MA, 1964) and the University of Washington (Ph.D., 1972) where she specialized in Scandinavian Languages and Literature. In the early years of her professional career, Dr. Christensen taught in Scandinavian departments at the University of Minnesota, the University of Washington, and Pacific Lutheran University. Later she served as the director of publications for the American-Scandinavian Foundation in New York and Editor-in-Chief of Scandinavian Review. While there, she established the ASF Translation Prize, the first annual award in the United States for English translations of Nordic literature. Christensen has published approximately 400 translations of fiction, poetry and drama, of which 19 are book-length works, including two winners of the prestigious Pegasus Prize. In 1996, His Majesty King Harald V of Norway awarded her the Knight’s Cross, First Class, of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit in honor of her work as translator and dedication to furthering relations between the United States and Norway.
The first Nadia Christensen Scholar will be named by the Department of Scandinavian Studies in June, 2011.
The Department of Scandinavian Studies was nicely represented at the auction by two faculty, three graduate students, and five undergraduates. The Swedish Program benefits handsomely from this fundraiser as the Swedish Cultural Center awards two undergraduate tuition scholarships to Department students every year. This year the fund-an-item for undergraduate Swedish majors raised $8000, the most ever! THANK YOU SWEDISH CULTURAL CENTER!
When Dr. Michael Biggins of the University of Washington Libraries received an email in 2009 requesting information on how to make a donation of Lithuanian books, little did he suspect that in 2010 he would receive 47 boxes bulging with 1,330 books. The donor was Liucija Baskauskas, PhD of Santa Monica.
In choosing books to donate she focused on Lithuanian language books that would be the most valuable to students/scholars in the fields of Ethnography/folklore/history (317) and also books in fields that she had extensive holdings. These were art/theatre art (228), literature (316) and children’s literature (71). Other categories include nature/geography, theology/philosophy, science, military, cookbooks, sports military, and guidebooks. In addition, there are 56 books in English and 14 in Russian.
Dr. Baskauskas kept approximately 1,500 books that she is actively using or may need for further research. These are heavily concentrated in ethnography, politics and art. They been inventoried and are gifted to the University Washington Libraries to be sent at a future time.
In July 2009, AABS welcomed Irena Blekys as the new Administrative Executive Director. Irena, who also serves on the Department’s Advisory Board, will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the association. Congratulations Irena!
Please visit this Newsweek Article to find out why Finland was chosen as the World’s Best Country:
http://www.newsweek.com/feature/2010/the-world-s-best-countries.html
Photo: UW / Mary Levin
A proposal co-written by a graduate student in the Department has been awarded one of twelve grants in a new Digital Humanities Research Award program from Google.
The project, Northern Insights: Tools & Techniques for Automated Literary Analysis, Based on the Scandinavian Corpus in Google Books, is a collaboration between dissertator Peter Leonard and Timothy Tangherlini, Professor and Chair of the Scandinavian Section at UCLA.
Over the course of the next year, Tangherlini and Leonard will explore the 160,000 Scandinavian texts in the Google Books corpus to help develop techniques and strategies for working with such a large volume of information. If such a collection of books were put on a library shelf, it would stretch five miles. Tangherlini’s existing work on the Danish folklore collections of Evald Tang Kristensen will provide a model for the advanced electronic text analysis that the team will apply to this much larger collection of works.
Peter Leonard is a Doctoral Candidate who started at the Department in 2003. Working with his faculty committee, which includes Lotta Gavel Adams and Andrew Nestingen, he is finishing a dissertation on “post-ethnic” Swedish literature. As a Fulbright Fellow, he has been a guest researcher at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He has previously worked in academic computing at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, and has interned at Microsoft Corporation and the University of Copenhagen Press.
This is the first year that Google has offered grants to researchers working on its collection of over 12 million volumes in Google Books.
News Coverage:- Google Press Release
- Chronicle of Higher Education: March, July
- Inside Higher Ed
- Associated Press
- UW University Week
- Seattle Times
- Culturemob
- UCLA Faculty Bulletin Board
Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden visited the University of Washington on May 7, 2010 in recognition of the Centennial of the Department of Scandinavian Studies and in celebration of Sweden Week in Seattle.
During her visit to campus, the Crown Princess took the opportunity to talk with majors and graduate students in Swedish Studies. She joined the students for lunch, and queried them with great interest about their motivation to study Swedish as an academic subject, student life on campus, their readings in Swedish literature and culture, and their future plans. During a brief walking tour of campus, she marveled at the beauty of the UW campus and Pacific Northwest nature.
On June 19, 2010, Crown Princess Victoria celebrated her wedding to her longtime boyfriend and fiance Daniel Westling in Storkyrkan in Stockholm.
Christine Ingebritsen, Professor of Scandinavian politics, played soccer as an undergraduate. These days she combines her passion for teaching Scandinavian politics with her passion for teaching soccer to kids. UNIVERSITY WEEK caught up with the busy professor long enough to present a different perspective on the Department’s resident political scientist.
[Link to article here]
The Department of Scandinavian Studies is pleased to announce that Jan Sjåvik, Professor of Norwegian Literature and Languages, will become Department Chair on July 1, 2010. A graduate of Harvard University and a member of the UW faculty since 1978, Sjåvik is the author of four books and numerous scholarly articles on Norwegian and Scandinavian literature. Professor Sjåvik, appointed for a five-year term, succeeds Professor Terje Leiren who steps down after having served for fifteen years as Chair.
Sometimes It Just Takes a Little Longer
Stephen Walton is Professor at Volda University College in Norway and a regular participant in the annual SASS meetings. His trip to Seattle for the 2010 conference posed a few obstacles as a result of the eruption of the Eyafjallajökull volcano. Click here to read his story.
We are pleased to announce that Rennesa Osterberg, a Teaching Assistant in Norwegian and a doctoral student in Norwegian literary studies has been awarded a 2010/2011 American-Scandinavian Foundation dissertation fellowship to conduct research on contemporary Norwegian literature at the University of Oslo and the National Library of Norway. She will investigate the undercurrent of metanarrative, focusing on the authors Hanne Østravik, Lars Saabye Christensen and Dag Solstad.
The international bestselling novel, PURGE, by the Finnish-Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen, has just been published in an English language edition by Black Cat, a paperback original imprint of Grove/Atlantic Press in New York. The translator, Lola Rogers, is a former teaching assistant and graduate student in the Department. The novel is a suspenseful tale of two women whose stories emerge as the culmination of a tragic family drama of rivalry, lust, and loss played out during the worst years of Estonia’s Soviet occupation. Congratulations, Lola, on this excellent translation.
This Spring Quarter, Fulbright Hildeman Scholar, Professor Olavi Hemmilä will be teaching a course that offers the opportunity to study contemporary Scandinavian literature from the perspective of sustainability. Nature and its relation to society lays a prominent part in the history of Scandinavian literature. The formation of a sustainable society is to a large extent the result of conscious choices between alternative ways of telling stories about the world. The course is being offered to Undergraduates (SCAND 490 A: Special Topics) and to Graduates (SCAND 590: A Special Topics). Professor Hemmilä can be reached by e-mail if you want to know more about this course.
University of Washington Professor Emeritus and former member of the Department Advisory Board, Paul Dietrichson, has died. Paul passed away on January 6, 2010, at the age of 88 after a long illness. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Mary Louise, their three children, Deirdre, Tor, Eliza, and three grandsons.
Paul was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1921. During World War II, Paul was active in the Norwegian resistance and committed numerous acts of bravery in helping Jews escape persecution. Years later this heroism was recognized by the Seattle Scandinavian community, and he was made Grand Marshal of the Norwegian Day parade. Before attending Yale and earning a Ph.D. in philosophy he attended the University of Georgia. From Yale, he came to the University of Washington where he was an active member of the philosophy faculty for the next 36 years. He taught courses in Kierkegaard, Kant, and Existentialism. His courses reflected a passionate, sincere, deeply thoughtful approach to his topics, and were extremely well received by his students. Much of his teaching centered on the theme of moral commitment, and no one in our time has been more morally committed than Paul. His presence will be deeply missed.
We are proud to announce the following Translation Prizes have been awarded to one of our graduate students and one of our Alumni.
Sean Hughes, one of our Danish Teaching Assistants, was awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Leif and Inger Sjöberg Award for his translation of “Cars and Animals: Short Stories (Biler og dyr)”.
Our Ph.D. alumna, Tara Chace, has won the American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prize for her translation of three short stories by Nicolai Houm. The short stories “Love” and “The Girls on Seestrasse” will be published in the Dirty Goat and “You and Me” will be published in the Arch Literary Journal.
We are delighted to share the news that one of our Affiliate Faculty, Tiina Nunnally has received a special prize from the Swedish Academy for “the introduction of swedish culture abroad.” More information can be found at the Swedish Academy’s website.
The Swedish Club performed wonderfully at the annual Lucia Celebration hosted by the Swedish Cultural Center on Sunday, December 13th. The event sold out! To learn more about the Swedish Club, please visit their website: http://uwswedishclub.weebly.com
Two of our graduates, Lori Ann Reinhall and James Nelson, have formed a group called Duo Scandinavica. The group performed masterfully at the Centennial Gala last September.
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.