“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).

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.

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).