German, Nordic, and Slavic+

GNS+ Digest

Welcome to the GNS+ Digest page! Here, we compile our upcoming events, affiliated department events, recognitions, news from L&S and campus, and essential links.

Featured Fall 2025 Events

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Madison Polish Film Festival ‘25, 9 November @ 3:00 pm, 6:00 pm

Marquee Cinema at Union South
November 9, 2025 @ 3:00 pm CST

Join us for the 2025 Madison Polish Film Festival at the Marquee Cinema at Union South!

Nov. 9

  • 3:00 p.m. CHOPIN, CHOPIN (2025, dir. Michał Kwieciński), 133 min.

Paris, 1835. Renowned composer Frédéric Chopin navigates high society, performing concerts, teaching for income while battling illness. He composes masterpieces, attends parties, pursues romance amid aristocratic and royal circles.

  • 6:00 p.m. WHITE COURAGE (2024, dir. Marcin Koszałka), 116 min.

Two Highlander brothers, clash after their father’s death. Andrzej meets Wolfram, an anthropologist. War erupts, Andrzej seeks Highlanders’ cooperation with Germans, leading to a violent brotherly confrontation amidst wartime turmoil.

Sponsored by:

GNS+

The Lapinski Family Fund

CREECA

WUD

Polish Heritage Club of Madison

Co-Organizers: GNS+ & the Polish Student Association at UW-Madison

Research 101: Humanities Edition, 11 November @ 5:30 pm

Washburn Observatory (1401 Observatory Drive)
November 11, 2025 @ 5:30 pm
RSVP form

What can research look like in the Humanities? Whether you’re just beginning to explore what research means or you’re gearing up to write a senior Honors thesis, this event is for you.

Join us for a panel discussion and Q&A with faculty members and a current undergraduate researcher as they share about their scholarship and research experiences. Topics covered by the panelists may include how to ask a compelling research question, examples of real faculty research projects, and what doing undergraduate research or a thesis can actually look like.

Bring your curiosity, connect with faculty, and find out more about the real work of the humanities!

Event Speakers:  

Ann  Andrzejewski | Art History
Ainhei Edoro | English
James Goodrich | Philosophy
Gabriela Soffer | Undergraduate Participant

Event details:

  • Tuesday, November 11, 2025
  • 5:30-7pm
  • Washburn Observatory Library, 1401 Observatory Drive

Registration: Please complete our RSVP by Tuesday, November 4. Space is limited.

Other events in this Research 101 series:

October 07 – Life Sciences Edition

October 23 – Physical and Computational Sciences Edition

December 2 – Social Sciences Edition

Questions? Email honors@honors.ls.wisc.edu.

The Research 101 series has received generous financial support from the Cronon Funds – thank you!

Migration and Memory in Contemporary Europe (Workshop), 14 November @ 9am onward, Pyle Center

“Migration and Memory in Contemporary Europe” (Workshop)

313 Pyle Center

November 14th, 9am (all-day event)

Click here to view program

This cross-disciplinary one-day workshop brings together six invited scholars and experts (alongside the three organizers) to examine the interlinkages of migration policies and European discourses over historical memory. We interrogate how competing historical narratives (of World War II-era genocide and expulsion, postwar labor migrations, Communism, decolonization, and/or EU expansion) shaped elite and popular attitudes toward migration policy in Europe. How do current anxieties surrounding migration to Europe mirror or depart from cycles of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee backlash since 1945? Crucially, how do recent immigrants to Europe engage with, adapt, and resist dominant historical narratives in their countries of residence? The workshop invites scholarship that links migration controversies in Europe with colonial legacies and with the study of race, gender, and sexuality from an interdisciplinary focus.

 

Speakers:

Brandon Bloch [UW-Madison, History]

Michelle Khan [University of Richmond, History]

Liina-Ly Roos [UW-Madison, GNS+]

Benjamin Mier-Cruz [UW-Madison, Nordic Studies]

Chris Molnar [University of Michigan-Flint, History]

Nana Osei-Kofi [Oregon State University, Nordic Studies]

Ayşe Parla [Boston University, Anthropology]

Leonie Schulte [UW-Madison, Anthropology]

Phi H. Su [Williams College, Sociology]

 

Schedule to be announced soon

Please register here

 

This event is co-sponsored by: Center for German and European Studies, Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+, Department of History, Department of Anthropology

Scandinavian Day at UW-Madison, 14 November @ 4:00 - 5:30pm, Discovery Center with congratulations to Cat Carroll (German major, 2025)

Scandinavian Day at UW-Madison

Celebrating 150 Years of Scandinavian Studies

November 14th, 2025

For more information and registration, please go to:

150th Anniversary Celebration

Join us for a day of seminars, tours, and performances celebrating the Nordic Unit
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, followed by a festive Scandinavian-inspired buffet dinner in the Fluno Center.

Scandinavian Day is open to anyone with an interest in Scandinavian culture, including community members, representatives of the Nordic countries, and alumni of the UW-Madison Scandinavian Studies Department.

MORNING ACTIVITIES

A free class visit, open house and UW-Madison campus tour.

8:50  am – Audit a lecture in the Hans Christian Andersen course being taught by Professor Claus E. Andersen in the William H. Sewell Social Sciences Building
10:00 – Noon Open House in the Madsen Reading Room, Nordic Unit of the German, Nordic and Slavic+ Department, 13th floor of Van Hise Hall
11:00 am Campus Walking Tour

REGISTRATION

11:30-1:00 Registration at the Fluno Center, 601 University Ave, Madison, WI

Lunch on your own in the Memorial Union or nearby restaurants.

AFTERNOON PROGRAMS

These informative, informal sessions will be held in the Fluno Center, Chazen Museum of Art and the Memorial Union. There is a $40 fee to attend one or all of the afternoon seminars. (You’ll be able to pick one per time slot when you register.)

SESSION 1SeSS

1:00-2:00

  • Dealing with Disney: Ensuring Quality Representation of Sámi Culture in Disney’s Frozen II.Thomas A. DuBois. Thomas A. DuBois is the head of the Folklore Unit and a professor of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies.
  • How Thor Got His Hammer – An introduction to Nordic Mythology.Scott A. Mellor. Scott Mellor is a teaching professor in the Nordic Unit who has been at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since September 1989.
  • Scandinavian Art in the Chazen Museum of Art.Berit Ness. The collection at UW’s Chazen Museum of Art includes light-sensitive Scandinavian works on paper not currently on view by artists such as Edvard Munch and Olle Baertling.  A small selection of works from these works will be made accessible in a pop-up viewing in the Chazen’s object study room. A Chazen staff member will be on hand to engage with attendees and answer questions. Limited to 20 people.

2:30-3:30

  • My Viking longship journey: singing in Nordic languages.  Mimmi Fulmer. Join Mimmi Fulmer as she shares her “voyage home” to her Nordic heritage through songs and discuss resources for pronunciation of Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.  Mimmi Fulmer is Professor of Voice and Opera at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • Swedish Pancakes for Breakfast?”Marcus Cederstrom. This talk explores what the foods we eat can tell us about immigration and Nordic-American life in the Upper Midwest.  Marcus Cederstrom is the Community Curator of Nordic-American Folklore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • [SOLD OUT] Norwegian 101. Ida Moen Johnson. Come and refresh—or begin!—your Norwegian language study in this fun session. Ida Moen Johnson is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of German, Nordic and Slavic+, where she teaches courses in Norwegian language and Nordic literature and culture.

4:00-5:00

  • Hygge, Health, and Happiness. Claus E. Andersen. Professor Andersen will introduce the Danish concept of hygge, explain how it relates to the Scandinavian way of life, and show what Americans can learn from it. Claus E. Andersen is the head of the Nordic Unit and the Birgit Baldwin and Paul and Renate Madsen Professor of Scandinavian Studies.
  • Rasmus B. Anderson and the First U.S. Scandinavian Studies Department. Susan Brantley.  Learn more about the man who founded the Scan Studies Department 150 years ago – but who also was an author, editor, businessman and diplomat who brought to popular attention the fact that the Vikings were the first Europeans to arrive in the New World.  Professor Susan Brantly is a specialist in Swedish language and literature who served as the editor of the journal Scandinavian Studies for over a decade.
  • The Teacher’s Revolt against Nazism in Occupied Norway.  Dean Krouk. Professor Krouk explains the inspiring story of resistance to the Nazification of schools and teaching in occupied Norway, which led to the arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of teachers in 1942.  Dean Krouk is a professor in the Nordic Unit whose specialties include Nordic literature and the cultural and political history of Scandinavia.

 RECEPTION AND BUFFET DINNER 

There is a $60 fee for the cocktail hour and dinner, with a special price of $40 for students. Sponsored tables of 8 are available for $500.

5:00 – 6:30 A cocktail reception in the lobby of the Fluno Center, with light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar.

6:30 Scandinavian-inspired buffet dinner in the Oros Executive Dining Room of the Fluno Center, followed by a program honoring the past, present and future of the oldest Scandinavian Studies program in the world.

AFTER PARTY

Location to be announced

Parking and hotel rooms

Information about parking, including some in the Fluno Center,  will be sent to all registrants. Overnight accommodations are available in the Fluno Center and the Wisconsin Memorial Union on a first-come basis.

Madison Polish Film Festival ‘25, 16 November @ 3:00 pm, 6:00 pm

Marquee Cinema at Union South
November 16, 2025 @ 3:00 pm CST

Join us for the 2025 Madison Polish Film Festival at the Marquee Cinema at Union South!

November 16: 

  • 3:00 p.m. FRANZ (2025, dir. Agnieszka Holland), 127 min.

directed by Agnieszka Holland and written by Marek Epstein. Starring Idan Weiss as Franz Kafka, it follows the author’s life from his early teens in his hometown of Prague to his premature death in 1924.

  • 6:00 p.m. SPARROW (2024, dir. Tomasz Gąssowski),106 min. 

Remek, a bachelor postman passionate about soccer and studying, unexpectedly meets his unknown grandfather and new neighbor Marzenka, upending his orderly life, forcing him to adapt to the changes. 

Sponsored by:

GNS+

The Lapinski Family Fund

CREECA

WUD

Polish Heritage Club of Madison

Co-Organizers: GNS+ & the Polish Student Association at UW-Madison

Virtual Lecture: The German Audience for the U.S. Declaration of Independence, 20 November @ 6:00 pm

Virtual Lecture: The German Audience for the U.S. Declaration of Independence

Emily Sneff

Virtual Lecture
November 20, 2025 @ 6:00 pm CST
https://mki.wisc.edu/event/virtual-lecture-the-german-audience-for-the-u-s-declaration-of-independence/

Free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Click here to register for a Zoom link.

 

July 4, 2026, will mark the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence. Almost immediately after being adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the document was translated into German. Join Dr. Emily Sneff to learn about the first German-language broadsides and newspaper printings of the Declaration, the importance of German printers in Philadelphia, and the different approaches to translation taken in the United States and in Europe.

Dr. Emily Sneff is a scholar of early American history and a leading expert on the Declaration of Independence. She is the consulting curator for exhibitions planned for the country’s Semiquincentennial including The Declaration’s Journey at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Window to Revolution: Pennsylvania Germans and the War for Independence at Historic Trappe, Pennsylvania. Her book When the Declaration of Independence Was News will be published in April 2026 with Oxford University Press.

This is the first of two virtual presentations by Dr. Sneff. The second will be held on February 12, 2026. It will highlight German American individuals who were integral to the process of declaring independence from Great Britain. Stay tuned for registration information for the February event.

This lecture is sponsored by the Max Kade Institute for German American Studies with co-sponsorship by the Friends of the Max Kade Institute, the German Society of Pennsylvania, and the German Historical Institute–Washington, DC. 

All Upcoming Events

GNS+ Events

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Scandinavian Studies 150th Anniversary Events

There are no upcoming events.

CREECA Events

The following events link to creeca.wisc.edu

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CGES Events

The following events link to europe.wisc.edu

  • Nov
    19

    Wisconsin International Resource Consortium Virtual Open House @ 2:00 pm CST - 3:00 pm CST Online

    Co-sponsored by European Studies and the Wisconsin International Resource Consortium.   Join K-14 education outreach representatives of UW-Madison’s Wisconsin International Resource Consortium for a virtual open house during International Education Week! Enjoy a brief snapshot of …

  • Dec
    04

    Benedikt Harzl, “Neutral No More? Austria’s Neutrality in the Face of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine” @ 4:00 pm CST 206 Ingraham Hall

    Co-Sponsored by the Center for German and European Studies (CGES), the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia (CREECA), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Global Legal Studies Center. About the Lecture: The presentation will explore …

  • Mar
    23

    Jacob Flaws, “Survival At Treblinka” @ 11:30 am CDT Online Event

    Co-Sponsored by the Center for European Studies, the Center for Jewish Studies, and the College of Charleston Center for Holocaust Studies. This is an online event. Register here. On August 2, 1943, prisoners at the …

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Max Kade Institute Events

The following events link to mki.wisc.edu

  • Nov
    20

    Virtual Lecture: The German Audience for the U.S. Declaration of Independence @ 6:00 pm CST Virtual Lecture

    Free and open to the public, but registration is required. Click here to register for a Zoom link. July 4, 2026, will mark the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence. Almost immediately after …

  • Dec
    01

    Presentations, Exhibit, Reception: “Early Anabaptist Documents at the Max Kade Institute” @ 4:00 pm CST - 6:00 pm CST University Club, 432 East Campus Mall, Madison. Room 313 (presentations at 4pm), 4th floor (exhibit, reception at 5pm)

    Join us at the Max Kade Institute to celebrate the recent acquisition of a collection of books, some of them quite rare, published by and about Anabaptists. Donated by J. Denny Weaver, these mostly German- …

  • Jan
    27

    West Bend, WI: “German Community Life and Traditions in Wisconsin” @ 10:00 am CST Cedar Community, 5577 Home Drive, West Bend, WI

    German immigrants kept many of their traditions while also being part of the state’s multi-lingual and multi-ethnic society. This presentation will look at their organizations and clubs; music, theater, and tavern culture; newspapers and magazines; …

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Mosse/Weinstein CJS Events

The following events link to cjs.wisc.edu

  • Feb
    03

    “Language and Place: Poetry in Yiddish and Pennsylvania Dutch” @ 4:00 pm CST Memorial Union (800 Langdon St, Madison)

    The Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture and the Max Kade Institute for German American Studies presents “Language and Place: Poetry in Yiddish and Pennsylvania Dutch” Sunny Yudkoff (UW-Madison), Mark Louden(UW-Madison), Matt Johnson(UW-Madison), Josh Brown (UW-Eau …

  • Feb
    17

    Tobias Lecture with Gregg Gardner @ 4:00 pm CST Memorial Union (800 Langdon St, Madison)

    The 2026 Tobias Lecture in Jewish Studies Gregg E. Gardner The University of British Columbia Tuesday, February 17 4:00pm  Memorial Union, Old Madison Room 800 Langdon St (Madison, WI) Check back soon for more information

  • Mar
    04

    The 2026 Weinstein/Minkoff Lecture in Israel Studies with Nissim Mizrachi @ 4:00 pm CST Memorial Union (800 Langdon St, Madison)

    The 2026 Weinstein/Minkoff Lecture in Israel Studies Nissim Mizrachi Tel Aviv University Wednesday, March 4 4:00pm  Memorial Union, Old Madison Room 800 Langdon St (Madison, WI) Check back soon for more information

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Recognitions

Zach Fitzpatrick co-authored an open-access article “From Society to the Screen: Navigating Non-Binary Inclusion in the German-Language Classroom” that has been included in a special issue of Unterrichtspraxis / Teaching German titled “Between and Beyond Er|Sie: Trans and Non-Binary Identities in the L2 German Classroom.”

 

Isabella Palange delivered a paper titled “‘How Would We know What They Did in the Olden Days’: Pantaleimon Kulish’s Zapiski o Iuzhnoi Rusi and the Politics of Folklore Collection” at  the October 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society in Atlanta.

 

Claus Andersen gave a talk on “Hygge, Health and Happiness” at the College Endowment Association in Milwaukee on 29 October

 

Claus Andersen will be interviewed about his new book on Hans Christian Andersen (no relation!) on stage at the Copenhagen Book Fair by the Danish author Carsten Jensen on 7 November

 

“2025 Our Shared Waters” (a write-up about a high-impact practice), Marcus Cederström and Thomas DuBois

 

Brian Kilgour, dissertation defense, “History’s Chosen Genre”: Tragedy after the Russian Revolution (Advisor: Irina Shevelenko, October 2025)

 

Nicole Fischer, dissertation deposit, Early Romantic Wor(l)ding: Re-Reading Novalis from an Ecocritical and New Materialist Perspective (Advisor: Sabine Mödersheim, October 2025)

 

David S. Danaher gave a keynote talk titled “The Václav Havel Keyword Project” at the Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Conference (University of Kansas, 10-12 October 2025)

 

Kirsten Wolf and Emily Beyer published the article “Pulmonic Ingressive Speech in Icelandic” in Scandinavian-Canadian Studies 32 (2025):1-28.

 

Kirsten Wolf’s review of Úlfar Bragason, ed., Ykkar einlæg: Bréf frá berklahælum appeared in Scandinavian Studies 97 (2025): 109-112.

 

Kirsten Wolf’s review of Sian Grønlie, The Old Testament in Medieval Icelandic Texts: Translation, Exegesis and Storytelling appeared in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology 124 (2025): 504-507.

 

Kirsten Wolf’s review of Sian Grønlie and Carl Phelpstead, ed., The Medieval North and Its Afterlife: Essays in Honour of Heather O’Donoghue appeared in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology 124 (2025): 496-495.

 

“More Than Words:  Language, Identity, and the Classroom”: a profile of Julia Goetze

 

GNS+ achievements and plans (compiled Fall 2025)

 

Congratulations to Krzysztof Borowski and Nâlân Erbil on reappointment to Teaching Assistant Professor!

 

Alexandra Portice, dissertation defense, Early Russian and Soviet Alternate Histories, 1917-1927 (Advisor: David S. Danaher, August 2025)

 

“Scandinavia Has Its Own Dark History of Assimilating Indigenous People, and Churches Played a Role—But Are Apologizing,” The Conversation, 27 June 2025 (Tom DuBois)

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