Scandinavian Studies Courses Fall 2024

(4 credits)

• Lecture 1: MTWRF 8:50 – 9:40 am
• Lecture 2: MTWRF 9:55 – 10:45 am

Instructor: Ida Moen Johnson

Course Description: This course introduces students to the Norwegian language through the skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The course covers fundamental grammar concepts and topics including language and identity, education, food, and daily life. Instruction will emphasize communication and understanding as well as the intersections between language and culture.

Prerequisites: None.

(4 credits)

MTWRF 9:55 – 10:45 am

Course Description: For beginning learners of Swedish; emphasis on proficiency through speaking, listening, reading, and writing, and on communication in cultural context.

Prerequisites: None.

(4 credits)

MTWRF 12:05  -12:55 pm

Instructor: Helen Durst

Course Description: This is an introductory course in basic Danish, so we will be working with the foundational skills of language acquisition, i.e. speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The most important aspect of learning a new language is using it, and we will base our strategy on the communicative language approach.

Prerequisites: None.

(4 credits)

MTWR 1:20 – 2:10 pm

Instructor: Thomas DuBois

Course Description: For beginning learners of Finnish; emphasis on proficiency through speaking, listening, reading, and writing, and on communication in cultural context.

Prerequisites: None.

(4 credits)

MTWR 1:20 – 2:10 pm

Instructor: Ida Moen Johnson

Course Description: In this intermediate Norwegian language course, students will complete the Sett i gang curriculum and read a novel. This course continues the language sequence’s focus on the core skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Topics covered include work and economy, health and welfare, and advanced grammar skills. Instruction will emphasize communication and understanding as well as the intersections between language and culture.

Prerequisites: SCAND ST 102.

(4 credits)

MTWR 11:00 – 11:50 am

Instructor: Benjamin Mier-Cruz

Course Description: Reading of selections from Swedish writers, grammar review, and conversation.

Prerequisites: SCAND ST 112.

(4 credits)

MTWR 1:20 – 2:10 pm

Instructor: Helen Durst

Course Description: For mid-level learners of Danish; emphasis on proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing, and on communication in cultural context, progressing from reading and conversing about concrete everyday topics to reading and conversing about increasingly abstract ideas. Readings of selections from Danish writers, grammar review and conversation.

Prerequisites: Scand St 122 (or approval)

(3 credits)

MW 2:30 – 3:45 pm

Instructor: Scott Mellor

Course Description: This course will give you an introduction to Medieval Nordic Mythology and put it in a European context. Scandinavian Mythology will introduce you to the belief systems of early and medieval Scandinavia in a European Context and take a look at the literary works written by Christian Scandinavians about their former Religion. We will look at the Kalevala, the mythological and heroic poetry of the Edda and the Icelandic legendary sagas, as well as a few early Christian texts.

Prerequisites: None

(First-year Interest Group)

(3 credits)

TR 2:30 – 3:45 pm

Instructor: Helen Durst

Course Description: An intro level class for those who would like to know more about the Nordic or Scandinavian countries and cultures: primary focus is on Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland, with awareness of the Faroe Islands and Greenland. There will be an emphasis on Nordic approaches to sustainability, handicrafts, and folk culture as ties into language and literature for those who may be interested in pursuing Scandinavian Studies.

(3 credits)

TR 1:00 – 2:15 pm

Instructor: Dean Krouk

Course Description: Scand St 251 er en historisk innføring i norsk litteratur fra det moderne gjennombrudd (1870-1890) til etterkrigstiden (1945-1965). Vi leser et skuespill av Henrik Ibsen (Et dukkehjem, 1879) og en samling av kortere tekster (noveller og dikt), samt noen tekster av norske samtidsforfattere. Kurset inkluderer mye diskusjon og forutsetter aktiv deltakelse og kontinuerlig lesning av pensum gjennom hele semesteret.

Prerequisites: Scand St 202 or cons. inst.

(Taught in Norwegian)

(3 credits)

MWF 1:20 – 2:10 pm

Instructor: Susan Brantly

Course Description: “Readings in Swedish Literature” is both a language course and a literature course. Students should have the equivalent of two years of Swedish language and the course counts as a fifth-semester language course. We will be reading and discussing short literary texts from the 19th and 20th Centuries. All instruction is conducted in Swedish and students will improve their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. Required assignments include papers, translations, and presentations. Course readings will be provided.

Prerequisites: SCAND ST 212 or consent of instructor.

(3 credits)

TR 11:00 am – 12:15 pm

Instructor: Ida Moen Johnson

Course Description: Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking is an icon of childhood in the Nordic countries and beyond. Pippi has come to symbolize the Nordic “autonomous” child par excellence. Takes up a diverse selection of books and films that represent both the common ideas of the Nordic Child, as well as various elaborations of and exceptions to the idealized norm. Examines a number of the prevalent forms and themes in Nordic children’s culture, such as nature, play, school, sexuality, death, loss, and storytelling.

Prerequisites: Satisfied Communication A requirement or graduate/professional standing

(“Meets with”  LITTRANS 320)

(3 credits)

TR 2:30 – 3:45 pm

Instructor: Scott Mellor

Course Description: This course will give you an introduction to Medieval Nordic Mythology and put it in a European context. Scandinavian Mythology will introduce you to the belief systems of early and medieval Scandinavia in a European Context and take a look at the literary works written by Christian Scandinavians about their former Religion. We will look at the Kalevala, the mythological and heroic poetry of the Edda and the Icelandic legendary sagas, as well as a few early Christian texts.

Prerequisites: Sophomore standing

(Honors option)

(3 credits)

TR 9:30 – 10:45 am

Instructor: Kirsten Wolf

Objectives: The course has a linguistic purpose and is designed to give students a reading knowledge of Old Norse through the study of Old Icelandic grammar and selections of Old Norse-Icelandic texts.

Content: The course begins with with an introduction of Old Icelandic grammar through the study of Kenneth G. Chapman’s Graded Readings and Exercises in Old Icelandic. Next, students move to Michael Barnes’ A New Introduction to Old Norse. Part I: Grammer. At the same time, students read, translate, and analyze a selection of literary texts in Anthony Faulkes’ A New Introduction to Old Norse. Part II: Reader with the help of Part III: Glossary and Index of Names.

Learning outcomes: By the end of the course, students will have a basic understanding of Icelandic phonology and grammar with a focus on nominal and verbal inflection. (For a more in-depth understanding of verbal inflection and also syntax, it is recommended that students move on to 408 Old Norse II). Students will have sufficient vocabulary to be able to read and understand basic texts in normalized editions and access more challenging texts with the help of a dictionary.

Prerequisites: Sophomore standing.

(1 credit)

T 4:00 – 5:00 pm

Instructor: Scott Mellor

Course Description: This course will explore cultures of the Nordic region.

Prerequistes: Enrolled in a Scandinavian language

(3-4 credits)

Online only

Instructor: Susan Brantly

Course Description: The 19th-Century generated some of Scandinavia’s best-known writers. The course begins with Romanticism and looks at Norwegian folktales, Esaias Tegner’s popular Viking tale (Frithiof’s Saga), and Hans Christian Andersen’s world-famous stories, to name but a few highlights. From there, we move to the Modern Breakthrough, perhaps the most important period in Scandinavian literary history, during which writers were urged to take up current issues for public debate and let science be their inspiration. Internationally famous Nordic writers did just that in classics such as Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Strindberg’s The Father. We will trace how these influential social debates about class and gender took literary form. As the century comes to a close, some writers, such as Nobel laureates Knut Hamsun and Selma Lagerlôf, react against the rationality of the Modern Breakthrough by turning to literary Decadence and Neo-Romanticism. This course on 19th-Century Scandinavian Literature is being taught entirely online.

Prerequisites: Junior status or higher and 2 years of Scandinavian language.

(3 credits)

TR 11:00 – 12:15 pm

Instructor: Scott Mellor

Course Description: Myths and images of Vikings are everywhere, but what was really going on in Scandinavia during the Viking Age (793-1066)? And what happened in the Nordic countries between the Viking Age and the nineteenth century? This course surveys Scandinavian history all the way up to 1815. You will learn not only about medieval Scandinavia and the founding of the Scandinavian Kingdoms, but also about the fascinating changes in Northern Europe during the Reformation, the Age of the Scandinavian Empires, the Enlightenment and the beginning of the move from Kingdoms to Nations.

Important issues and concepts will include:

• Scandinavian society in the Viking Age
• Viking raids and settlements
• Political structures that changed from kinship clans to chieftainships to kingdoms
• Religious change from Pre-Christian polytheism to the conversion to Catholicism
• The effects of the Reformation in Scandinavia
• Early Modern Scandinavian power struggles and the Age of Empires and Colonies
• The Age of Enlightenment in Northern Europe
• The loss of Empires and the move towards Nation States.

Prerequisites: Junior standing

(Honors option)

(4 credits)

MWF 12:05 – 12:55 pm

Instructor: Claus Andersen

Course Description: Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales are known all over the world. He wrote The Little Mermaid, The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling and many, many more. This course to going to familiarize you with the works of Hans Christian Andersen, with an emphasis on his fairy tales. During the course, we will read and analyze some of his best-known fairytales, but also look at a few texts from some of the other genres he mastered. Our readings will include the biographical traits of his stories, but will primarily focus on his mastery of the genre and his complex narrative method. We will also talk about the time and place in which Hans Christian Andersen wrote his fairytales – Denmark in the 19th century ­– and discuss how this influenced his stories. Though his stories/tales might seem simply, they are complex literary artifacts. This course will argue that Andersen should be considered one of the great authors of the 19th century, not just an author of simple fairy tales for children.

Prerequisites: SCAND ST 202, 212, 222 or graduate or professional standing.

(3 credits)

M 2:25 – 5:00 pm

Instructor: Claus Andersen

Course Description: Course description to come!