Scandinavian Studies Courses Spring 2024

(3 credits) 

• SEC 001: MTWRF 9:55 – 10:45 AM 
• SEC 002: MTWRF 12:05 – 12:55 PM

Instructor: Ida Moen Johnson

Course Description: This course continues to build basic skills in Norwegian language through speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Instruction will emphasize communication and understanding as well as cultural knowledge and awareness. Homework centers on reinforcing vocabulary, reading, grammar exercises, and writing. Thematic units covered in Norwegian 102 include climate and weather, family and celebrations, and hometowns and housing. We end the semester with a project on travel in Norway.

Prerequisites: First semester Norwegian or placement test with instructor

(4 credits)

MTWRF 9:55 – 10:45 AM 

Instructor: Liina-Ly Roos

Course Description: Continuation of SCAND ST 111.

Prerequisites: SCAND ST 111 or appropriate score on placement exam. Open to first-year students.

(3 credits) 

MTWRF 12:05 – 12:55 PM

Instructor: Helen Durst 

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

Prerequisites: Scand St 121 (or approval) 

(3 credits) 

MTWR 1:20 – 2:10 PM

Instructor: Ida Moen Johnson

Course Description: SCAND ST 202 is an intermediate fourth semester language course that requires the completion of Norwegian 201 or equivalent. The course explores various aspects of Norwegian culture through texts, video, internet sources, and classroom discussion. Topics include Norwegian history, Norwegian language and dialects, the modern welfare state, and diversity in contemporary Norwegian society. We will also study advanced vocabulary and grammar.

Prerequisites: Three semesters of Norwegian or placement test with instructor

(4 credits)

MTWR 11:00 – 11:50 AM 

Course Description: The goal of this course is to continue improving your Swedish as it is used in everyday contexts, such as talking and writing about yourself and topics familiar to you. We will also read short texts and watch media in Swedish. Our in-class activities and homework will focus on speaking, reading, writing, and listening skills. To succeed in this course, you must actively participate. Class will be conducted primarily, but not exclusively in Swedish. You will be expected to attend class regularly, to prepare for class daily, and speak as much Swedish as possible.

Prerequisites: SCAND ST 211 or instructor’s permission

(3 credits) 

MTWR 1:20 – 2:10 PM 

Instructor: Helen Durst 

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

Prerequisites: Scand St 221 (or approval) 

(3 credits)

TR 1:00 – 2:15 PM

Instructor: Scott Mellor

Course Description: Telling stories is as old as time. Folk storytelling, which originate in the distant past, has often been scorned by the literary establishment, but the fact that they survived through centuries of oral transmission until they were finally recorded in the fairly recent past testifies to their lasting existential appeal. The stories these texts tell are dashingly entertaining and often deeply disturbing: they may offer a profoundly fatalistic view of existence, but they may also voice an angry and, at the same time, humorous protest against oppression. When this narrative type was discovered by scholars and the societal elite about 1800, it inspired many first-rank Nordic authors, e.g., Hans Christian Andersen, Henrik Ibsen, Selma Lagerlöf; and in the 20th century it has cast its spell over Isak Dinesen, Villy Sørensen, and Pär Lagerkvist and its influence has moved from literary to other media today. The course examines both the original folktales, its modern “imitations” and literature as well as gives an introduction to the critical methodologies that have recently been developed to deal with this seemingly simple, but in reality, highly sophisticated, narrative.

Prerequisites: Sophomore or higher

(3 credits) 

TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM 

Instructor: Dean Krouk

Course Description: How have the wartime issues of occupation, resistance, collaboration, neutrality, and the Holocaust been addressed in Nordic culture? During the Second World War, Norway and Denmark were invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany, while Sweden remained neutral and Finland fought against the Soviet Union. Resistance movements developed in the occupied countries, but some Norwegians and Danes collaborated with the occupying power and were tried for treason after the war. Become familiar with the basic history of the period by reading texts of various sorts (essays, novels, diaries, poetry, memoir) that were written during the war years and since. Through analyzing films and works of fiction, in addition to historical writing, learn how the Second World War and the Holocaust have been represented and remembered in the Nordic countries.

Prerequisites: Sophomore standing

(Breadth: Humanities. Counts as LAS credit (L&S). 50% Graduate Coursework Requirement.)

(3 credits)

TR 8:00 – 9:15 AM 

Instructor: Claus Andersen

Description: This course is about autobiography. We will investigate the genre of autobiography in a historical, cultural, and literary context, and discuss between form and content, between life and story, and between aesthetic and ethic. We will analyze autobiographical writing in the context of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, while problematizing concepts such as “fiction,” “truth” and self”.  

(3 credits)

MW 12:05 – 12:55 PM

Instructor: Susan Brantly

Course Description: Can thrillers, science fiction novels, or films be literary masterpieces? Yes they can! Explore the changing fashions in literature throughout the 20th Century, while you learn important survival skills for the media age. Everybody wants something, so how do you assess what different writers want from you, and what tricks do they use to go about getting it? Through a selection of short texts, novels, and plays, we’ll be learning from some of the best: Nobel Laureates (Knut Hamsun, Pär Lagerkvist), medical doctors (P.C. Jersild), and other provocateurs (August Strindberg, Isak Dinesen, Ingmar Berman, Peter Hoeg, and the rest).

Prerequisites: Knowledge of a Nordic language or consent of instructor

(This course is also offered to majors as Lit Trans 274)

(3 credits)

MWF 11:00 – 11:50 AM 

Instructor: Scott Mellor

Course Description: Intensive work in spoken and written Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, based on contemporary readings, for undergraduate and graduate students with a basic command of a Scandinavian language. Required of graduate students.

Prerequisites: 3 years of Norwegian, Danish or Swedish or consent of instructor.

(3 credits) 

TR 9:30 – 10:45 AM 

Instructor: Kirsten Wolf

Course Description: The course is intended to give students an overview of Old Norse-Icelandic literature from the earliest times until the Reformation in the mid-sixteenth century. It seeks to familiarize students with the vast body of Old Norse-Icelandic literature through a chronological study of the major literary genres: eddic poetry, skaldic poetry, religious literature (homilies, saints‘ lives, biblical translations), early historical writings, contemporary sagas (bishops‘ sagas and Sturlunga saga), sagas of Icelanders, mythical-heroic sagas, romances, and rímur). Representative texts from each genre will be read and analyzed in class.

Prerequisites: The course is a continuation of 407 and 408 and requires familiarity with Old Norse-Icelandic grammar and a reading knowledge of Old Norse-Icelandic.

(3 credits)

TR 9:30 – 10:45 AM 

Instructor: Claus Andersen

Description: This class is a critical introduction to the works of  Søren Kierkegaard and authors inspired by his writings. We will read some of  most influential works, including Either/Or and Fear and Trembling and  examine his influence on a number of  writers from the 19^th century to the 21^st, and discuss how these writers offer a critique of Kierkegaard’s work through a gender, race, and socio-economic lens.

(3 credits) 

TR 2:30 – 3:45 PM 

Instructor: Helen Durst 

Course Description: A comparative literary analysis grounded in history and culture of two prominent Scandinavian authors of the 20th century and their works: Tove Ditlevsen (Danish) best known in U.S. for the Copenhagen Trilogy and Tove Jansson (Finnish/Swedish) best known in U.S. for the Moomins. 

Prerequisites: Sophomore Standing 

(Meets-with LitTrans 324-001. Combined sections: 872 436-001 LEC (35231), Topics-Scandinavian Literature, 551 324-001 LEC (35232), Topics-Scandinavian Literature.)

(3 credits) 

TR 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM

Instructor: Ida Moen Johnson

Course Description: In Henrik Ibsen’s famous play, The Wild Duck (1884), the animal is often understood as a symbol for the drama’s damaged characters. But is the duck just a metaphor, or is the duck a duck, too? As for the humans in the story: are they people, animals, or both? In this course, we will study Nordic texts that center the animal, from ugly ducklings and charismatic reindeer to Moomintrolls and hobbyhorses. We will also learn from the fields of animal studies and posthumanism, whose lessons are critical at a time when human-made climate change threatens all forms of life on Earth. Through fiction, film, and theory, this course tackles questions such as: Can art created by humans ever be “true to the animal?” How might literature and film help us challenge humanist hierarchies? And, what can Nordic texts teach us about the possibilities and limits of being an animal—including the human kind?

Prerequisites: Sophomore standing

(Counts as LAS credit (L&S))

(4 credits)

TR 4:00 – 5:15 PM 

Instructor: Thomas DuBois 

Course Description: Interdisciplinary study of Sami (Lapp) people of Scandinavia past and present. Indigenous modes of expression and worldview, contemporary cultural and political activism. Extensive discussion of connections to Native American and Inuit experiences; rise of U.S. and other indigenous peoples’ movements.

Prerequisites: Junior standing

(3 credits)

MW 4:00 – 5:15 PM

Instructor: Liina-Ly Roos

Course Description: You might have heard of Nordic television series such as Wallander, The Bridge, Borgen or SKAM. These are just some examples of what Nordic TV, an increasingly popular phenomenon, has to offer. In this special topics course, we will look at a variety of contemporary Nordic television series and discuss the history and significance of the public broadcasting systems in the Nordic region. In order to effectively analyze and discuss this rich body of series and programs, we will incorporate theoretical concepts pertaining to television studies such as storytelling, genre, transmedia, and seriality. You will also develop/improve basic skills to analyze the aesthetic and formal aspects of tv-series. We will also identify some of the common themes in the series that reflect on broader topics in the Nordic societies and cultures such as environmental consciousness, Nordic noir, the welfare state, borderlands, race, ethnicity, and sexuality.

Prerequisites: None.

(3 credits) 

M 2:25 – 5:25 PM 

Instructor: Susan Brantly

Course Description: This course presents a survey of major texts of Nordic Romanticism and the dominant themes that emerge from the era. We will look at the rise of the poetic epic and its eventual eclipse by the novel. We will examine poets from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, and consider how they contribute to the national narratives of their respective countries. Nightside and Dayside Romanticism compete with each other, and the cult of the individual and originality is born. We will examine the question of what constitutes a hero and what is expected of a Romantic heroine.