January Term (IEX) Courses in the Department of Scandinavian Studies
SCA 203 Hans Christian Andersen
MTWTF: 10:30-12:20 (Confer 125) Roger McKnight (Emeritus)
This course deals with symbols. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) wrote great, vivid fairy tales. As a Romantic, he portrayed exotic birds who sang like angels. As a realist, he described poor Danish washerwomen who horribly froze to death in frigid streams. As a result, youngsters read Andersen?s tales for childish delight. Adults view them as serious social messages. This course will survey trends in 19th-century Scandinavian literature, with H. C. Andersen as the focal point. Other writers will also be featured. Themes include the Romantic sensibility, social class, women?s rights, and currents of thought that created our world. Students will interpret, discuss, and write about texts.
SCA 235 The Sami People
MTWTF: 10:30-12:20 (Confer 333) Hanna Outakoski (Umeå University)
In this interdisciplinary course we will learn about the Sami, an indigenous people living today mainly in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and on the Kola Peninsula in Russia. We will learn how the Sami culture and languages have coped, survived and changed during the times of oppression. We will also look at how the Sami of today have found new strategies to strengthen and revitalize the culture and languages as they no longer experience the same external discrimination from the states in which they live, but as new threats are emerging (climate change, globalization, commercialism)
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SPRING 2012 Courses in the Department of Scandinavian Studies
SWE 102 Beginning Swedish II
Two sections:
MTWF 11:30-12:20 (Confer 126) Elisabeth H. Karlsson
MTWF 1:30-2:20 (Vickner 204) Kjerstin Moody
This course introduces students to the Swedish language and important aspects of modern Swedish society. Students learn to speak, read, and write Swedish through pronunciation practice, conversation, and grammar study. Language materials include textbook, short stories and film.
SWE 202 Intermediate Swedish II
MTWF: 10:30-11:20 (Vickner 201) Kjerstin Moody
A continuation of SWE-201, this course is designed to help students strengthen their Swedish conversation skills and improve their writing and reading abilities. Students will continue with textbook Mål 2, read modern Swedish literary texts, and discuss TV and radio programs as well as films about modern Swedish culture.
SWE 344 Swedish Film
MWF: 10:30-11:20 (Confer 125) Elisabeth H. Karlsson
(one of the days may be substituted by a film viewing day, depending on student schedules)
This course held entirely in Swedish will engage with films in the Swedish language from the past 60 years, including features, documentaries and shorts. It will have a twofold focus. On the one hand, we will analyze the recurring themes in Swedish film, for example, existentialism, nature, the welfare state, love, sexuality, history and the child. On the other, we will discuss film as both an expression and a critique of ideology and hegemony. (Special Topics)
SCA 111 Multiculturalism and Ethnic Diversity in Scandinavia
MW: 2:30-4:20 (Confer 334) Elisabeth H. Karlsson
The terms multiculturalism, diversity and pluralism describe the complexity of modern societies. In this course, we apply these terms to Scandinavia. The course aims to challenge the often held view that Scandinavia is ethnically, linguistically, and culturally homogenous by presenting texts by and about the indigenous population, other historical minorities, and newly immigrated ethnic groups. Apart from learning about different minority cultures within Scandinavia, students will in this course also critically engage theories of race, ethnicity and cultural identity as well as questions of racism and discrimination. LARS, NWEST.
SCA 344 Picturing the North
T: 2:30-5:20 (Confer 124) Kjerstin Moody
This Scandinavian studies course, taught in English, will examine how the northern-most Nordic landscapes, resources, and inhabitants are represented through a variety of disciplines, including literature, film, anthropology, economics, and history. We will learn about important issues in this region (including post-colonization, post-industrialization, labor practices, equal rights and accessibility to services and goods, natural resources, rural cooperatives, etc.) by pairing theoretical readings about these topics with literary, cinematic, and artistic representations of them. Students will come away with a more complex understanding of this peripheral northern region and its relationship to the global world we live in. (Special Topics)
HIS 219 Scandinavian since 1800
MWF 12:30-1:20 (Beck Hall 113) Glenn Kranking
The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a remarkable transformation in Scandinavia from an agricultural society, poor and socially stratified, politically autocratic, and internationally insignificant to places with some of the world’s highest standards of living, egalitarian, democratic, and internationally significant. This course explores the sometimes radical transformation of Scandinavia – how society changed, why they did so, and the challenges and points of debate that emerged throughout. HIPHI