Professor emeritus Roland Thorstensson will present the talk “In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun: Introducing the Sami of the Nordic North” on Wednesday, March 27th, at 6:30 p.m. at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis as part of the ASI Forum series.
Thorstensson will present a multimedia program on the Sami, an indigenous people, today, living mainly in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland, and on the Kola Peninsula in Russia. The program will look at the Sami and Sami culture in a broad sense, but focusing on conditions, circumstances and “realities” in Samiland during the last three-four decades. The presentation will also highlight manifestations of Sami culture in literature, art and music since “the awakening” in the 1960s and 1970s.
Professor emeritus in the Department of Scandinavian Studies at Gustavus Adolphus College, Thorstensson taught regular courses on Sami culture for over a decade. He has lived in northern Norway and Sweden and traveled extensively in Sápmi (Samiland). During a yearlong stay in Tromsø, Norway, Roland and his wife, Edi, translated Sami prose and poetry into English for a book entitled In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun. Thorstensson has also translated a Norwegian novel, The Salt Bin, which deals with the “Sami awakening” of the 1960’s and given many presentations on Sami topics, including music, as in “Image-makers, Image-breakers — All Sami Music is Not the Same” (with Sami scholar and yoiker Krister Stoor).
Dr. Thorstensson’s talk is taking place while the “Eight Seasons of Sápmi, the Land of the Sámi People” exhibit is on view at the ASI. ASI Forum presentations are included with museum admission. Reservations for this lecture are encouraged, but not mandatory – call 612-871-4907.