The Department of Scandinavian Studies has a rich and full academic year ahead. New courses are being offered, four sections of first-year Swedish are up and running, and students are returning from enriching years or semesters of study away. We’ll offer some features on these things here as the year continues. Here are a few highlights of things on the docket as the 2019-20 academic year gets underway.
Fall 2019:
-Four sections of first-year Swedish are off the ground — the greatest number of students of first-year Swedish we have on record. We’re excited about students’ interests in learning Swedish and hope their studies will take them in the directions right for them (study away, general knowledge, plans for future work or living abroad, the beginning of immersion into the study of Swedish and Scandinavian Studies at Gustavus).
-Homecoming Week activities will include the Department’s first annual Alumni Panel and the Department’s annual Homecoming BBQ hosted by Professor Glenn Kranking. Alumni Panel details: On Thursday, September 26th, from 4:00-6:00 p.m. in Confer 127, all alumni and current students of the department are welcome to gather and meet and mingle. From 4:00-5:00 p.m. alumni panelists will share stories and perspectives from their life and career paths post-Gustavus with current Gustavus students. From 5:00-6:00 all alumni and current students present will get the chance to meet and mingle over light refreshments. We have three panelists set for this year and look forward to inviting new and different department alumni (from across the generations) each year to share their perspectives with our current students. Please contact Kjerstin (kmoody@gac.edu) for more information, with your ideas or questions, and/or if you’d like to be part of this panel in the future! BBQ details: Join students past and present and (hopefully!) faculty past and present at Glenn’s house after the football game. All are welcome; please reach out to Glenn (kranking@gac.edu) for details/more information about the event.
-2019 Nobel Conference: “Climate Changed.” On Tuesday, September 24th, Professor Kjerstin Moody will take part in the evening program “Recitations and Meditations on the Earth,” a conversation through the arts of music and poetry that contemplates the issue of climate change through creative expression, which will be held at 8:00 p.m. in Björling Concert Hall. On Wednesday, September 25th, at 9:30 a.m. Professor Ursula Lindqvist will introduce Nobel conference panelist, Canadian Inuit advocate and political representative, and author of The Right to Be Cold Sheila Watt-Cloutier. The title of Watt-Cloutier’s talk is “Everything is Connected: Environment, Economy, Foreign Policy, Sustainability, Human Rights and Leadership in the 21st Century.” https://gustavus.edu/events/nobelconference/2019/watt-cloutier.php The full conference schedule, which can be live-streamed from anywhere in the world, can be found here: https://gustavus.edu/events/nobelconference/2019/schedule.php
-On Thursday, October 24th, the Department will welcome Dr. Benjamin Teitelbaum, who will present the lecture “White Gods: Vikings in the Far-Right Imagination,” at 7:30 p.m. in 127 Confer Hall. Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology and Affiliate Faculty in International Affairs at the University of Colorado, most of Teitelbaum’s research focuses on ideology and expressive culture in contemporary radical nationalist, populist, and neofascist movements. He has published numerous scholarly articles on these topics, and his first book Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2017), received an honorable mention from the International Studies Association. His second book, “War for Eternity: The Rise of the Far Right and the Return of Traditionalism,” will be published in February 2020 by HarperCollins/Penguin. Teitelbaum’s writing has appeared in major European and American media outlets in addition to scholarly venues. He has authored op-eds in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Dagbladet, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic, and has contributed as an expert for NPR, Newsweek, Swedish Radio, Norwegian Radio, the BBC, Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Helsingin Sanomat, and Berlingske. Professor Teitelbaum will also visit classes while he is on campus. For more information about Dr. Teitelbaum’s visit, please email Kjerstin Moody (kmoody@gac.edu).
January Term 2020:
-Professor Kjerstin Moody and Professor Jeff LaFrenierre (Geography, Environmental Studies) will be offering the IEX study away course GEG-152/SCA-152: Glaciers, Volcanoes, Sagas and Songs: Interweaving Culture and Landscape in Iceland, which weaves together the humanities and physical geosciences to explore the concept of place. Iceland, with its unique island culture rooted in literature, art, and song and its geographically dynamic and visually stunning landscape is an ideal laboratory for immersing ourselves into this way of thinking about the world. In this course we will explore contemporary and historical literature, art, and music, investigate how humans adapt to and thrive in harsh, remote environments, and experience both glacial and volcanic processes and the Icelanders’ ongoing interactions with these. It counts towards both the Geography major/minor and the major/minor in Scandinavian Studies and as an IEX/J-Term credit.
Spring 2020:
-Courses for Spring 2020 will include: four sections of SWE-102 (Jessup, Lindqvist, Moody); SWE-202 (Lindqvist); SCA-100: Introduction to Scandinavian Life and Culture (Moody) (HIPHI, LARS); SCA-211: Diversity and Social Change in Scandinavia (Moody) (GLOBL, LARS; counts towards GWSS major/minor); and SCA-334: Nordic Cinema (Lindqvist) (WRITD; counts towards Film and Media Studies minor). More details to come — welcome students!!
-The Department will welcome Swedish writer, editor, and documentary filmmaker Lawen Mohtadi to campus the week of March 22nd, as our 2020 Out of Scandinavia Artist in Residence. The Day I am Free, Mohtadi’s first book, was critically acclaimed when it was released in 2012, winning four awards. Her film Taikon (2015) offers a portrait of one of Sweden’s most-beloved children’s authors, champions of human rights, and the Sweden she fought against, with, and for. https://www.taikon.se/filmen-taikon https://mitpress.mit.edu/contributors/lawen-mohtadi Details about Mohtadi’s visit to come! For more information about her visit, please contact Ursula Lindqvist (ulindqvi@gac.edu).
-Department of Scandinavian Studies Senior Major Colloquium. This annual event will happen in early May; it is a place where students graduating with a major or minor in Scandinavian Studies present on scholarly or experiential work they have done in the field of Scandinavian Studies while students at Gustavus. Date and details about this to come!
Come join us! We wish you a wonderful new academic year!