Fall 2017

TuTh 2-3:30, B33B Dwinelle. Instructor: Karen Møller

Units: 4

(Fall only. Danish 1B is offered in Spring.) Classes meet for three hours of Danish instruction per week. Students will acquire basic communicative competence in all four foreign language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) within a cultural context.

More details about this language here.

Workload: About five hours of work outside of class per week (includes online homework), an oral and written midterm and final.

Text: RIGTIG DANSK, Karen Christensen Bahamondes, Gyldendal, 2015.

Prerequisites:  None. Elementary Danish is open to all students without prior knowledge of Danish. The course is not open to native, near-native, or heritage speakers of any Nordic language. Course cannot be repeated without prior consent from the language coordinator.

THIS COURSE IS ALSO OFFERED AS A DISTANCE LEARNING CLASS FOR STUDENTS AT OTHER UC CAMPUSES. COURSE HAS A DELAYED START: LAST WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 2017. PLEASE CONTACT THE INSTRUCTOR FOR FURTHER INFORMATION.

If you are not a currently registered student, you may be able to enroll via Concurrent Enrollment, UC Berkeley Extension. Please note that the Concurrent Enrollment application must be approved by the department. Approval is based on availability of space in the class; enrolled UC students on a waitlist have priority.

MWF 9-10, B33B Dwinelle. Instructor: Lotta Weckström

Units: 4

(Fall only. Finnish 1B is offered in Spring.) Classes meet for three hours of Finnish instruction per week. Students will acquire basic communicative competence in all four foreign language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) within a cultural context.  Click here for more information about Finnish.

More details about this language here.

Workload:  About five hours of work outside of class per week, an oral and written midterm and final.

Texts:
Sonja Gehring and Sanni Heinzmann:
Suomen mestari 1. Suomen oppikirja aikuisille
Second edition, 2011. Finn Lectura. ISBN 9789517924368

Prerequisites:  None. Elementary Finnish is open to students without prior knowledge of Finnish. However, the course is open to native, near-native, or heritage speakers of ANY OTHER Nordic language. Course cannot be repeated without prior consent from the language coordinator.

If you are not a currently registered student, you may be able to enroll via Concurrent Enrollment, UC Berkeley Extension. Please note that the Concurrent Enrollment application must be approved by the department. Approval is based on availability of space in the class; enrolled UC students on a waitlist have priority.

MWF 9-10, 104 Dwinelle. Instructor: Jenna Coughlin

Units: 4

(Fall only.  Norwegian 1B is offered in Spring.) Classes meet for three hours of instruction per week.  Students will acquire basic communicative competence in all four foreign language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) within a cultural context.

More details about this language here.

Workload: About five hours of work outside of class per week, an oral and written midterm and final.

Text: Sett i gang 1 (Aarsvold and Lie) to be ordered on Amazon Instructions will be given by the instructor at the beginning of the semester.

 Prerequisites:  None. Elementary Norwegian is open to students without prior knowledge of Norwegian. The course is not open to native, near-native, or heritage speakers of any Nordic language. Course cannot be repeated without prior consent from the language coordinator.

If you are not a currently registered student, you may be able to enroll via Concurrent Enrollment, UC Berkeley Extension. Please note that the Concurrent Enrollment application must be approved by the department. Approval is based on availability of space in the class; enrolled UC students on a waitlist have priority.

MWF 9-10, 228 Dwinelle. Instructor: Zachary Blinkinsop

Units: 4

(Fall only.  Swedish 1B is offered in Spring.) Classes meet for three hours of instruction per week.  Students will acquire basic communicative competence in all four foreign language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) within a cultural context.

More details about this language here.

 Workload: About five hours of work outside of class per week, an oral and written midterm and final.

Text:  Rivstart A1 + A2 (There is a textbook and exercise book)

Prerequisites:  None. Elementary Swedish is open to students without prior knowledge of Swedish. The course is not open to native, near-native, or heritage speakers of any Nordic language. Course cannot be repeated without prior consent from the language coordinator.

If you are not a currently registered student, you may be able to enroll via Concurrent Enrollment, UC Berkeley Extension. Please note that the Concurrent Enrollment application must be approved by the department. Approval is based on availability of space in the class; enrolled UC students on a waitlist have priority.

W 11-12, 33 Dwinelle. Instructor: Karen Møller

Units: 4

MWF 12-1, 33 Dwinelle. Instructor: Jonas Wellendorf

Units: 4

L&S Breadth:  Arts & Literature

(Fall only. Old Norse 101B is offered in the Spring.)

This class will introduce students to the written vernacular language of Iceland and Norway in the Middle Ages. Class time will focus on the grammatical structure of Old Norse, translating into English, and close-reading exercises of Old Norse texts. By the end of the semester students should be able to read saga-style Old Norse prose texts in normalized orthography with the help of a dictionary. Assignments will include translations, grammatical exercises, quizzes, a midterm, and a final exam. Regular and active participation is required.

More details about this language here.

Texts: Zöega’s Old Icelandic Dictionary (any edition) and additional texts to be announced by the instructor.

Prerequisites: none

MWF 8-9, 187 Dwinelle. Instructor: Rue Taylor

Units: 4

This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

The Vikings are remembered today for their raids—but they also made a name for themselves through their voyages to the edges of the medieval world. Touching down on four continents, they pushed the borders of the map in their endeavors as raiders, merchants, mercenaries and explorers. This course will follow the Norsemen on some of these journeys, beginning with local voyages in and around Scandinavia and expanding to their most far-flung destinations in the East. From the Russian steppes to the Caspian Sea, through the Byzantine Empire and beyond, we will look to literary as well as archaeological evidence to explore the impact of the Norsemen on their foreign surroundings, and vice versa. Why did they travel? What did they learn in these foreign societies? And what did they bring home with them?

The aim of this course is to help students further their skills in reading, analysis and composition, and to feel more confident participating in existing academic debates. The semester will culminate in a research project designed for students to learn how to find, analyze and engage with secondary sources at the university level.

Texts:

Course reader

Prerequisite:  Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent.  Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

MWF 8-9, 179 Dwinelle. Instructor: Isobel Boles

Units: 4

This course satisfies the first half or the “A” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement. 

This course will examine the various ghosts of Scandinavian narratives and traditions, from draugar, who creep from burial mounds or restlessly roam the sea, to spirits bound to haunt inhabited dwellings. We will move from otherworldly encounters in excerpts from medieval sagas and poems, to instances of ghostly figures in preserved folklore. The second portion of the course will focus on the ghosts of modern literature, symbolic, gothic, or otherwise, in works of Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Karen Blixen, and Selma Lagerlöf. We will end with a look at trends in contemporary fiction involving ghosts as characters or narrators, including links between spirits of the departed and the genre of crime fiction.

Students will work on developing their critical reading and writing skills by analyzing central themes and questions. We will explore what is unique and universal in the Scandinavian ghost; the degree to which horror and the uncanny are combined with comfort, memory, and connections to family and the past in these figures; and the types of places and circumstances that are likely to give rise to ghosts or ghost stories.

Texts:

Course Reader and readings on bCourses

The Treasure, (Herr Arnes Penningar) by Selma Lagerlöf. 978-1406934878

The Elements of Style, 4th Edition by William Strunk Jr & E B White. 978-0205309023

Prerequisite:  Successful completion of the UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or its equivalent.  Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

TuTh 8-9:30, 255 Dwinelle. Instructor: Tiffany White

Units: 4

This course satisfies the first half or the “A” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

We are more familiar with the literary forest than we think we are. Little Red Riding Hood, Robin Hood, and Snow White have all shown us that the forest can represent a place of refuge, but also a place of fear, where unexplainable things happen. It is the place in which wolves, outlaws, dwarves, and magical creatures live. But—why? This course will explore the literary significance of the forest in both space and time.

The central focus of this course will be to evaluate the forest as a space: what it represents and why. This image dictates what creatures inhabit the forest, often liminal figures with special abilities or appearances. With the growing importance of eco-awareness, it will be beneficial to challenge our ideas of the forest as a place that needs to be tamed by humans, a place of danger, and a place outside of culture; we will do so by evaluating images in literature and media that have become standard representations of the forest. We will start in the early Christian period, go into the Middle Ages, through the Early Modern and Romantic periods, and end with modern media in the form of movies and music videos.

Texts: Course reader

Prerequisite:  Successful completion of the UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or its equivalent.  Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

MWF 8-9, 183 Dwinelle. Instructor: TBA

Units: 4

This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

The stories told through the Viking Age and Medieval Norse literature have directly influenced and inspired the lore in modern works like The Hobbit, A Song of Ice and Fire, and Marvel Comic’s Thor. One Scandinavian legend in particular has captured popular imagination across the world: the legend of The Saga of the Vǫlsungs. The saga – rife with curses, warring kingdoms, love triangles, and (of course) dragons – has been retold over and over. Authors, screenwriters, and composers simply can’t resist a good dragon-slaying.

Our reading list will sketch a genealogy of literature which cuts across national borders and historical eras. Retellings of The Saga of the Vǫlsungs are authored by familiar names, like JRR Tolkien and Richard Wagner. Some versions are by famous Scandinavian authors like Henrik Ibsen (sometimes called Norway’s Shakespeare) and Selma Lagerlöf (the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize in literature). The retellings encountered in this course are hardly tired old tropes; they are moments of creativity for some of the Modern era’s most successful authors.

In this composition course, we will investigate the interplay between the content of writing and the stylistic/technical aspects. The course theme of “retelling” will help to highlight the contexts of historical writing and our own moment in history. We will attempt to move questions from “How is this different?” towards “Why is this different?” Along the way, the class will discover the rich cultural heritage of Scandinavia, and how a retelling of an old Viking legend can lead to the next Hollywood blockbuster or best-selling comic book.

Texts:

Saga of the Volsungs translated by Jesse Byock 978-0140447385 (~70 pages / $10)

 Wagner’s Ring in 1848 by Edward R. Haymes 978-1571139320 (83 pages / $28)

 The Treasure (Herr Arnes Penningar) by Selma Lagerlöf 978-1434458254 (60 pages / $6)

Ibsen’s The Vikings at Helgeland 978-1420930849 (84 pages $10)

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien 978-0547928227 (273 pages / $10)

Other readings will be made available in a course reader or through bCourses.

$78 total from Amazon

40 pages per week = 630 pages as target total course reading –

Prerequisite:  Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent.  Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

TuTh 8-9:30, 105 Dwinelle. Instructor: TBA

Units: 4

This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the forms and mechanics of academic writing. As a guiding theme, we will read, analyze, and respond to short stories and novels that toy with our desire to understand characters’ true motivations—these are known as Machiavellian narratives, named after the Italian political theorist notorious for advocating trickery, subterfuge, and fear-mongering as effective methods of rule.

The power of Machiavellian narratives will be explored through Scandinavian texts, including Victoria Benedictsson’s “From the Darkness,” St. St. Blicher’s “Tardy Awakening,” Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, Hjalmar Söderberg’s Doctor Glas, and Pär Lagerkvist’s The Dwarf. While we may not be accustomed to thinking too much about a story’s narrator as a character, Machiavellian narratives raise the question of how much we can trust a story’s narrator. How do we know what the narrator tells us is true? Does the narrator have an interest in telling us certain things but not others about the characters in the novel? What does the narrator think of the reader listening to his or her tale? By raising these questions, students will become more adept at identifying manipulative narratorial moves, discerning and analyzing the power constellations governing fiction, and, most importantly, developing the analytical skills necessary to becoming successful academic writers.

Texts:

Hamsun, Knut. Hunger. Trans. Robert Bly. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. ISBN-13: 978-0374525286

Lagerkvist, Pär. The Dwarf. Trans. Alexandra Dick. Hill and Wang, 1958. ISBN-13: 978-0374521356

Söderberg, Hjalmar. Doctor Glas. Trans. Paul Bitten Austin. Anchor, 2002. ISBN-13: 978-0385722674

*Additional readings will be made available in a course reader or bCourses.

 Prerequisites:  Successful completion of the first half or “A” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.  Students may not enroll nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

TuTh 8-9:30, 205 Dwinelle. Instructor: Ida Moen Johnson

Units: 4

This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

Sleek furniture, minimalist clothing, and well-lit IKEA kitchens: these are the kinds of things that come to mind when one hears the phrase “Scandinavian design.” But we can think of Scandinavian design in broader terms as well, including the “design” of society, culture, and literature. This course explores texts that both celebrate and challenge notions of “good design” in a Scandinavian context. From houses and playgrounds, to landscapes and welfare states, we will consider questions such as: What is design? Is literature designed, or does it do the designing? What, if anything, is special about Scandinavian design?

Texts:

Ibsen, Ghosts
Publisher: Dover Publications; New edition edition (July 11, 1997)
ISBN-10: 0486298523
ISBN-13: 978-0486298528

Inger Christensen, alphabet
Publisher: New Directions (May 17,2001) (1602)
ASIN: B015X50TFM

Tarjei Vesaas, The Ice Palace
Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers (May 1, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0720613299
ISBN-13: 978-0720613292

Prerequisite:  Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent.  Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

TuTh 8-9:30, 228 Dwinelle. Instructor: TBA

Units: 4

This course satisfies the first half or the “A” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

Children all over the world have grown up with Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales, such as “The Little Mermaid,” “The Ugly Duckling,” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” as they have been translated from Danish into over 125 languages. Although Andersen originally subtitled his fairytale collections “Told for Children,” he was equally interested in reaching an adult audience. The fairytales therefore address the burgeoning modernity of Andersen’s Denmark, and the issues that arose with it, many of which are still relevant today: e.g., the consequences of technology; the role of women and girls in society; the risks of conformist thinking; and the unique psychology of children. Unlike the Brothers Grimm, who collected folktales passed down through the oral tradition, Andersen based the vast majority of his fairytales on literary sources, or invented them with his own imagination; fairytales of this sort are known as Kunstmärchen (“art-fairytales”). In order to contrast Andersen with the folkloric tradition, this course will begin with readings in translation of the German folklore of the Grimms and the Norwegian folktales collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe. We will then read Andersen’s fairytales in translation and observe how the Kunstmärchen genre gave Andersen the freedom to respond to the challenges of a modernizing and evolving Europe. Along the way, we will supplement our reading of the fairytales with scholarly articles, and broaden our discussion by examining modern adaptations of Andersen’s work, such as Disney’s Frozen.

Texts:

Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories

ISBN: 978-0385189514

Course reader

Prerequisite:  Successful completion of the UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or its equivalent.  Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

TuTh 3:30-5, 102 Wheeler. Instructor: TBA

Units: 4

What are Nordic values? The countries of the northern Europe (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) have been caricatured in recent American political discourse as either utopian or dystopian alternatives to American culture (in that we do/don’t want to be “like Sweden” or “like Denmark”). But what are the complex cultural and historical realities that have made the contemporary Nordic region what it is today? Proceeding from three main areas of investigation (sustainable relationships to nature; values of social solidarity; and a progressive view of gender equality), the course traces the ways in which literature, drama, film, folklore, and other forms of humanistic expression have both revealed the pressure points implicit in Nordic values and in some cases contributed to their formation. Beginning its historical arc around 1650, this course traces the historical development of contemporary Nordic discussions in four main phases. We begin with the Nordic Enlightenment, which saw the decline of Danish and Swedish state power and colonization but also was an age of scientific advancement, social satire, and the growth of vernacular cultures. Next we study the nineteenth-century, where the familiar features of Scandinavian culture begin to take shape: the emergence of folk culture, the existential individual, and the new woman. These currents move forward into the early twentieth century formation of the Nordic welfare state and its design of modern political and urban environments. Finally the course will focus on the contemporary multicultural life of the North as seen through its crime fiction, popular culture, film, and television.

TuTh 12:30-2, 188 Dwinelle. Instructor: Mark Sandberg

Units: 4

L&S Breadth:  Arts & Literature
Cross-listed with Film 160, Section 2.
Enrollment in Scandinavian 115 will count as equivalent to Film 160, Section 2 for the purposes of the Film major.

Recent television production in the Nordic countries has reached a new global audience outside the media circuits (such as art-house cinema) that historically have been the more typical Nordic outlets to international markets. Successful branding of some content as “Nordic Noir” and the radical reorganization of the distribution model for international television have allowed more mainstream circulation of television content abroad, reaching a wider audience than the earlier niche appeals of Dogme 95 filmmaking, the art films of Bergman, Dreyer, and von Trier, or the “Swedish New Wave” of the 1960s. How have contemporary Nordic television series (in both Nordic Noir and other modes) created these new forms of appeal? To what degree do they form an alternative to the contemporary American practices of television production, and as a consequence, what do current Nordic television series tell us about today’s cultural configurations in the global North?

To understand these questions, this course takes the idea of the “remake” as a diagnostic tool for examining for investigating the border zones between cultures. The examples range from direct, almost slavish remakes to looser forms of inspiration, but in every case a Nordic television show will be paired with a US or UK comparison piece to ask questions about cultural adaptation and translation. The course looks at this extensive “version-making” activity in order to answer questions such as: why are so many successful Nordic TV series be remade in English (and how are American and British audiences different in this regard)? What constitutes local color? What are the mechanisms of cultural and linguistic translation that allow shows to flow from a native context to a more global audience? What does one get out of watching an original that differs from watching a remake? Is one inherently better than the other?

Examples investigated will include multiple episodes of television series from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, and the U.S., presented in these configurations: Riget/Kingdom Hospital; Henning Mankells Walllander/Wallander; Forbrydelsen/The Killing; Bron-Broen/The Bridge/The Tunnel; West Wing/Borgen; Äkta människor/Humans; Okkupert/Man in the High Castle; and Skam.

There are no prerequisite courses for this upper-division elective, and all materials will be either in English or in subtitled versions: no knowledge of any of the Nordic languages is required. Format of presentation will be a mixture of lecture and discussion.

Short readings (academic articles and journalistic discussions of various shows) will be made available on bCourses. There are no required textbooks.

MWF 10-11, 102 Wheeler. Instructor: Jonas Wellendorf

Units: 4

L&S Breadth: Historical Studies

Viking and Medieval Scandinavia will explore developments and trends in the areas of social structure, trade and economy, religion, political organization, culture, literature, and technology during the Viking and Medieval periods (c. 700-1500). The course will cover the Scandinavian homelands (Denmark, Sweden, Norway) as well as the regions settled by Scandinavians during the Viking Age. Developments in Scandinavia will be contextualized against broader trends in Europe and western Asia.

Texts: John Haywood, The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings (1995), Stefan Brink and Neil Price, eds. (2008) The Viking World; Else Roesdahl (1999) The Vikings and a selection of primary sources in tran

Prerequisites: None.

MWF 1-2, 6307 Dwinelle. Instructor: Jenna Coughlin

Units: 4

L&S Breadth:  Arts & Literature

The Scandinavian countries are known for their distinctive nature, from the geysers and glaciers of Iceland to the fjords of Norway to the vast forests of Sweden and Finland. While natural features may seem to provide static background for culture, understandings of nature have in fact shifted over time in accordance with human concerns. Literature plays a significant role in carrying out these shifts. In recent years, literature has also stopped to ask how we arrived at our present moment, when human impact on the planet seems to be remaking the notions of nature on which human life and thought are based. In this case, literature performs a critique of the past and speculates about possible futures.

This course examines the representation of nature and the environment in the Scandinavian context from the creation narratives of Norse myth through the project of 19th century nation-building and up to present concerns about climate change and environmental destruction. Students will encounter central works that have produced and contested notions of nature. Alongside these, they will read significant theoretical texts from the field of ecocriticism. This will provide an entryway into the environmental humanities, while also providing an opportunity to explore what makes Scandinavian literature and culture unique.

Texts:  to be announced.

Prerequisites:  None.  The course and readings are in English.