Language Courses | R&C Courses | Courses in English | Graduate Courses
LANGUAGE COURSES
TuTh 2-3:30, Remote. Instructor: Karen Møller
Units: 4
(Fall only. Danish 1B is offered in Spring.)
Instructional Method, as of July 22, 2020:
This class will be taught remotely, per the July 21 campus announcement.
This is a cross campus listed on-line course and will be taught with the quarter schedule to accommodate students from other UC campuses. UC Berkeley students will meet with the instructor in class on 8/26 but instruction begins formally on 9/28 when other UC campuses start their Fall Quarter. UCB students will participate in this class in the classroom, enrolled students from other campuses via Zoom, a conferencing / distance teaching platform.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
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.
Workload: About four to five hours of work outside of class per week, and usually a written midterm and an oral and written final.
Course text: Puls 1
Prerequisites: None. Elementary Danish is open to students without prior knowledge of Danish. The course is not open to native-, near-native-, or heritage speakers of other Nordic languages.
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 10-11, Remote. Instructor: Lotta Weckström
Units: 4
(Fall only. Finnish 1B will be offered in Spring)
Instructional Method, as of July 22, 2020:
This class will be taught remotely, per the July 21 campus announcement.
This is a cross campus listed course and will be taught with the quarter schedule to accommodate students from other UC campuses. UC Berkeley students will meet with the instructor in class on 8/26 but instruction begins formally on 9/28 when other UC campuses start their Fall Quarter. UCB students will participate in this class in the classroom, enrolled students from other campuses via Zoom, a conferencing / distance teaching platform.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Students will learn the basic structures of the Finnish language and will be able to use them in simple, everyday conversation. All four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing will be studied and practiced. In addition to the basics of Finnish language, this class introduces students to everyday life in modern Finland, Finnish customs and holidays, and more.
Workload:About five hours of work outside of class per week (includes online homework), 3 quizzes, and an oral and written final.
COURSE TEXTS:
Suomen mestari 1. Suomen kielen oppikirja aikuisille. (FinnLectura 2011) Sonja Gehring & Sanni Heinzmann, ISBN 978-951-792-436-8
Additional materials will be provided.
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. Elementary Finnish is open to all students without prior knowledge of Finnish. The course is not open to native, or near-native-speakers of Finnish. Course cannot be repeated without prior consent from the language coordinator.
Prerequisites: None. All welcome / Tervetuloa!
TuTh 11-12:30, Remote. Instructor: Camilla Heggedal
Units: 4
(Fall only. Norwegian 1B is offered in Spring.)
This is a cross campus listed on-line course and will be taught with the quarter schedule to accommodate students from other UC campuses. UC Berkeley students will meet with the instructor in class on 8/26 but instruction begins formally on 9/28 when other UC campuses start their Fall Quarter. UCB students will participate in this class in the classroom, enrolled students from other campuses via Zoom, a conferencing / distance teaching platform.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
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.
Workload: About four to five hours of work outside of class per week, and usually a written midterm and an oral and written final.
Course text: Sett i gang 1
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 other Nordic languages.
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.
TuTh 9:30-11, Remote. Instructor: TBA
Units: 4
(Fall only. Swedish 1B is offered in Spring.)
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
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.
Workload: About four to five hours of work outside of class per week, and usually a written midterm and an oral and written final.
Course text: Rivstart A1 + A2 (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 other Nordic languages.
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, Remote. Instructor: Karen Møller
Units: 4
Instructional Method, as of July 22, 2020:
This class will be taught remotely, per the July 21 campus announcement.
Scandinavian 100A is a cross campus listed on-line course.
UC Berkeley students start the course on 8/26 and on 9/28 the course is open for students from other UC campuses as they start their Fall Quarter. UCB students will participate in this class in the classroom, enrolled students from other campuses via Zoom, a conferencing / distance teaching platform. Contact instructor for more information: kmoller@berkeley.edu
STUDENTS ENROLL IN A COMMON LECTURE ON WEDNESDAYS 11-12 + A DISCUSSION SECTION FOR THEIR TARGET LANGUAGE. Students should enroll in the relevant target language section as follows:
Section 101 = Danish (TuTh 11-12)
Section 102 = Norwegian (Tu & 12-1)
Section 103 = Swedish (TuTh 12-1)
Please note: Students must register in the 100A lecture and in addition in the relevant section they will attend. The course is complete with the language and the lecture sections – you must enroll in both parts in order to fully enroll in the course. If you experience a scheduling problem it is essential that you consult the language coordinator.
Section Times: Meeting times for discussion sections might on occasion be changed according to the schedules of the students enrolled, and can therefore vary from the times listed in the online Schedule of Classes. Students should attend the first day of class for more information on possible rescheduling.
COURSE TEXTS:
Language sections: 101 Puls 3, 102 Sett i gang 2, 103 Rivstart B1+B2
Lecture/Culture section: Reader on bCourses
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Students of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish enrolling in Scandinavian 100A will meet together for one hour of lecture per week (W 11-12) to read and interpret literary and nonliterary texts about inter-Scandinavian communication, linguistics, and language history. In addition to this one-hour combined lecture, students will meet two additional hours per week (in discussion sections with a language instructor) to be instructed in their particular target languages.
In the language specific discussion sections students will continue to develop their basic communicative competence in all four foreign language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) within a cultural context in their own target language (Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish). Through the weekly Wed lecture they will gain a deeper understanding of the other Scandinavian languages through tasks and readings. Students will NOT be asked to learn to speak the other two Scandinavian languages, but to learn about them.
PLACEMENT:
Scandinavian 100A is open to students who have taken Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish 1A-1B with a passing grade. A placement test is mandatory for other students who have had 90 hours of in-class instruction (reached the Novice High/Intermediate Low proficiency level) in any of the three Scandinavian languages and with a passing grade. The placement test must be taken prior to or within the first week of instruction. Contact the language coordinator, Karen Moller, to schedule a placement test.
Native, Near-Native, Heritage Speakers: The specific language sections are only open to learners of the specific Scandinavian language of instruction in the section. The course is not open to native, near-native, or heritage speakers of any Nordic language without prior consent from the language coordinator. The course cannot be repeated without prior consent from the language coordinator.
Workload for the combined lecture (e.g. 1/3 of the total grade for Scandinavian 100A). Two hours of work outside class a week. Weekly task based homework.
Workload for the discussion section (e.g. 2/3 of the total grade for Scandinavian 100A): An average of three hours of work outside class per week. The structure of supplemental language sections depends on the language instructor, but usually includes weekly written assignments, oral presentations, an oral and written midterm and final exam.
Prerequisites: Completion of Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish 1A-1B with a passing grade or consent by instructor (via placement test) for similar proficiency acquired elsewhere.
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 3-4, Remote. Instructor: Liam Waters
Units: 4
This is an undergraduate-level class which will introduce students to the vernacular written language of Iceland and Norway in the Middle Ages. Class time will focus on grammatical lectures, translations, 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 weekly translations, grammatical exercises, quizzes, a midterm, and a final exam. Regular participation is required.
Texts:
Zöega’s Old Icelandic Dictionary (any edition) and additional texts to be announced by the instructor.
Prerequisites: none
MWF 12-1, Remote. Instructor: Lotta Weckström
Units: 4
Instructional Method, as of July 22, 2020:
This class will be taught remotely, per the July 21 campus announcement.
This is a cross campus listed course and will be taught with the quarter schedule to accommodate students from other UC campuses. Instruction begins according to Berkeley schedule, on 8/26. All UC students are warmly welcome to join! UCB students will participate in this class in the classroom, enrolled students from other campuses via Zoom, a conferencing / distance teaching platform. Three hours of instruction per week.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Students develop their communicative skills.
- Students develop their reading comprehension of different text types.
- Students work on their skills of vocabulary, syntax, and idioms and continue to familiarize themselves with colloquial Finnish.
- All four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing are practiced.
- Students work on writing in different genres.
- Cultural information and everyday life in modern Finland will be discussed in the context of the study materials.
Workload: About five hours of work outside of class per week, including independent work with media sources and different texts. Midterm exam, Language Log entries in Finnish and a final project.
COURSE TEXT:
1. Suomen mestari 2 (2012) Gehring & Heinzmann. FinnLectura Ab.ISBN 978-951-792-477
- Materials provided by the instructor
PREREQUISITES: Finnish 1A and 1B. Students who have acquired basic Finnish skills elsewhere should contact the instructor prior to enrolling in this class.
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. Intermediate Finnish is not open to native, or near-native-speakers of Finnish. Course cannot be repeated without prior consent from the language coordinator.
READING AND COMPOSITION COURSES
TuTh 8-9:30, Remote. Instructor: Sarah Eriksen
Units: 4
Class description forthcoming.
Texts to be announced.
Due to the high demand for R&C courses we monitor attendance very carefully. Attendance is mandatory the first two weeks of classes, this includes all enrolled and wait listed students. If you do not attend all classes the first two weeks you may be dropped. If you are attempting to add into this class during weeks 1 and 2 and did not attend the first day, you will be expected to attend all class meetings thereafter and, if space permits, you may be enrolled from the wait list.
MWF 9-10, Remote. Instructor: Isobel Boles
Units: 4
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:
Readings on bCourses
A Pocket Style Manual. Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers. ISBN-13: 978-0312542542
Due to the high demand for R&C courses we monitor attendance very carefully. Attendance is mandatory the first two weeks of classes, this includes all enrolled and wait listed students. If you do not attend all classes the first two weeks you may be dropped. If you are attempting to add into this class during weeks 1 and 2 and did not attend the first day, you will be expected to attend all class meetings thereafter and, if space permits, you may be enrolled from the wait list.
MWF 9-10, Remote. Instructor: Anna Tomi
Units: 4
This course traces the relationship between literary representations of monstrosity and gender politics. Spanning from the turn of the century until the present day, the readings will examine figures such as witches, werewolves, and vampires through folklore, literature, and contemporary culture. How do notions of beastliness make social norms visible—and produce them? How does the culturally contingent border between human and non-human participate in the construction of gendered bodies? The course will primarily consider literature and film. Readings may include but are not limited to works of authors/directors such as Selma Lagerlöf, Aino Kallas, Ingmar Bergman, Erik Blomberg, and August Strindberg.
This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.
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.
Due to the high demand for R&C courses we monitor attendance very carefully. Attendance is mandatory the first two weeks of classes, this includes all enrolled and wait listed students. If you do not attend all classes the first two weeks you may be dropped. If you are attempting to add into this class during weeks 1 and 2 and did not attend the first day, you will be expected to attend all class meetings thereafter and, if space permits, you may be enrolled from the wait list.
MWF 8-9, Remote. Instructor: Michael Lawson
Units: 4
Class description forthcoming.
Texts to be announced.
This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.
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.
Due to the high demand for R&C courses we monitor attendance very carefully. Attendance is mandatory the first two weeks of classes, this includes all enrolled and wait listed students. If you do not attend all classes the first two weeks you may be dropped. If you are attempting to add into this class during weeks 1 and 2 and did not attend the first day, you will be expected to attend all class meetings thereafter and, if space permits, you may be enrolled from the wait list.
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES TAUGHT IN ENGLISH
TuTh 2-3:30, Remote. Instructor: Mark Sandberg
Units: 4
L&S Breadth: Historical Studies or Social & Behavioral Sciences
What are Nordic values? The countries of the northern Europe (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) have been caricatured in recent political discourse as either utopian or dystopian alternatives to American culture. Are they bastions of happiness and wellness, as touted in the U.N. happiness surveys, or are they the conformist, homogeneous societies where freedom dies, as others would have it? A cultural history of three easily recognized Nordic ideals—sustainable relationships to nature, gender equality, and social solidarity—will show the ways these contemporary Nordic values were shaped by literature, drama, film, folklore, and other forms of humanistic expression from the eighteenth century to the present day. Along the way, the course offers answers to the question: How do the arts and literature reveal the pressure points implicit in Nordic values while also contributing to their formation?
This course emphasizes the acquisition of overview information about Nordic culture, the development of interpretive abilities in encounters with key social-science, historical, and humanistic texts, and the improvement of analytic skills in evaluating key concepts, mindsets, and values in the Nordic region.
Prerequisites: None.
Required for the Scandinavian major.
MWF 12-1, Remote. 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 Age and Medieval periods (c. 750–1500). The course will cover the Scandinavian homelands (Denmark, Sweden, Norway) of the Vikings as well as the regions in which Scandinavians settled 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), Else Roesdahl, The Vikings (2018, 3rd ed.), Anders Winroth, The Age of the Vikings (2014) and a selection of primary and secondary sources in translation.
Prerequisites: None.
Taught in English with readings in English.
TuTh 12:30-2, Remote. Instructor: Kate Heslop
Units: 4
Deepen your acquaintance with all things Viking! This course explores the riches of the sagas, the most famous literary genre of medieval Scandinavia. These dramatic stories, full of subtlety, ambivalence and dry humor, invite you to empathize with shield-maidens, homicidal poets, Viking explorers and pagan believers. While the course will emphasize reading, understanding, discussing and writing about the literature of this period, we will also learn about the roots of Scandinavian literature in the Viking Age, and about its material, historical and cultural contexts. Readings will include The Book of the Icelanders, Hrafnkel’s saga, Egil’s saga, The Vinland sagas, and Hervör’s saga, and selections from Heimskringla, The Book of Settlements, and the Prose Edda.
Texts:
Margaret Clunies Ross, The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0521735209. Required.
The Sagas of Icelanders with a preface by Jane Smiley. Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition. ISBN 978-0141000039. Required.
Prerequisites: None. Readings are in English.
Course load: Short in-class presentation, midterm test, term paper (6-7 pages, doublespaced), final exam.
TuTh 3:30-5, Remote. Instructor: Timothy Tangherlini
Units: 4
L&S Breadth: Arts & Literature, Social & Behavioral Sciences
This course introduces you to the fairy tales, legends and, to a lesser extent, ballads of Nordic tradition. It will also introduce you to interpretive methodologies that strive to answer the question, “Why do people tell the stories that they tell?” For the purposes of this class, the Nordic area is taken to comprise all of the Nordic countries: Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, as well as Finland. We will, however, emphasize the three Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Sweden and Norway) in our readings and will, in fact, be focusing primarily on the story repertoires of five exceptional storytellers from rural Jutland in Denmark, who lived during the late 19th century. During the course of the semester, the history of folkloristics in Scandinavia, from the earliest folkloristic endeavors of Saxo the Grammarian in the late thirteenth century, through the Golden Age of the late nineteenth century, up to the most recent writings of contemporary scholars will be explored. In part, these will be explored through the reading of select biographies of famous Nordic folklorists, which are available on the course website. The first two weeks of the class will be devoted to folklore theory and, in particular, folk narrative genres and narrative theory. In the context of the fairy tale, we will emphasize the syntagmatic structural approach of the Russian folklorist, Vladimir Propp, and the more recent, 3-dimensional model proposed by Bengt Holbek in the study of the fairy tale. We will also explore the style and psychology of fairy tales. We will then consider the cross-over between legend and folktale and, after this brief transitional interlude, theories related to the interpretation of legend, in particular the work of William Labov and Joshua Waletzky.
The primary course materials are translated folktales and legends from the five Danish storytellers mentioned above, along with their biographies, available through the Danish Folklore Nexus which comes packaged with the book, Danish Folktales, Legends and Other Stories. Ask me for assistance in installing the Nexus app on your computer or tablet if you need help. Additional comparative material, also available on the course website, comes from the collection, Swedish Legends and Folktales, by John Lindow (SLF). Other examples will be culled from the book, “Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend,” by Henning Sehmsdorff and Reimund Kvideland; and Reidar Christiansen’s “Folktales of Norway.” Several fairy tales will be torn from the pages of All the World’s Reward. There will be numerous assigned theoretical and historical readings to provide proper background for our discussions. These readings will be available on the course website.
Prerequisites: none
GRADUATE COURSES
SCANDINAVIAN 220: Reading Old Norse RomanceW 1-4, Remote. Instructor: Kate Heslop
Units: 4
Instructional Method, as of July 22, 2020:
This class will be taught remotely, per the July 21 campus announcement.
Little known today, but immensely popular in the late Middle Ages, the Norse romances are mainly famous for being unreadable: naïve, formulaic, superficial, decadent. A few pioneers considered them from the viewpoint of genre and source studies (Schlauch, Schach, Kalinke), translation practices (Meissner, Barnes, Kalinke), or literary sociology (Glauser, Driscoll). More recent scholarly interventions have focused on such topics as identity, race, gender and sexuality, monstrosity, and intersections of elite and popular learning, or material philology. Few of these studies have much to say about the experience of reading the romances.
This seminar sets out to consider Norse adventure fiction from the perspectives of the phenomenology of reading, narratology and theories of ‘distant’ or ‘surface’ reading. We will read a number of the romances, both translations from other languages and original Norse works, and explore the potential of recent approaches to large literary corpora in unlocking these texts.
Texts will be supplied by the instructor. Reading knowledge of Old Norse is required.
Day/Time TBA, Remote. Instructor: Karen Møller
Units: 4
Required of Scandinavian Department GSIs teaching languages.
Language GSIs also enroll in Scandinavian 300B, Section 1, Teaching Practicum: Languages.
Objectives:
To gain: A theoretical understanding of issues in foreign language learning and ability to critically evaluate methods and material.
An understanding of linguistic, psychological and cultural processes in foreign language learning.
A development of a repertoire of techniques to meet various teaching situations.
An ability to construct valid, reliable and practical evaluation measures.
Participation: You will be asked to present a specific method to the class in a microteaching session, analyze the methodology in the teaching materials that you are using (2 pages), observe and report on another foreign language class (peer observation) (2 pages) and define and carry out a small research project in your class (5 pages).
Required Readings: Reader
Prerequisite: GSI status in the Department of Scandinavian and also open to GSIs in other foreign language departments.
Day/Time TBA, Remote. Instructor: Karen Møller
Units: 1
Required of Scandinavian Department GSIs teaching language courses.
This course is required of all graduate student instructors teaching Norwegian and Swedish courses in the Scandinavian Department. Language GSIs also enroll in Scandinavian 300A (Methods of Teaching Scandinavian Languages).
Prerequisite: GSI status in the Department of Scandinavian.
Day/Time TBA, Remote. Instructor: Kate Heslop
Units: 1
This course is required of all Graduate Student Instructors teaching Reading & Composition courses in the Scandinavian Department. Reading and Composition GSIs also enroll in Prof. Heslop’s Scandinavian 301, Section 2 course for 3 units.
Prerequisite: GSI status in the Department of Scandinavian.
Day/Time TBA, Remote. Instructor: Karen Møller
Units: 3
This course is required of all Graduate Student Instructors teaching language courses in the Scandinavian Department. Language GSIs also enroll in Karen Moller’s Scandinavian 300B, section 1, language teaching practicum, for 1 unit. Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.
Prerequisite: Employment as graduate student instructor in the Department of Scandinavian.
Day/Time TBA, Remote. Instructor: Kate Heslop
Units: 3
This course is required of all Graduate Student Instructors teaching Reading & Composition courses in the Scandinavian Department. Reading and Composition GSIs also enroll in Prof. Heslop’s Scandinavian 300B, Section 2 course for 1 unit.
Course to be repeated for credit each semester of employment as graduate student instructor. The purpose of this course is to introduce new GSIs to teaching Scandinavian R5A and R5B. It will focus on preparation of teaching materials, including syllabi, and discussion of questions of pedagogy (teaching literature and writing, lecturing, leading class discussions, designing writing assignments, grading and formulating responses to student papers, working with students individually and in small groups). The course will help you prepare for a career as a college teacher of literature and for the teaching component of job applications. Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.
Prerequisite: Employment as graduate student instructor in the Department of Scandinavian.