DEPARTMENT OF SCANDINAVIAN

UC BERKELEY

SPRING 1999 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

 


Scandinavian 1B (4 units)

K. Møller Irving, Instructor-in-Charge

Elementary Swedish

Three hours of language instruction per week. Students continue to develop the basic elements of communicative competence in both spoken and written language within a cultural context.

Workload: two-three hours of homework and preparation outside of class per week plus one hour of individual work in the Berkeley Media Center. Oral and written midterm and finalexam.

Texts: Vägen till Sverige B

Prerequisite: 1A or permission by instructor


Scandinavian 2B (4 units)

Sirpa Tuomainen

Elementary Finnish

Three hours of language instruction per week.. Students continue to develop the basic elements of communicative competence in both the spoken and written language within a cultural context.

Workload: two-three hours of homework and preparation outside of class per week plus one hour of individual work with audio tapes. Oral and written midterm and final exam.

Texts: Elämän suolaa 1 - Suomen kielen alkieta, 2nd ed.

Prerequisite: 2A or permission by instructor


Scandinavian 3B (4units)

Karen Møller Irving, Instructor-in-Charge

Elementary Norwegian

Three hours of language instruction per week. Students continue to develop the basic elements of communicative competence in both spoken and written language within a cultural context.

Workload: two-three hours of homework andpreparation outside of class per week plus one hour of individual work in the Berkeley Media Center. Oral and written midterm and final exam.

Text: Bo i Norge

Prerequisite: 3A or permission by instructor


Scandinavian 4B (4 units)

Karen Møller Irving, Instructor-in-Charge

Elementary Danish

Three hours of language instruction per week. Students continue to develop the basic elements of communicative competence in both spoken and written language within a cultural context.

Workload: two-three hours of homework and preparation outside of class per week plus one hour of individual work in the Berkeley Media Center. Oral and written midterm and final exam.

Texts: Mere dansk

Prerequisites: 4A or permission by instructor


Scandinavian 5A (4 units)

Sonia Wichmann and Elisabeth Oxfeldt

Love, Desire and Marriage in Modern Scandinavia

 

READING AND COMPOSITION COURSE

In this reading and composition course, students will develop a repertoire of approaches to analyzing, discussing, and writing about literary texts. We will work with with a variety of texts (short stories, plays, short novels, poetry), from four Nordic countries. We will investigate how these 19th and 20th century texts reflect society's manipulation of love and desire through the institution of marriage as well as through other gender aligned traditions. Throughout the course, our main focus will be on the multifaceted writing process. Students will turn in faive papers (3-5 pages) and in addition, will consistently work to improve their writing skills by doing in-class exercises and peer reviews, substantially revising drafts, and discussing their ideas with each other.

Texts:

C.J.L. Almquist, Sara Videbeck

Tarjei Vesaas, The Birds

Torborg Nedreaas, Nothing Grows by Moonlight

Henrik Ibsen, The Lady of the Sea

Peter Hoeg, The Woman and the Ape

In Reader:

Hans Christian Andersen, "The Little Mermaid"

Knut Hamsun, "The Queen of Saba"

Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen, "The Ring"

August Strindberg, selections from "Getting Married"

Edith Sodergran, poems from "Love and Solitude"

Raija Siekkinen, short story from "How Love is Born"

The shorter of these texts will be available in a course reader. The novels and a writing book will be available at the ASUC.

 

Prerequisites: Completion of the Subject A requirement.


Scandinavian 5B (4 units)

The Staff

Reading and Composition Course: Topic TB

 

TENTATIVE COURSE, SPRING 1999

Watch this space for upcoming description with texts!

 

Prerequisites: Completion of the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement.


Scandinavian 75 (4 units)

Carol Clover

Scandinavian Culture and Society

The subject of this course is the distinctive culture of Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland). We won't attempt a full history of all four countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland), but will instead focus on some major figures and historical moments. There will be segments on the Viking Age (readings to include mythology and sagas), immigration, folklore, nineteenth-century letters (H.C. Andersen, Kierkegaard, Ibsen, Strindberg), film (from the Golden Age of silent cinema to Ingmar Bergman), art and design, and modern political and social issues. The course will feature guest lecturers from a variety of departments (including Scandinavian, History, Geography, and Film).

Texts:

Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

The Vinland Sagas

Njal's Saga

The Saga Of Gisli

Icelandic sagas

Norse mythology

Søren Kierkegaard, Diary Of A Seducer

Tales by H.C. Andersen

Vilhelm Moberg, The Emigrants

Ibsen, Four Major Plays: A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, and Master Builder

Strindberg, Miss Julie, The Stronger, and Ghost Sonata

Norwegian folk tales

Tales by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)

texts on modern Swedish culture

Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Lantern

 

Films will include:

Dreyer, Joan Of Arc

Bergman, Persona

Early film: Phantom Chariot, Sir Arne's Treasure,

The Abyss

Slide presentations:

Scandinavian architecture

Edvard Munch

Prerequisites: None. Readings and course in English.


Scandinavian 100B (4 units)

Karen Møller Irving /Staff

Scandinavian Languages and Linguistics

Advanced language classes (formerly Scandinavian 101, 103 and 104) will meet on Tuesdays as one class of 100B for a lecture in which linguistic and cultural issues, text analysis, reading, writing and grammar will be covered, and on Thursdays each language group will meet separately with a GSI for a discussion session. Thursdays will give the students intensive speaking practice. The material covered on Tuesdays will be used as the basis for group work, pair work, presentations, and discussion in the student's target language (Danish, Norwegian or Swedish) on Thursdays. Students will also be expected to work one hour a week independently in the computer lab. The format for the class on Tuesdays will be group oriented and much work will be in selected groups based on their common language. A focus in this course will be on the use of Scandinavian languages outside Scandinavia. Group presentations will be based on production of a video and interviews with members of the local language communities. Course requirements also include a midterm and a final exam.

Texts: Reader

Prerequisite: 100A or permission by instructor.


Scandinavian 102 ( 4 units)

Sirpa Tuomainen

Advanced Finnish

Students will focus on acquiring communicative competence necessary to function in authentic situations of language use in terms of grammatical, functional and sociolinguistic skills. Students will read and interpret literary and non-literary texts from a cultural perspective.

Students will prepare a presentation (oral with handouts, etc.) on a topic of their choice.

Workload: 2-3 hours of homework and preparation outside of class. Oraland written midterm and final exam.

 

Texts: Y. Lauranto, Elämän Suolaa 2 - suomen kielen alkieta, 2nd Ed.

Prerequisite: Scandinavian 12 or permission of instructor.


Scandinavian C107 (4 units)

Mark Sandberg

"Ibsen and Realism"

This course is cross-listed with Dramatic Art C107.

In this course we take the dramas of Henrik Ibsen as the site of investigation for theoretical and historical issues of realistic drama and performance. Although the course will follow a fairly straightforward chronological reading of Ibsen's major prose plays, we will also pursue issues of dramatic theory more or less related to the particular primary texts we read each week. The overarching concern of class lectures and discussions is the idea of realism as a mode of writing, display, and performance, as well as the gradual unraveling of realism's aesthetic paradoxes in Ibsen's later work.

Course requirements include:

1) preparation for and participation in class discussions

2) a 4-page dramaturgical analysis of a scene from an Ibsen play,performance, or film

3) a written proposal for the final paper or project

4) either an interpretive paper (6-8 pp) OR a final project (such as a set design, director's notes, or an acted scene from one of the Ibsen plays PLUS a written essay (4 pp.) giving an informed account of your artistic choices.

5) Everyone will also take an essay-style final exam.

Texts:

Ibsen, Henrik, Peer Gynt, Trans. Rolf Fjelde

Ibsen, Henrik, The Complete Major Prose Plays, Trans. Rolf Fjelde

McFarlane, James, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Ibsen

+ Course reader


Scandinavian 127 (4 units)

Karen Møller Irving

Scandinavia from 1520-1800

 

This course presents the cultural, historical and political development of the Scandinavian countries starting with the dissolution of the Nordic Kalmar Union and the event of the Reformation. We then follow the history of the two kingdoms of Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland until Sweden's loss of Finland to Russia and Denmark's loss of Norway to Sweden. The course will examine the emerging organization of the State, follow the changing borders through the Great Wars of the 1600s and the Enlightenment until the Old Order is changed at the turn of the 19th century.

Texts: Derry, The History of Scandinavia

Xeroxed Reader

Prerequisites: None. All texts and lectures in English.


Scandinavian 149 (1 unit)

Staff

Major Studies

One hour of discussion per week

Workload: Students attend lectures and do all written work in the "main " course, and also read assignments in the Scandinavian languages and write a short paper.

Additional work, for majors in Scandinavian and other qualified students with permission of the instructor, in connection with one of the following: Scandinavian 107, 108, 115, 116, 117, 120, 165.

Prerequisites: Knowledge of a Scandinavian language.


Scandinavian 150 (4 units)

Karin Sanders

Scandinavian Literature: "Word & Image"

This course is cross-listed with ISF 100C.

How do we see? How do we read? This course is designed to sharpen our skills in understanding what happens when the world of images and words meet. Starting with works from the "classical" tradition we will proceed to investigate how word/image constellations operate in a variety of media, including sculpture and poetry, painting and prose, illuminated manuscripts, death masks and diaries, photography, silent movies and advertizing. Readings and visuals will include works by H.C. Andersen, Bertel Thorvaldsen, August Strindberg, Edward Munch.

Texts:

W.J.T. Mitchell, Picture Theory

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida

Michel Foucault, This is Not a Pipe

Alain Robbe-Grillet, Rene Magrite: La Belle Captive, A Novel

On reserve at Moffitt:

James Heffernan, The Museum of Words

Murray Krieger, Ekphrasis

 

Prerequisites: None.


Scandinavian 165 (4 units)

John Lindow

Scandinavian Folklore

The course is intended as an introduction to the major genres of Scandinavian folklore, focusing where possible on their use in context. The emphasis is on oral narrative traditions/legends, folktales, ballads. Legends are studied first and most intensively, since they offer insights into the concerns and beliefs that appear in the other narrative genres. Materials were largely collected in rural areas during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but some attention is given to contemporary lore. Although the course has no prerequisites, and all required readings are in English, a knowledge of Scandinavian culture and/or folklore theory will be helpful.

Lectures and discussion centers primarily on the understanding and interpretation of the primary sources.

Texts:

Peter Christian Asbørnsen and Jørgen Moe, Norwegian Folktales

Reidar Th. Christiansen, Folktales of Norway

Reimund Kvideland and Henning K. Sehmsdorf, Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend

John Lindow, Swedish Legends and Folktales

Sven H. Rossel, Scandinavian Ballads, Wisconsin Introductions to Scandinavia, 2


Scandinavian 202 (4 units)

John Lindow

Medieval Scandinavian Literature: "Folklore and Philology"

This seminar offers a consideration of the relationship(s) between philological research, the dominant paradigm of scholarship from the Grimms onward, and folklore research, especially in its formative stages in northern Europe. Focus on the works of, among others, Kaarle Krohn, Axel Olrik, C.W. von Sydow, and Dag Strömbäck. Reading knowledge of the Scandinavian languages and/or German useful but not required.

Texts: TBA


Scandinavian 235 (4 units)

Karin Sanders

Scandinavian Romanticism

This course will explore the relationship between literature and the visual arts (sculpture, painting, theater) in nineteenth-century Scandinavia. We will start by examining the ways in which neoclassical elements permeated romantic images and narratives from the onset of the century. This will lead to more specific investigations into the nature of Romanticism as it is played out in Scandinavia. How was it influenced by German Romanticism? How does Realism and Romanticism intermingle?

 

Texts: to be placed on reserve in the Scandinavian Library.


Scandinavian 249 (1 unit)

Staff

Graduate Studies

Workload: One hour of discussion per week. Additional work in connection with one of the following courses: Scandinavian 107, 108, 115, 116, 117, 120, 123, 125, 160, 165. Students attend lectures and do all written work in the"main course," and also read assignments in the Scandinavian languages, and write a paper. Course may be repeated for credit.

Prerequisites: Graduate standing in Scandinavian.


Scandinavian 250 (4 units)

Mark Sandberg

Nationalism and 19th-century Scandinavia

This seminar takes as its area of investigation the idea of nationalism in the literature, culture, art, and language of nineteenth-century Scandinavia. We will devote time on the one hand to theoretical reading about nationalism, representation, and narration in recent works of cultural criticism, and on the other to examining the most prominent Scandinavian cultural expressions of nationalism in the nineteenth century (such as various collecting projects, National Romantic literature and drama, art, and linguistics). There will be a general focus on Norway, due to the centrality of that country's nation-building project to Scandinavian models of nationalism, but the seminar will be pan-Scandinavian in scope.

Readings will be in English, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. One seminar paper and a seminar presentation of research are required.


Scandinavian 300B (1 unit)

Karen Møller Irving

Methods of Teaching Scandinavian Languages

The Scandinavian 300B course is the second part of the department's pedagogical training series. The course will focus on a videotaped feedback session and individual consultations. The pedagogical development aspect of the videotaped session is based on a pre-taping meeting in which goals for the taping will be discussed, the taping itself, a viewing and a post-meeting to clarify the learning experiences. Besides this aspect of 300B, meetings will be held to discuss actual problems and issues as they arise in the classroom throughout the semester. The course may be repeated for credit.


 

Scandinavian Homepage

last update11/12/98 K. Brosnan, kbrosnan@socrates.berkeley.edu