Program News
The Nordic Program now has 28 minors! Dr. Ursula Lindqvist, who is responsible for Swedish Language instruction, reports that enrollments are up again this year, with 21 enrolled students and three senior auditors in first-year Swedish, and 9 enrolled students and five senior auditors in second-year Swedish.
Considering that the Nordic Studies Program no longer requires language study for the minor, we are quite pleased with these numbers, and that we have recruited four more minors out of the language courses. In addition, average weekly attendance at FIKA, an informal coffee hour which brings together learners of Swedish, Norwegian and Danish with speakers of those languages, has been 8-9 people. It is nice to see people from the campus and Boulder Communities attending FIKA as well as our students.
The FIKA meets 3-4 p.m. Wednesdays at Vic’s Café in the ATLAS building (near the Euclid Parking garage). KOM OCH FIKA!
Full-time Instructor:
The Nordic Program is thrilled to announce that Dr. Helga Luthers is now a full-time Instructor of Nordic Studies. See additional information regarding Dr. Luthers under Faculty News.
Nordic Club News
The Nordic Club has been very active and busy this year. Executives Camilla Ferdinandsen Dye, Jenny Bloom, and Chris Childress have been working hard to organize major events for the fall and spring terms. The club’s popular Yulefest will be held on December 3rd in the UMC. As in the past, this will feature traditional (and easy!) dances around the Christmas tree, a visit from St. Lucia and her procession, talks on Nordic holiday traditions by Nordic Program faculty, and lots of music and good food.
The Nordic Club has sponsored several afternoons of the lawn game kubb, which some claim dates from Viking times. Today it is played in Sweden and elsewhere. The intrepid Viking kubb players met on several Friday afternoons during fall semester to test their skill at throwing sticks and, not incidentally, humiliating their opponents. Their game was made more challenging by the fact that all the sticks used to knock down the kubb (wooden pegs) varied in weight and somewhat in length. The kubb also were of different sizes. The players included high school students, current undergraduates, graduate students, recent graduates and even one Ph.D.
Concentrate! Knock down the opponents’ kubb without knocking over the king/queen in the middle which results in instant defeat.
Click here for additional pictures.
Nordic Film Series
Nordic Film Series is mostly concentrating on contemporary films this academic year, such as Sunsanne Bier’s After the Wedding, and Ulf Malmros’s Slim Susie (2003). We had a very special event in November as Dr. Ellen Rees visited us from the University of Oregon at Eugene. Dr. Rees gave a talk on the Norwegian New Wave in Cinema on November 25th, coinciding with the NFS’s screenings of two Norwegian films, Elling (Petter Næss, 2001) on November 14, and Insomnia (Erik Skjoldbjærg, 1997) on November 28. The Nordic Film Series ran every Wednesday evening in Fall 2007, days and times TBA for Spring, 2008. All screenings are free and open to the public
For a full list of films, please visit our website at: http://www.colorado.edu/germslav/nordic/sfs.htm.
Summer Program in Reykjavík, Iceland
Helga Luthers is excited to announce that the Study Abroad Advisory Council has accepted her proposal for a Study Abroad Program in Reykjavík, Iceland. Helga will be taking a group of 10-15 students to Iceland to study Icelandic and Nordic culture from July 20 to August 8 this coming summer. In addition to traditional coursework, students will be visiting deCODE Genetics, a global leader in gene discovery; Bessastaðir, the residence of the President; and the Film in Iceland Foundation, to list but a few scheduled excursions. The proposed course, SCAN 3201: Contemporary Nordic Society and Culture, is currently being considered for the core requirement of Contemporary Societies. Watch for additional information coming out soon from the Study Abroad Department.