Scandinavian Studies UW-Madison

Looking for a fun Friday night activity? Come enjoy the Foot-Notes and the ScandAm Jam bands TONIGHT as they play you a lively mix of Scandinavian-American tunes for dance. Never danced to that type of music before? Fear not! There will be plenty of helpful dancers to get you in the groove. This event is held at an actual barn, so bring clothes that will keep you comfortable in the weather.
This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided!!!

As part of our 150th anniversary year of celebration, we’re excited to welcome Dr. Natalie Van Deusen back to Madison! Dr. Van Deusen will be presenting “Reading Disability in Old Norse Literature” on Thursday, October 9, from 4:00pm–5:00pm in 1418 Van Hise. See you all there!!

Your new fall reads? 👀
Congratulations to Dr. Liina-Ly Roos and Dr. Claus Elholm Andersen on the publication of their latest books (in English and Danish)! Their research would make perfect additions to your fall reading list—don’t miss them!

Members of our unit were able to attend FinnFest 2025 this year in Duluth, MN! FinnFest is a unique international event, providing a meeting place for people of various backgrounds, intrigued by and connected to the Nordic cultures.

Pictured are various folk artists working in communities working throughout Wisconsin and Minnesota who our department partner with through the Sustaining Scandinavian Folk Arts in the Upper Midwest project.
Read the captions of each picture to see what types of activities happened this year :)

1: Taylor Johnson (Cashton, WI) (L) and Alan Anderson (Baraboo, WI) (R) talking about stropping tools at FinnFest 2025 booths.
2: Mary Erickson (Mt. Iron, MN) displays one of her himmeli works at FinnFest 2025 booths.
3: Karen Keenan (Duluth, MN) (R) discusses hair jewelry with FinnFest attendees at FinnFest 2025 booths.
4: Taylor Johnson carving acanthus carving on a kubbestol at FinnFest 2025 booth.
5: (L to R) Mary Erickson, Alan Anderson, Taylor Johnson, Karen Keenan pose in front of FinnFest banner.

📷: Jason Schroeder

Last week members of our department attended and presented at the Crossings and Connections Conference in Northfield MN. This event commemorated the 200th anniversary of organized Norwegian migration to the US🇳🇴 Heia!

Congratulations to our Spring 2025 graduates from the Nordic unit! You’ve worked hard and reached an incredible milestone. As you head into your next chapter, take your Nordic languages, cultures, and curiosity with you. Best wishes!

As the semester wraps up, please join us for another event celebrating 150 years of Scandinavian Studies on campus. Professor Susan Brantly will be discussing her work helping navigate the literary and artistic connections between Denmark, the Netherlands, and France of a Van Gogh painting purchased for a dollar at a garage sale in Minnetonka, Minnesota! The event is free and open to the public and we hope to see you all there!

Hej Facebook friends! The Nordic unit has started an instagram page where unit news, fun events, and other Nordic content will be posted on a regular basis. For those of you who don’t use instagram, don’t worry—we’ll continue to post here as well!

"Every year since 1989, a hotel built out of snow and ice is constructed anew, and welcomes guests in the Swedish village of Jukkasjärvi. This year’s edition, Icehotel 34, recently opened, displaying new themes for its rooms and many new ice sculptures. Icehotel is both an art exhibition and a functional hotel—and this year features more than a dozen art suites, a main hall, and a ceremony hall. Gathered below are photographs of this year’s version, and of several incarnations from previous years."

A Photo Visit to Sweden’s Icehotel Images of recent versions of Sweden’s annual Icehotel—part art exhibit, part hotel

"You can still find traces of Nordic history in the trails and trees of tiny Washington Island, Wisconsin. And take a dip while you’re there — if you dare."

A Speck of Old Iceland in Ice-Cold Lake Michigan You can still find traces of Nordic history in the trails and trees of tiny Washington Island, Wis. And take a dip while you’re there — if you dare.

We’re excited to announce that Swedish musicians Maja Heurling, Ola Sandström, and Livet Nord will be visiting campus during the first week of October. Along with a few class visits, they’ll be performing Irrbloss: Songs from the Poetry of Signe Aurell on Tuesday, October 4, at 6:00pm at Tripp Commons in Memorial Union. The performance is free and open to the public: https://folklife.wisc.edu/event/signe-aurell-irrbloss/

Signe Aurell was a Swedish woman who came to the United States in 1913, worked as a laundress and seamstress, joined the Industrial Workers of the World, and wrote poetry and essays—including her self-published poetry collection, Irrbloss (Will-o’-the-Wisp)—during her seven years living in Minnesota.

Musicians Maja Heurling and Ola Sandström collaborated to set music to a selection of poems from Irrbloss, blending folk stylings and the Swedish visa tradition together to amplify the importance and continued relevance of Aurell’s words. In doing so, the group has employed the Swedish visa tradition to interpret not just Aurell’s poetry, but also the migration histories of the over one million Swedes who came to the United States.

The performances will feature songs based on the poetry of Aurell, as well as stories from her life in both Sweden and the United States.

"By 1952, Svalbard’s walruses were nearly gone, due to more than 300 years of ivory hunting. So the Norwegian government banned commercial hunting of these endangered creatures, and they began to rebound. In 2006, there were 2,629 walruses in Svalbard. The latest study, in 2018, put that number at 5,503. It’s now common to see clusters of these social animals sunning by the water’s edge. They fill the air with their cacophony of vocalizations, like friends chatting and singing late into the night."

A Welcome Comeback for Norway's Walruses A hunting ban has fostered the return of a nearly extinct species