History of Nordic Cultures 3002-HKOS2CE1

Course topics and key issues:

1. Northern cultural landscapes.Definitions of the North. Scandinavian-type culture and the question of a Nordic cultural community.
2. The North in the intercultural mirror. Scandinavians in intercultural research. The history of Polish-Nordic relations. Nordic autostereotypes and cultural histories. Cultural differences within the Nordic region.
3. Nordic antiquities. The Vikings: social organisation, customs, and conquests. Old Norse religiosity. Mythology, runes, and sagas.
4. Around Scandinavian integration. The legacy of the Kalmar Union from the perspective of the longue durée. Scandinavism, the Nordic Council, and other Nordic structures. Norden and the Baltic world.
5. Nordic specificity in visual and popular culture. An introduction to Scandinavian art, design, and cinema. The Eurovision phenomenon in the Scandinavian countries.
6. The distinct territories of Norden: Greenland, Svalbard, the Faroe Islands, the Åland Islands, and Sápmi. Postcolonial critique in public debate and museum practice.
7. The role of imaginaries of peasant heritage in the construction of the national idea in Scandinavia. Beliefs, languages, architecture, and museum studies.
8. The origins and critique of the welfare-state model in Scandinavia. The “People’s Home”, the idea of equality, and children’s rights. Examples of Nordic children’s literature: Andersen’s fairy tales, The Children of Noisy Village, Pippi Longstocking, and the Moomins.
9. Scandinavians’ relationship with nature. Friluftsliv practices, the cultural history of the sauna, and “pristine nature” in the national branding of the Nordic countries.
10. The Polish “colonisation” of Scandinavia. Polish migration to the Nordic countries in the twenty-first century. The Icelandic case.

The detailed plan and rhythm of work on the topics listed above will be presented during the course.

Course coordinators

Włodzimierz Pessel

Type of course

obligatory courses

Mode

Classroom

Prerequisites (description)

Please note: the course is taught in Polish. The course is designed as an introduction to the cultures of the Nordic countries. No prior professional knowledge of the states, societies, or cultures of the Nordic region is required, nor is any knowledge of the region’s languages. Participants are likewise not expected to have any field experience, understood here as travel in Scandinavia.

Learning outcomes

I. Upon completing the course, students will have basic knowledge of the cultures of the Nordic region, including Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish cultures, and will understand the specificity of territories with special status, such as Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Sápmi, the extraterritorial homeland of the Sámi people. They will know the significance of the heritage of the pre-state, Viking period, with particular attention to mythology, religiosity, and literature of oral origin. They will have acquired key Scandinavian Studies terms, including philological terminology, as well as concepts from cultural studies and neighbouring social-science disciplines, such as sociology and political science, necessary for the study of the Scandinavian region.
II. Upon completing the course, students will be able to identify basic phenomena and processes in the field of Scandinavian cultural history, while also situating them in relation to the present. Having become familiar with the relevant literature, including the required readings, they will have acquired tools enabling them to understand, analyse, and interpret, from a cultural-studies perspective, texts of the cultures of the European North, to the extent that such interpretations take into account the broadest possible social, political, symbolic, and artistic contexts. Moreover, they will be aware of the conditions shaping the reception of Nordic cultural content in Polish culture, both in the past and in the present day.
III. Graduates of the course will be prepared to combine cultural-studies competences with those of Scandinavian Studies, and to continue expanding their knowledge of Nordic cultures and countries independently. They will demonstrate these skills in the coursework they prepare.

Assessment criteria

The basic requirement for passing the semester is attendance in class. Absences must be justified to the course instructor. Students are entitled to two justified or unjustified absences per semester. Students with between three and five absences in a semester are required to make them up in a form specified by the course instructor. Absence from more than five classes, even when justified, results in the student not being admitted to course credit. The only exception applies to students granted an Individual Organisation of Studies on the basis of an opinion issued by the Office for Persons with Disabilities, who may have an increased absence limit, though not exceeding 50 per cent.

The verification of learning outcomes is twofold. The final grade consists of:
* active participation in class, including demonstrated familiarity with the required readings made available in file form: 40%;
* a short final paper, approximately 4–5 pages of standard typescript, in the form of a problem-oriented review of a selected text of Scandinavian culture: 60%.

Explanation: a “problem-oriented review” should be understood as a presentation of a freely chosen material that takes into account the distinctive features of Scandinavian cultures or its connections with Scandinavian, especially contemporary, discourses and/or historical-cultural processes. Papers may concern films, literary works, musical or visual artworks, including museum objects.

When preparing the final paper, the use of artificial intelligence systems for proofreading and editing the text is prohibited. At the University of Warsaw, the use of artificial intelligence tools in coursework is regulated by § 3 and § 4 of Resolution No. 98 of the University Council for Education of 8 December 2023.

The estimated workload of course participants is as follows: participation in one semester of classes, 30 hours: 1 ECTS; regular preparation for classes: 1 ECTS; preparation for and participation in assessment: 1 ECTS. In total, the course is worth 3 ECTS, equivalent to 90 hours of work over the semester.

Bibliography

All required readings will be made available to course participants as PDF files via Google Classroom, in the “Materials” section, organised by topic and/or by the dates of individual class meetings. A detailed reading list will be shared with the group at the beginning of the semester.