LEARNING OUTCOMES

This course aims to introduce the students to a variety of aspects of the cultural and literary history of Nordic countries, while highlighting elements of uniformity and diversity among them and in relation to the rest of the European cultural world.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students will be able to critically deal with some concepts regarding the imagery about the North, its stereotypes and their deconstruction or questioning, drawing examples from a corpus of literary and extra-literary works. In addition to, they will acquire skills and tools to analyse literary texts linguistically and stylistically, working on the Swedish language,​and will be introduced to the main peculiarities of Danish and Norwegian, taking literary texts into account as well.

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TEACHING METHODS

54 hours of classroom activities, articulated in two weekly hours over 9 weeks (part one) in the first term (October to December) and three weekly hours over 12 weeks (parts two and three, each consisting of 18 hours) in the second term (February to May).

The whole course corresponds to 9 credits: students who need only 6 credits have to attend only two parts at their choice.

The course will have a markedly seminar character, therefore students are expected to contribute to analyses and discussions with their own remarks.

As regards the analysis of literary texts in Swedish, the observation of the authors’ stylistic features and linguistic strategies will be the starting point to formalize some concepts and methodologies of textual analysis and to show how the outcomes of the analysis can contribute to the interpretation of the text. This work will be introduced and initially lead by the teacher, but participants will be later asked to contribute with their own examination of assigned excerpts or even texts of their own choice (Swedish literary examples of the 20th or 21st century).

Further activities will be announced during the course. The course will be entirely held in Italian.

The course attendance is not compulsory, but highly recommended.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

PART ONE - August Strindberg's style: introduction to the analysis of literary texts in Swedish
Each author necessarily acts within a specific literary and cultural tradition, which exerts its influence both as a source of inspiration and as the context that hosts the author's innovative contributions. Critical reading of literary texts allows to point out and become aware of a writer’s features and strategies and to obtain useful (sometimes fundamental) information towards a more plausible interpretation of the text. In this part of the course, passages taken from literary works by August Strindberg (Röda Rummet; Taklagsöl) will be examined with and by students.

PART TWO - Images of the North, imagery about the North: between mythemes, borealism and northernness

This module offers an initial reflection on the stereotypes that are associated with the Northern countries, in particular from the Italian perspective, drawing examples from literature and cinema: which images have been successful or most frequent? What functions did they have? Have there been any attempts to deconstruct (some of) them? The participants, on the basis of the literary criticism indicated and inspired by the suggested examples, will be asked to enrich the research corpus and to discuss the dynamics, evolution and implications of such narratives on the North.

PART THREE – Introduction to Danish and Norwegian with analysis of literary texts
Scandinavian languages ​​show remarkable similarities, obviously due to the proximity of the respective cultural areas, but also (as regards Danish and Norwegian) to historical-political reasons and common literary tradition along some centuries. Basing our work on the degree of knowledge and skills in the Swedish language expected from third year students, we will examine some of the main phonetic, morphological, lexical and stylistic differences of Danish and Norwegian ​through the reading of some literary prose excerpts. In the case of Norwegian, the survey will be introduced by a reconstruction of the main cultural and political events (including the numerous linguistic reforms) in which the complex question of language was articulated between the late 19th and the early 20th century.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Storia delle letterature scandinave. Dalle origini a oggi, a cura di Massimo Ciaravolo, Milano, Iperborea 2019, pp. 589-940.

For PART ONE - Analyses of literary texts in Swedish:

August Strindberg, Röda Rummet, text available at www.litteraturbanken.se

A. Strindberg, La Sala Rossa, trad. di Attilio Veraldi, Milano, Rizzoli (1986) 2002

A. Strindberg, Taklagsöl, text available at www.litteraturbanken.se

A. Strindberg, La festa del coronamento, trad. di Franco Perrelli, Milano, Carbonio Editore 2022

For PART TWO - Images of the North:

Andrea Meregalli and Camilla Storskog (eds.), Bridges to Scandinavia, Milano, di/segni, Dipartimento di Lingue e letterature straniere, Università degli Studi di Milano 2016, pp. 141-155

Robert Zola Christensen (ed.), Rethinking Scandinavia. A collection of articles based on presentation held at the CSS Conference 2017 – (web proceedings), Lund, International web community for Scandinavian Studies 2018

Bruno Berni and Anna Wegener (eds.), Translating Scandinavia. Scandinavian Literature in Italian and German Translation, 1918-1945, Roma, Edizioni Quasar 2018, pp. 109-129

Frédérique Toudoire-Surlapierre et Alessandra Balloti (dir.), Nordiques n° 38 – Automne 2019. Le petit héros scandinave, Bibliothèque de Caen-Association Norden

Alessandra Ballotti, Claire McKeown, Frédérique Toudoire Surlapierre (dir.), De la nordicité au boréalisme, Reims, Presses Universitaires 2020

Jens Bjerring-Hansen, Torben Jelsbak, Anna Estera Mrozewicz (eds.), Scandinavian Exceptionalisms. Culture, Society, Discourse, Berlin, Nordeuropa-Institut der Humboldt Universität 2021

Further bibliography will be announced during the course.

For PART THREE - Introduction to Danish and Norwegian:

Anna Wegener, Inger-Marie Willert Bortignon, Luca Panieri, Grammatica danese. Fonetica, morfologia, sintassi ed esercizi, Milano, Hoepli 2013

Irene Burdese, Cathrine Rysst, Lær deg norsk! Corso di lingua norvegese, Milano, Hoepli 2015

All literary excerpts that will be examined in class will have been regularly uploaded on Aulaweb.

Students are expected to know the contents of the lessons, including all the texts which will be examined during the course, and will have to read eight works of contemporary Scandinavian literature (two for each country: Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland). These works may be read in any translation (or in Scandinavian languages, at students’ choice). In addition to, candidates who need 9 credits will have to read some tales or essays in Swedish and to be able to translate them (some passages will be chosen by the teacher during the exam) into Italian and summarize them in Swedish. In details:

- Astrid Lindgren, “Pippi flyttar in i Villa Villekulla” and “Pippi vill inte bli stor” (from Boken om Pippi Långstrump, 1952) or Birgitta Svanberg, “På barnets sida. Om Astrid Lindgren” (in Elisabeth Møller Jensen, Nordisk kvinnolitteraturhistoria 3, 1996, available at www.litteraturbanken.se) 

- Tove Jansson, “Vårvisan” or “Granen” (da Det osynliga barnet, 1962) or Ebba Witt-Brattström, “Motståndets utopi. Om Tove Jansson” (in Nordisk kvinnolitteraturhistoria 3)

Further critical bibliography will be given during the course. For details about the programme, the reading list and all the material for students who cannot attend the lessons, please contact the teacher at davide.finco@unige.it.

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