Scandinavian Studies

The course explores different aspects of Danish culture such as literature, mythology, history, film, music, architecture, painting, the welfare state, and national identity. The course is a unique combination of lectures and excursions, which includes trips to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and Frederiksborg Castle. NOTE: This version of the course (50 B) is worth 6 quarter units and requires a 10-page paper.

This course provides a survey of Danish design, focusing foremost on the post-war era (1945-1960s). It concentrates on a design tradition world renowned for, amongst other things, high-quality craftsmanship, functionality, humanism, contextualism, simplicity, comprehensiveness, and creative continuity between tradition and renewal. Design is never merely a question of beautiful forms and surfaces, and therefore this course purposefully explores below the surface. It examines wider issues of ethics and aesthetics as exemplified in designs for the Welfare State. The course presents in-depth examinations into a diversity of design fields and design culture movements in order to reveal the essential considerations and contexts shaping some of Denmark’s most successful post-war designs. Material designs ranging in scale “from the spoon to the city,” as well as immaterial designs, are probed and discussed in relation to their socio-cultural, political, economic, and technical contexts. It critically questions the given topics through such lenses as design as common good, shattering the familiar, women in Danish design, and decolonizing design history. Furthermore, field studies to significant local sites afford opportunities to challenge experiential blindness and deepen place-based learning. Zooming in on Danish design of the past, including its roles in shaping the Welfare State, this course explores the meanings and purposes of design, and the ways design can enrich everyday life. Focusing on Danish design of the past is also significant to shed new light on understandings of contemporary societal issues and design’s roles in relation to these, and help transform comprehensions of how sustainable and equitable futures may be envisioned and constituted.  

This is the five ECTS unit version of Introduction to Norwegian that takes place both online and in class. This is an introductory Norwegian language course for international students taught in English; though both Norwegian and English language is used in class. The students follow a MOOC online course (Introduction to Norwegian) for four weeks, and then four meetings are held on campus. In addition to getting an introduction to Norwegian language, the students become familiar with the student life and everyday life at UiO. After taking this course students are able to express themselves comprehensively on familiar topics, both written and oral; understand oral Norwegian about familiar topics when the interlocutor speaks clearly and slowly; understand written Norwegian about familiar topics; master Norwegian morphology and syntax reviewed during the course; and master basic Norwegian pronunciation reviewed on the course. 

This course provides basic knowledge of social work in Sweden. The goal is to enhance theoretical and practical knowledge of social work in Sweden and highlight the different types of actors and contexts where social work operates (public, private, and voluntary sector). The course focuses on Swedish social work, but also embraces the students' prior knowledge and experiences of social work in different environments. In the first part of the course, students map their conception of social work in Sweden followed by a theoretical introduction to welfare and social work in Swedish society from a historical perspective to the present situation, including current changes. Legal aspects of the society and social work are highlighted. In the second part of the course, the focus is on practical social work. Students are introduced to different perspectives of social work through field studies and discussions with professional social workers and service users who represent different organizations and authorities.

This course examines the tumultuous period of history known as the Viking Age (793 – 1066) from Vínland in the West to the Caspian Sea in the East. It traces the stories of Viking raiders and settlers in Christian Europe, the Islamic Caliphate, and the New World by interrogating a number of English-translated sources, including the Old Icelandic sagas, the writings of Latin chroniclers and Arabic geographers, and art and material culture. The course investigates what it meant to be a Viking; whether it was a lifestyle or an ethnic identity; whether Vikings were bloodthirsty marauders, well-armed businessmen, or hipsters with a snazzy sense of style, as they appear in some modern reconstructions; and how the people who spread across the islands of the North Atlantic lived in their daily lives. Finally, the course examines the enduring attraction and impact of the three centuries of chaos and expansion that emanated from Scandinavia during the Viking Age.