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Menacing Environments

Ecohorror in Contemporary Nordic Cinema

By Benjamin Bigelow

Analyzes a film genre's confrontation of a regional identity

Known for their progressive environmental policies and nature-loving citizens, Nordic countries also produce what may seem a counterintuitive film genre: ecohorror, where distinctions between humans and nature...

The Swedish Theory of Love

Individualism and Social Trust in Modern Sweden

By Henrik Berggren and Lars Trägårdh. Translated by Stephen Donovan

In 2020 Sweden's response to COVID-19 drew renewed attention to the Nordic nation in a way that put the finger on a seeming paradox. Long celebrated for its commitment to social solidarity, Sweden suddenly emerged...

Christian Krohg's Naturalism

By Øystein Sjåstad

The definitive English-language account of a singular Nordic artist

The Norwegian painter, novelist, and social critic Christian Krohg (1852–1925) is best known for creating highly political paintings of workers, prostitutes, and Skagen fishermen of the 1880s...

Sámi Media and Indigenous Agency in the Arctic North

By Coppélie Cocq and Thomas A. DuBois

Digital media–GIFs, films, TED Talks, tweets, and more–have become integral to daily life and, unsurprisingly, to Indigenous people’s strategies for addressing the historical and ongoing effects of colonization. In Sámi Media and Indigenous Agency in...

Fascism and Modernist Literature in Norway

By Dean Krouk

Fascism and Modernist Literature in Norway illuminates the connections between literature and politics in interwar Europe. Focusing on the works of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Knut Hamsun and modernist poets Asmund Sveen and Rolf Jacobsen, all...

Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia

Fiction, Film and Social Change

By Andrew Nestingen

Scandinavian popular novels and films have flourished in the last thirty years. In Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia, Andrew Nestingen argues that the growth and visibility of popular culture have been at the heart of...

Sacred to the Touch

Nordic and Baltic Religious Wood Carving

By Thomas A. DuBois

With near-mythical forests of birch and pine, the Nordic and Baltic countries boast a rich tradition of religious wood carving that is in many ways emblematic of their cultures. Sacred to the Touch examines the...

The Power of Song

Nonviolent National Culture in the Baltic Singing Revolution

By Guntis Smidchens

The Power of Song shows how the people of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania confronted a military superpower and achieved independence in the Baltic “Singing Revolution.” When attacked by Soviet soldiers in public displays of violent...

Church Resistance to Nazism in Norway, 1940-1945

By Arne Hassing

Church Resistance to Nazism in Norway, 1940-1945 examines the evolution of the Lutheran state Church of Norway in response to the German occupation. While German Protestant churches generally accepted Nazism and state incorporation, Norway’s churches...

Knut Hamsun

The Dark Side of Literary Brilliance (New Directions in Scandinavian Studies)

By Monika Žagar

Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920, Knut Hamsun (1859–1952) was a towering figure of Norwegian letters. He was also a Nazi sympathizer and supporter of the German occupation of Norway during the Second...

Nordic Exposures

Scandinavian Identities in Classical Hollywood Cinema

By Arne Lunde

Nordic Exposures explores how Scandinavian whiteness and ethnicity functioned in classical Hollywood cinema between and during the two world wars. Scandinavian identities could seem mutable and constructed at moments, while at other times they were...

Icons of Danish Modernity

Georg Brandes and Asta Nielsen

By Julie K. Allen

Julie Allen utilizes the lives and friendship of the Danish literary critic George Brandes (1842-1927) and the silent film star Asta Nielsen (1881-1972) to explore questions of culture and national identity in early twentieth-century Denmark....

Danish Folktales, Legends, and Other Stories

By Timothy R. Tangherlini, Timothy R. Tangherlini

Danish Folktales, Legends, and Other Stories is a collection of translated and annotated Nordic folklore that presents full repertoires of five storytellers along with extensive archival material. The printed book presents some of the most...

Small States in International Relations

By Christine Ingebritsen, Iver Neumann, Sieglinde Gstöhl, Jessica Beyer

Smaller nations have a special place in the international system, with a striking capacity to defy the expectations of most observers and many prominent theories of international relations. This volume of classic essays highlights the...

The Not-Quite Child

Colonial Histories, Racialization, and Swedish Exceptionalism

By Liina-Ly Roos

Examines Swedish depictions of childhood that expose the country's colonial past and racial hierarchies

Figures like Pippi Longstocking and Greta Thunberg exemplify an ideal mainstream Swedish childhood: they are autonomous, competent, and the voices of moral...

Munch's Ibsen

A Painter's Visions of a Playwright

By Joan Templeton

Drawing on printed and archival sources, including Munch's extensive unpublished writings, Munch's Ibsen provides a comprehensive account of the connection between the two great Norwegian modernists. Situating the interlocking careers of Edvard Munch and Henrik...

Selected Plays of Marcus Thrane

By Terje I. Leiren

One of the earliest ethnic theaters in America was the Norwegian Theater of Marcus Thrane, established in Chicago in September 1866. Many of the plays presented by the theater were written by Thrane, a radical...