SAS2B – Scandinavian literature in the 20 th Century – Syllabus Spring 2013 Course instructor: Øyvind Wiik Halvorsen E-mail: [email protected]
The following titles are for sale at the university bookstore, Studia.
Novels: Knut Hamsun: Growth of the Soil (1917) Sigrid Undset: Kristin Lavransdaughter , vol. 1. The Bridal Wreath (1920) Pär Lagerkvist: The Dwarf (1944) Tarjei Vesaas: The Birds (1957) Peter Høeg: Borderliners (1993) Dag Solstad: Shyness and Dignity (1994) Per Petterson Out Stealing Horses (2003) Sofi Oksanen: Purge (2008)
Plays: Jon Fosse: And We’ll Never Be Parted (1994)
Poems: Selection of poems (will be handed out before the lecture) by Rolf Jacobsen, Johannes V. Jensen, Tomas Tranströmer, Pär Lagerkvist, Tarjei Vesaas, Gunnar Eklöf, Edith Södergren, Olav H. Hauge, Gunvor Hofmo, Jan Erik Vold
Short stories: Kjell Askildsen: “Thomas F’s Last Notes to the Public” (1982) (will be handed out before the lecture)
Theory and Secondary Materiel: Otto Reinert. 1999. "Unfashionable Kristin Lavransdatter" in Scandinavian Studies , vol. 71, no. 1
Christine Hamm. 2006. "The Maiden and the Knight: Gender, Body and Melodrama in Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter, in Scandinavica , vol. 45, no. 1.
1 Robert Donald Spector. 1973. "The First Novel: Dvärgen" in Pär Lagerkvist , Twayne Publishers, New York.
Hans Erik Møller. 1997. “Peter Høeg and The Sense of Writing” in Scandinavian Studies , vol. 69, no. 1.
Monika Zagar. 2000. "Modernism and Aesthetic Dictatorship: Dag Solstad's Journey from the Sixties to the Seventies" in Scandinavian Studies , vol. 72, no. 2.
Sarah Cameron Sunde. 2007. "Silence and Space? The New Drama of Jon Fosse" in PAJ – A Journal of Performing Art , vol. 29, no.3.
William Mishler. 1993. "Norwegian Literature 1910-1950" in A History of Norwegian Literature , ed. Harald S. Naess, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London.
There will be made copies of the articles available for you. All of the articles are also available at the University library or you may find them electronic through the library’s home page. I also want to stress that the list of secondary material is a temporary one and there will probably be changes and/or additions throughout the semester (articles on Hamsun, Petterson, Askildsen).
Exam: There will be a final exam consisting of two parts: A 7-day take home exam (an essay on a given topic, no more than 12 pages) and an oral exam (that covers the entire course material). The exams will be based as much on the lectures as on the primary and secondary texts. Check with the student advisor in our institute for information about the final exam. Remember to sign up for the exam early in the semester.
Time schedule:
16.01. Introduction to the course and overview of the period (Bjørby)
23.01. Hamsun: Growth of the Soil
30.01. Selection of poems by Södergren, Eklöf, Jacobsen, Jensen, Lagerkvist, discussion
06.02. Undset: Kristin Lavransdaughter
2 13.02. Lagerkvist: The Dwarf
20.02. Vesaas: The Birds , a selection of poems and short story by Askildsen will be handed out
06.03. Selection of poems by Vesaas, Hauge, Tranströmer, Hofmo, Askildsen: “Thomas F’s Last Notes to the Public”
13.03. Solstad: Shyness and Dignity
20.03. Fosse: And We’ll Never Be Parted
03.04. Høeg: Borderliners
10.04. Petterson: Out Stealing Horses
17.04. Oksanen: Purge
24.04. Summing up, students’ choice
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