Department of Scandinavian Studies The University of Wisconsin-Madison Scandinavian Studies Department Newsletter FALL 2009 VOLUME XII, ISSUE I A Message from the Chair, Kirsten Wolf As this newsletter is being put together, faculty, staff, and students are busy wrapping up the fall semester. Our annual gløgg party on December 17th will mark the end of instruction. With forty undergraduate majors in the Department and no fewer than twenty-two graduate students, it has been a busy year for fac- ulty and staff, and we look forward to toasts and good cheer. The fall semester has been both joyous and sad. We have had the pleasure of including among our faculty Visiting Fulbright Professor Kirsten Thisted from the Department of Minority Studies at the University of Copenhagen, who has taught a highly successful course on Greenland: Past, Present, and Future. We Inside this issue: have thoroughly enjoyed having Kirsten as a colleague. The Department has also been very fortunate to receive not only a generous Department mourns 2 award from the Barbro Osher Foundation to support the Department's interna- Niels Ingwersen tional language floor Norden, but also a grant from the Seattle-based Scan|Design Foundation to support the teaching of Danish-related courses. The Visiting Professor 3 grant from Scan|Design will enable the Department to fund the teaching of a new literature course on Danish and Scandinavian science and crime fiction Kirsten Thisted (Criminal Utopias) during the spring of 2010 and 2011. We are most grateful for the two awards and also for many other gifts and donations, which are vital to Memories of the Depart- 4 helping the Department take advantage of special opportunities. ment by Harald Naess At the same time, the Department mourns the loss of Emeritus Professor Niels Faculty/Staff Bios 5 Ingwersen, who retired from the University in 2004. Niels was one of the pillars of the Department for close to half a century, and his service to the Department and the University was exemplary. Niels was a legendary teacher and an ener- Grad Student Bios 7 getic, innovative, reliable, and enthusiastic colleague, when ideas had to be started and implemented, students had to be advised, and committees had to be Report from Student in 8 staffed. Niels was a prodigy of devotion to his profession, to his students and Bø colleagues, and to the University's mission. Scan | Design Grant 9 Language as Homeland Symposium Department Picnic 9 February 13, 2010, 9 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Pyle Center New Courses for Spring 10 Linguists have estimated that fully half of the some six thousand languages currently 2010 spoken on our planet will be extinct by the end of the next century. In spite of this depressing statistic, however, some communities are bucking the trend, choosing to retain or even regain a language in the face of major pressures to abandon it. In the free public symposium “Language as Homeland,” faculty from the University of Wisconsin will join with specialists from elsewhere in the US and Norway to explore the reasons and workings of language maintenance in contemporary indigenous and ethnic communities. Why do communities choose to retain a native language? What challenges do they face in doing so? What roles do governments play in facilitating or foiling these efforts? Speakers at the symposium are drawn from the UW’s Scan- dinavian Studies, American Indian Studies, Folklore Studies, Jewish Studies, Linguis- tics, Language Institute, and Max Kade Institute for German American Studies. (Continued on page 6) Page 2 VOLUME XII, ISSUE I Department mourns the loss of Emeritus Professor Niels Ingwersen was on narrative folklore. In 2009, The Nordic Storyteller: Essays in Honor of Niels If I had to somehow reduce almost a dec- Ingwersen was published in Cambridge, ade of experiences to a mere capsule sum- England. For his promotion of Danish mary, I would doubtless return to the literature and culture in the United States, summer of 2004, when I was preparing Niels was knighted on February 7, 1997, for a year of study in Copenhagen. As is with the Order of the Dannebrog, by so often the case in such matters, bureau- Queen Margrethe II’s representative. The cratic snags had held up my admission to Order, established in 1671, honors Dan- the University until the last minute, and ish citizens who have contributed to arts, the housing office had informed me that NIELS INGWERSEN sciences, and commerce. After his retire- the prospects of acquiring a desirable MAY 18, 1935 – NOVEMBER 14, ment in 2003, Niels and Faith began room at such a late date were grim. 2009 spending long summers outside Sheridan, Niels Ingwersen, age 74 passed away on where Faith had lived during her child- I was therefore rather taken aback when, Saturday, November 14, 2009, in the hood on her family’s ranch. The open only a week or so later, I received an en- HospiceCare Center in Fitchburg, Wis- skies and Western landscape held a spe- tirely unsolicited letter of invitation from consin. Niels was born on May 18, cial place in Niels’s heart. Confirming his Regensen, the oldest and the most hide- 1935, in Horsens, Denmark, to Hans belief in participatory democracy, Niels bound of the four original university resi- Henrik and Karen (Bach) Ingwersen. became a United States citizen and cast dence halls, located in the old Latin Quar- He studied Scandinavian literature at his first presidential vote in the 2008 elec- ter in the very heart of the city. I had the University of Copenhagen, Stock- tion. Niels is survived by his wife, Faith, never really considered the possibility of holm University, and the University of in Madison; his brother, Jørn; nephew, the old kollegier; as far as I knew they were Oslo, where he met an American stu- Thomas; niece Bianca; and grand reserved for only the very top Danish dent from Wyoming, Faith Boswell nephew, Magnus, in Denmark; as well as students and required a long and involved Sloniger, who was to be the love of his his sister-in-law, nieces and nephews in application process. life. Faith and Niels were married in Colorado and Oregon, and countless Tybjerg, Denmark in 1961. Together friends on both sides of the Atlantic. Things became even more curious when, they moved to the United States to Memorials may be gifted to the UW upon my arrival, I was installed in what I study at the University of Chicago, then Foundation’s “Faith and Niels Ingwersen would later learn to be the very same to Madison, Wisconsin, where Niels Fund,” US Bank Lockbox 78807, Mil- room (above the Krystalgade gate facing was appointed to the Scandinavian waukee, WI 53278. The Fund supports in towards the courtyard) in which Niels Studies faculty at the University of Wis- the Department of Scandinavian Studies had lived from 1955 until 1959. Not sur- consin in 1965. For almost forty years, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. prisingly, it did not at all take long for me Niels was a key faculty member at UW- A memorial service will be held Saturday, to push my suspicions into the back of my Madison, serving several times as chair December 5, 2009 at 1:30 PM at First mind; I was, after all, now a Regensen of Scandinavian Studies and Folklore as Unitarian Society, 900 University Bay indflytter , and despite my relatively ad- well as teaching thousands of students. Drive, Madison, WI 53705. vanced age, there was some serious fun to He also served as visiting professor at be had. the Universities of Odense and Aarhus Remembering Niels, a story by Ph.D. in Denmark and at UCLA. Niels won Candidate William Banks: I did not hear from Niels again until the several teaching awards for his popular end of October, when he sent me the courses on Scandinavian literature. A By the time I finally began my study here following message: multimedia version of his class on Hans at Wisconsin at the age of 31, it is rea- Christian Andersen had a record enroll- sonable to say that I had developed an When you are in the læsesal next time, ment of over 800 students and was one understanding of graduate school that, in please look at the bust of Hostrup; and if of the first to be offered through the all of its romantic grandeur, bordered on there is a small silver plaque on that University of Wisconsin Extension on the absurd. That I had the opportunity to bust—below his neck I assume—please public television. Niels was the author study under the tutelage of Niels Ing- let me know what it says. of several scholarly works on Danish wersen would, in spite of the loftiness of literature. In addition, he co-authored my expectations, insure that I would in The poet and playwright J.C. Hostrup, of two works with his wife, Faith, on Mar- no way be disappointed; indeed, I can say course, had been one of Regensen’s many tin A. Hansen and Martin Andersen in all honesty that matters have turned famous sons back in the mid-19th century; Nexø. His last book, released in 2008, out even better than I ever could have more importantly for us, his bust in the hoped. (Continued on page 6) Page 3 VOLUME XII, ISSUE I Visiting Fulbright Professor Kirsten Thisted This semester, the Department is fortu- This task was not so easily achieved, as nate to have Visiting Fulbright Professor most literature from Greenland is not avail- Kirsten Thisted. Kirsten Thisted comes able in translation, so Kirsten had to learn Area: 2,166,086 sq km (410,449 sq km ice- from the University of Copenhagen, Greenlandic before she could begin her free, 1,755,637 sq km ice-covered) where she is a member studies.