scand503

Smidchens Thread

Please post here questions and comments about the two essays Guntis Smidchens has assigned for our meeting on Thursday 10/13.

Hjort Thread

Please post comments and questions about Hjort's book Small Nation, Global Cinema in preparation for our discussion this afternoon, and her talk tomorrow. Please note the time and location change. We'll begin our discussion at 4:30 PM in the Burke Cafe today, Tuesday.

Mette Hjort Reading

In today's excellent presentations, one of the questions that I posed to a number of you was: "What's your object of analysis," that is, "What are you studying?" A related question is methodological: "What is your methodology?" or, "How are you studying it?" While these are entry-level questions, they come back to haunt a researcher if he or she has not come to terms with them adequately. I raise them again to suggest that we begin our discussion of Hjort's book, Small Nation, Global Cinema, with these questions. I'll also bring a clip from one of the films she discusses, probably I am Dina, as an aid to our discussions of her book. In the meanwhile, you might use the blog as a place to begin discussing these questions. Or, if you have questions about Hjort's book that are bothering you as you read, I would encourage you to raise them on the blog.

Presentations

During our first meeting last week, we discussed tomorrow's presentations. So I won't revisit that discussion. I'm writing to remind you of a few things about the presentations, and invite you to raise any questions that might have crossed your mind as you've prepared your presentation.

Please keep in mind the time limit for each presentation. With nine people in the class, and one-hundred-ten minutes of class time, everyone will have ten minutes devoted to their presentation. That'll leave us a cushion, time for a brief break, and time for a wrap-up at the end of the meeting. You may use the entire ten minutes, but you might consider using five, or fewer, minutes. Giving a short, concise presentation would leave you more time for questions and suggestions. The questions and suggestions will help you define more clearly your research interest, and ways of beginning to pursue it.

Please remember to prepare a presentation handout for other students in the class. The handout should provide a guide to your presentation. If you discuss bibliography, it should give selected bibliographic information. The handout should help your audience focus on the key questions and points in your presentation.

Practically, please consider if you'd like to be one of the first presenters, and send me an email or post a comment to the blog. Otherwise, we'll go around the room.

Finally, I wanted to invite you to raise any questions you might have had in preparing your presentation. I'd encourage you to post them to the blog. Others will respond, and their comments might help you answer your question. I'll also respond with my suggestions, too.

Welcome to SCAND 503. We've all met, and everyone has piled several intruductory lectures in other classes on top of last week's orientations. There's no need for further formalities. We can go right to the issue, which is our field, Scandinavian studies. Discussing Scandinavian studies, as it takes place through SCAND 503 is the purpose of this blog.

As I'm the only one that has access to posting new threads on the blog, I'll have to start discussion threads. I'll do so for each reading. My aim will be to begin a thread as early as possible, so that you can turn to the course blog for commentary and questions as you're reading. I encourage you to post questions, comments, criticisms, arguments, and suggestions for further reading. These will appear in the comments section for each thread. You should be able to monitor the arrival of new comments by noting an increase in the number of comments in a thread, which is posted at its foot. I believe that by participating in writing and reading these posts, you will think through what we're reading more fully. Doing so will also challenge you to consider your others points of view in the course. The more discussion we can generate, the more rewarding the course will be.

Since our first reading for the course is Mette Hjort's book, "Small Nation, Global Cinema," I'll begin with a post about her book tomorrow.

Welcome to Scand 503! I look forward to the quarter with you.