SASS 2024 : Seattle

SASS 2024 : Seattle

May 9-11, 2024

Hosted by the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington

#sass 2024

Seattle

Dates

May 9-11, 2024

DEADLINES
Call for Streams | Due Sept. 1, 2023
Call for Papers | Due Dec. 1, 2023
Registration | Early-bird pricing available until March 31

Book your group rate for SASS 2024 SEATTLE

Host

Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington

Venue(s)

Renaissance Seattle Hotel 

National Nordic Museum 

University of Washington

Accommodations

Renaissance Seattle Hotel

SASS room rates available May 7-12, 2024. Contact the hotel directly at (206) 583-0300 to extend your stay. 

Single $179 | Double $179

Book now!

Getting to the Hotel

There are several ways to get to the hotel from the airport. 

Note: Your destination is the Renaissance Seattle Hotel, 515 Madison St

The info below is a brief overview. For detailed information including links to maps, instructions, and payment options, visit: https://www.portseattle.org/sea-tac/ground-transportation

LIGHT RAIL:

Take the No. 1 line towards Northgate and get off at the University Street Station. From there you will walk about .5 miles to the hotel. 

How to get from the University St station to the Renaissance Seattle Hotel

For more detailed info and directions to the SEA Light Rail station, visit: https://www.portseattle.org/page/public-transit-link-light-rail

Enter the hotel address (515 Madison St) into Sound trip Planner for step-by-step guidance: https://www.soundtransit.org/tripplanner

Download the TransitGoTicket app on Google Play or the Apple App Store to pay your fare online.

https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/fares-and-payment/ways-to-pay/transit-go-ticket

TAXI

Taxi stands at SEA are located on the 3rd floor of the parking garage. Follow the signs in the airport or visit this link for an interactive map of the airport: https://www.portseattle.org/sea-tac/maps

APP BASED RIDESHARE

Lyft, UberX and UbeerPool are also located on the third floor of the parking garage. UberBlack can pick up passengers the passenger designated baggage-claim door. Find more information here: https://www.portseattle.org/sea-tac/ground-transportation/app-based-rideshare

OTHER

Information about other transit options (bus, rental car, and shared-ride vans) can be found here: https://www.portseattle.org/sea-tac/ground-transportation

2024 Presidential Theme

MOVEMENT

Our world seems to be ever more kinetic, in motion, changing unstable. Thousands of images move in front of our eyes daily on our mobile devices. We are on the move with local and global travel, and populations are on the move. The twenty-first century has seen the greatest phase of migration in history. Global capitalism is comprised by the unceasing movement of currency and investment instruments. Yet while movement may be more salient in the twenty-first century, movements over time have also given shape to our world and our field, whether diasporic populations whose literary works came to be studied in far-flung universities, or, archives and museums that have collected and relocated artifacts from afar. To consider such historical movements points to another important meaning of movement. Movement may also be strategic, as people gather in solidarity through social movements, seeking to advance their goals: the feminist movement, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement. The theme of movement is also fitting for the 2024 meeting because of the meeting’s collaboration with the National Nordic Museum in Seattle. The museum’s collection and archives are constituted by the movement of people and objects. By conceptualizing movement as the conference theme, we can see the extent to which what we assume to be fixed, stable, and unmoving, can also be seen again in relation to movement.  As the philosopher Thomas Nail wryly observes, “All that was solid melted into the air some time ago and is now in circulation worldwide, like dandelion seeds adrift on turbulent winds” (2022).

The theme of movement points toward ideas for a variety of streams: 

  • Language in motion
  • Archives and Museums
  • Travel writing
  • Literary movements
  • Political movements
  • LGBTQ movements
  • Digital media
  • Migration
  • Diaspora
  • Philosophies of movement
  • Aesthetics and movement
 

Streams

Thematic Streams at SASS 2024

Every year, the organizers solicit stream proposals from the SASS membership. These streams reflect the year’s Presidential Theme, as well as the work being done by scholars across the SASS community. Streams provide an opportunity for members to seek out others working on similar topics and to connect with new scholars in their fields. Streams can also enable more in depth understanding, sustained conversation, and collaboration with colleagues. The organizers encourage you to review this year’s streams outlined on the pages below and to consider submitting your abstract to one of them.. As always, there is also a general paper pool. If you do not see a stream that compliments your research, feel free to submit to the general pool. Stream organizers will review submissions, and if your submission is not chosen for their stream, it will be considered for the general paper pool. 

If there is a stream you would like to see at a future conference, please consider volunteering to be a stream organizer and submitting a proposal. You can expect a call for streams to come out in late July or early August of every year, with instructions about how to reach that year’s planning committee.

In his 2003 work, Living Pictures, Missing People, Mark Sandberg proposes a new genealogy of Nordic cinema with a particularly intimate relationship to material cultures. Because of the relatively late modernization of Nordic countries, he argues, recording technologies of modernity like film and photography, which promised new fantasies of mobility, flourished alongside a particularly material “effigy culture,” which included museum display, mannequins, performance practices, and the preservation of historical buildings. This material culture emphasized the authenticity of physical objects sought to safeguard a historical past perceived as rapidly disappearing. In recognition of the twenty year anniversary of Living Pictures, Missing People, this stream invites papers that reflect on the impact and provocations of Sandberg’s interdisciplinary monograph on a wide range of fields and scholarship within and in conversation with the Nordic Region. How has discourse and thinking changed in the 20 years since publication? What persons might be included in this consideration of missing persons? 

Papers and panels might engage with a renewed examination of Sandberg’s underlying claim, that Nordic Cinema emerges from and reflects particular investments in materiality, by reframing it in terms of intermediality, questions of race, nation, ethics, genre, or desire. Comparative papers that engage contexts outside of the Nordic region are wholeheartedly welcomed. Potential papers might consider Sandberg’s work from various perspectives, including: 

  • Cinema Studies
  • Museum Studies
  • Performance Studies
  • Tourism Studies
  • Archive Studies
  • Media Studies
  • Ecocritical Studies

Chairs: Amanda Doxtater (doxtater@uw.edu), Maxine Savage, and Christopher Oscarson

 

Fairy tales and folktales remain as popular as ever. They have long played an essential role in Scandinavian folklore, cultures, literatures, languages, and pedagogies and have been pivotal in the field of Scandinavian Studies. But what is the status of the study of fairy tales today? What does the decolonization of the canon, inclusion of indigenous voices, and the challenges to Eurocentrism look like in contemporary scholarship on fairy tales and folktales? And how does the current scholarship reflect the historical and material circumstances of the societies in which the fairy tales were produced?

In this stream, we seek to showcase current scholarship on folk- and fairy tales in Scandinavian Studies. We want to explore the significance of folk- and fairy tales in Scandinavian literatures and cultures by offering a comprehensive multidisciplinary exploration. As such, we invite papers that investigate folk- and fairy tales through historical, social, literary, linguistic, compactional, and folkloristic perspectives. We welcome and invite papers that delve into the complexities of indigenous voices, the impact of colonialism, and the potential for inclusive DEIJA approaches to Scandinavian folk- and fairy tales.

Chairs: Claus Elholm Andersen (ceandersen2@wisc.edu), Tim Tangherlini, and Ann-Kathrine Havemose

 

This stream welcomes papers and panels that apply computational methods to nineteenth-century cultural production in Scandinavia, including but not limited to literary works. We would like to shed new light on authors, characters, and literary devices, as well as affects, concepts, and ideas “on the move” throughout the period. Questions of interest include delimitations of genres, periods, and other critical categories, network analyses, measurements of change over time, and discussion of relevant methodologies. We especially welcome presentations that explore:

  • The intersection between traditional and digital methodologies
  • The uses and abuses of statistical methods
  • Machine learning and AI
  • Broader theoretical reflections on the status of computational humanities research
  • The specific challenges and benefits of working within the Scandinavian context

We hope and expect that the sessions within the stream will provide fertile ground for exchange of knowledge on nineteenth century developments as well as for inspiration and discussion across diverse research groups and across more or less digital work, large and small, real and imagined.

Chairs: Ellen Rees (ellen.rees@iln.uio.no), Jens Bjerring-Hansen, Anders Skare Malvik

In line with the presidential conference theme of “Movement,” this stream invites papers on Nordic settler experiences in North America during any time period. We seek papers that challenge traditional migration histories in the Nordic countries in which Nordics have typically been viewed in isolation from the broader American settler colonial context due to a presumed exceptional benevolence. We are particularly interested in projects that understand Nordic immigrants as settler colonists who establish themselves as the rightful inhabitants of the land through Indigenous dispossession and displacement, exploitative labor practices, depletion of natural resources, and/or the exercise of white privilege. This stream engages increasing scholarly and public interest in histories of colonialism in the Nordic countries and the role of these histories in shaping Nordic identities, past and present. Scholars have examined Nordic participation in the global slave trade, settler colonialism in Sámi lands, and various forms of collaboration by Nordic individuals and groups with other European empires. We would like this stream to contribute Nordic settler histories in North America as a shared Nordic phenomenon to this growing body of scholarship. Papers may address the settler colonial histories, logics, and representations of one or several Nordic countries or territories (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Faroe Islands, Greenland [Denmark] and Åland [Finland]). 

Some questions to guidestream submissions:

  • How do Nordic settler experiences relate to, represent, and shape the processes of land-claiming and land-use? And the processes of claiming and commodifying natural resources? 
  • How was the Nordic settler experience racialized?
  • What role did the construction and maintenance of white subjectivity and whiteness play in settler colonial logics and practices?
  • How did the Nordics build and situate themselves in racial hierarchies in relation to other European settlers, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Indigenous peoples?
  • How do Nordic settler experiences shed light on the entanglements of Native and African American histories?
  • What gender ideologies are at work in Nordic settler colonial projects? 
  • What kinds of material cultures and cultural productions were established, formulated and given meaning in relation to Nordic settler experiences?
  • How do the legacies of Nordic experiences in North American settler colonialism reverberate in the present, both in the Nordic countries and in North America?

Chair: Lucia Hodgson (lucia.hodgson.extern@lnu.se)

A formalized Nordic art music tradition began to flourish with a delay of approximately one hundred years compared to the mainland Europe countries, arguably due to the topography of the Nordic countries. Nordic composers responded to the idiomatic qualities of their languages incomparable to the other musical movements who similarly assimilated the vernacular of folk traditions. Both this initial delay, and subsequent present abundance of composition, tie unquestionably into each Nordic language, dominated by the rhythmic sonorities associated with their national oral literary traditions. During the late 20th century, there was a new so-called movement nicknamed the homogenous “Nordic Sound”, constituting a conglomerate singular sound that dominated the Nordic compositional landscape. As this “Nordic Sound” has continued into the present day, how does it continue to influence the realms of both contemporary art and popular genres?

The stream of “The Shifting Evolution of Nordic Music” welcomes papers, lecture recitals, or full recitals that could include the following themes: interdisciplinary studies within Nordic music, the influence of migration on Nordic Performance Practice, the significance of Nordic music festivals on composition, Nordic LGBTQIA+ compositional trends, the relationship between contemporary Nordic Humor and Art Music, compositional trends that are being contemporarily reflected within the Nordic nations, composer or Poet profiles and their relationship to “Nordic Sound.” The following composers have significant anniversaries this year, and could be given particular consideration:

  • Christoph Ernst Friedrich Weyse (1774-1842)
  • David Monrad Johansen (1888-1974)
  • Oskar Merikanto (1868–1924)
  • Knudåge Riisager (1897–1974)
  • Kurt Magnus Atterberg (1887-1974)
  • Páll Ísólfsson (1893–1974)
  • Hans Christian Lumbye (1810–1774)
  • Else Marie Pade (1924-2016)

This is also a significant year for the art songs of Ture Rangström (1884-1947).

The stream especially encourages composers, musicologists, and performers of Nordic Music to submit to this stream. If proposing a lecture-recital or full-recital, please detail the compositions, the performers, and the performers biographies.

Chair: Colin Levin (colinlevin@gmail.com) 

Debates around the topic of motherhood have become increasingly common in the Nordic countries during the past decade. A general fascination with mothers is visible in contemporary media debates, literary fiction, social media, and academic research. We see a tendency to problematize common understandings and myths surrounding motherhood, for example through research and public discussions about maternal regret and the choice to remain childfree. Simultaneously, or perhaps as a reaction to this, the tradwife movement praises conservative ideals of motherhood while dressing their children in the earth-colored linen clothes of an imagined, glorified past. Many influencers are making a career out of presenting themselves as conventionally good mothers online. At the same time, Nordic mothers in the workforce can still count on being paid less than their male peers for the rest of their working lives. Motherhood can also be a position of political ethos, as we have seen with the climate action group Mothers* Rebellion, active in Norway, Sweden and Finland. How can we understand these conflicts and trends? 

For this session, we invite proposals that examine the topic of Nordic motherhood. We welcome perspectives from a multitude of disciplinary fields. In what ways is the topic of motherhood represented, discussed, problematized and idealized in Nordic literature, art, media, policy, law, education, health care, commerce and politics? Topics can include but are not limited to: 

  • Motherhood as identity and experience
  • Maternal ambivalence and regret
  • Motherhood and migration
  • LGBTQ+ and single mothers
  • Non-motherhood and in/voluntary childlessness
  • Surrogacy and adoption
  • Postpartum depression
  • Abortion
  • Breastfeeding
  • Momfluencers and motherhood as business
  • The “motherhood penalty” and the gender pay gap
  • Motherhood and activism
  • Motherhood in far-right movements
  • Historical perspectives on Nordic motherhood

Chairs: Daniela Lillhannus (daniela.lillhannus@littvet.uu.se) and Jenny Björklund

Specialized fields like Nordic Studies, or even Finnish Studies, Swedish Studies, and their lesser-taught languages require constant teaching innovation to create and maintain student interest and institutional backing in our respective colleges and universities. While the teaching of language has in the past received fairly consistent professional attention at SASS, the teaching of all levels of culture, literature, and history courses in the Nordic context has not. Proceeding from the assumption that we have successes and date from experimental projects to share with each other that can strengthen the field of Nordic studies, this stream proposal invites attention to pedagogical strategies that have worked in a variety of contexts for instructors in our field. This includes papers on pedagogy in Nordic language courses, papers that address course and curriculum design in the other research areas of Nordic Studies, as well as papers on the paradigm shift from specific language and culture focus to more pan-Nordic approaches. 

This stream imagines a benefit from considering the following together in a comparative context:

  • New pedagogical strategies for different levels of language instruction
  • Teaching topics in language and society
  • Hybrid instruction in advanced language and literature/culture classes
  • Designing and teaching large gateway general education courses designed to fulfill university requirements and stimulate new student interest in the field
  • Teaching anchor courses for majors in the face of declining numbers
  • New approaches to the graduate seminar, especially including strategies for teaching pan-Nordic materials
  • Colonial studies and racio-linguistic approaches to Nordic languages and culture
  • Several kinds of contribution to this stream are welcome:
  • Papers that describe the course design and results for a specific course
  • Papers that engage with pedagogy research about the teaching of content courses
  • Papers discussing the changing landscapes of colonial studies in the Nordic context, reframing the underpinnings of Nordic studies in North America
  • Comparative teaching strategies in North America and the Nordic countries
  • Innovative teaching strategies within or across courses

Chairs: Anu Muhonen (anu.muhonen@utoronto.ca), Lotta Weckström

All proposed papers relevant to Ibsen studies will be considered for the Annual Ibsen Society of America (ISA) panel at SASS. The ISA panel aims to support the field of Ibsen studies by showcasing cutting edge research on Ibsen from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. Proposals for sharing new research on Ibsen and “movement,” as well as proposals guided by other themes and approaches, are welcome. Within Ibsen studies, “movement” could refer to manifestations of Ibsen on global and local stages, the dynamics of theatrical practices, adaptation, the sociopolitics and history of drama and performance, and more. Papers in Ibsen studies not selected will be considered for other relevant streams and panels at SASS.

Conference Hotel

ROOMS AT THE SASS RATE ARE SOLD OUT

There are still rooms available at the conference hotel’s standard rate.

Book a room at the standard rate HERE

Renaissance Seattle Hotel

515 Madison Street Seattle, Washington 98104

SASS Rate rooms are SOLD OUT

Register Now

Early-Bird Registration Available Until March 31:

Standard Registration: $300

Student Registration: $100

https://app.glueup.com/event/84713/register/

 

Late registration after March 31:

Standard Registration (after March 31): $350

Student Registration (after March 31): $150

https://app.glueup.com/event/84713/register/

 

Optional Add-Ons available until April 15:

Dambo Troll Tour: $20

SAHS Lunchtime Lecture (Includes lunch and transportation): $50

Indigenous Tour of Campus: suggested donation $5

https://app.glueup.com/event/84713/register/

Submit an Abstract - CLOSED

Call for Papers - CLOSED

SASS 2024 will take place in Seattle, Washington at the Renaissance Seattle hotel, hosted by the University of Washington from May 9-11th. The presidential theme of this SASS meeting is movement.

This theme speaks to ‘movements’ as both contemporary and historical, strategic and reactionary as well as physical and ideological. The theme of movement invites us to examine the extent to which concepts that we assume to be fixed, stable, and unmoving may in fact be kinetic, malleable, and in motion. Past and present cultural, literary and political movements also shape our field, whether the so-called Scandinavian diaspora, pan-Scandinavianism, the Modern Breakthrough, or the collection and relocation of “Nordic” artifacts by archives and museums. SASS 2024 will be held in collaboration with the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, whose collections are constituted by the ongoing movement of people and objects. 

The organizing committee encourages submissions that explore the significance of movement in Nordic culture, film, history, language, and/or literature. Other topics and approaches are also welcome.

Please submit paper or pre-constituted panel proposals according to the instructions at the link below either to the general pool or to a thematic stream by December 1st. Specific questions concerning streams should be directed to Stream Chairs. You will be informed of your paper or panel acceptance by February 15.

Call for Streams - CLOSED

Deadline: September 1, 2023

In anticipation of the general call for papers for the 112th Annual Meeting of the Society of the Advancement of Scandinavian Study in Seattle at the Renaissance Seattle Hotel on May 9-11th 2024, the conference program committee encourages proposals for thematic streams, roundtables, organized panels, or methodological workshops. The committee is also open to proposals of other session formats for collaborative work. For organizational reasons, plan all activities for 90-minute slots.

Session examples may include:

  • Pre-constituted panel: An organized panel consisting of three to four thematically linked papers. 

  • Workshop: A workshop consisting of up to four presenters introducing and discussing a methodology, skill, or question.

  • Roundtable discussion: A roundtable discussion consisting of up to five presenters in informal conversation on a specific topic.

  • Thematic stream: A thematic stream consisting of a series of panels, tied together by a common topic, offered sequentially within the overall conference framework. Streams provide a greater degree of cohesion than might occur in a single conference panel and have for many participants provided a more sustainable and satisfactory conference experience. They are well suited for finding international colleagues working on similar topics, and for working towards a joint publication (Scandinavian Studies and others). The list of thematic streams will be published together with the general call for papers on October 1, 2023, at which point the stream chair(s) can aid the program committee in recruiting, reviewing, and organizing the stream.

All proposals must include an abstract of 200-300 words and the name of the chair(s). In the case of organized panels, roundtable discussions, and workshops, the abstract should also include the names of all proposed presenters. The chair(s) will be responsible for the internal organization and communication with all presenters, as well as for communication with the program committee. 

The program committee encourages proposals related to the overall conference theme, “Movement” (see https://scandinavianstudy.org/annual-meeting/sass-2024-seattle/), but welcomes all proposals from the broad field of Scandinavian Studies. 

Please send the proposal to sass2024@scandinavianstudy.org no later than September 1, 2023. Email any questions to the SASS program committee at the same address. Approved streams, workshops, panels, and roundtables will be communicated to chairs and published on October 1, 2023, on the conference website.