Scandinavian Culture 7,5 ECTS

Course Objectives

The students will as a result of the course be expected to:

• Recognize, distinguish and summarize aspects of Swedish culture

• Critically judge aspects of Swedish culture in their historical context

• Show an understanding of the most important current issues in contemporary Swedish society and be able to describe how these are reflected in popular culture

• Outline aspects of social engineering concerning gender, ethnicity and concepts of national identity

Scandinavian Culture

Three themes:

• Nation and nationbuilding• Culture, Heritage and History• Swedishness and Swedish Multiculturalism

Ethnology

• We will study culture from different perspctives.

Empirical and theoretical perspctives

The concept of culture

• High Culture

Sophisticated artistic products within art, literature, music, dance, theatre etc.

• Representative Culture

Specialization of high culture, self representation, directed towards others

Museums, exhibitions

• Folk culture

Customs, traditions, dances, food, music, art

• Popular culture

Distinguished (normatively) from high culture. Culture for everyone to consume and enjoyMedia, film, literature, art etc

• The anthropological concept of culture

A scientific concept used to describe and understand rules, norms, values, habits etc of everyday life

Culture in an anthropological sense

Shared and learned

What we do but seldom speek of

• We will handle scandinavian culture in all these aspects

Shedule Spring 2012Week 3 - 5How Sweden became Swedish? Building a nation and national identity

19/1 9.15 -12.00Introduction - Building a nation – symbols, genres, social cohesion

25/1 9.15 – 12.00“How Sweden became Swedish”Folkhemmet: The welfare state takes place, modernity, Swedish social engineering

1/2 9.15- 12.00Welfare institutions: The national project in Swedish Schools and childrens culture

V6-8Culture, Heritage and History

8/2 9.15-12.00 Ethnology, The study of culture, people, everyday life, habits and culture: Swedish Familylife

15/2 9.15-12.00Cultural Hertitage, the invention of traditions, authenticity, the production of Swedish culture.

24/2 ALL DAY Excursion to Lund (optional) guided tour through the university district and Kulturen

V9-12”Swedish” Multiculturalism

29/2 9.15-12.00Sweden in a global world. From “Folkhem” to a multicultural society. A history of Migration

7/3 9.15 -12.00Diversity – gender, ethnicity, age. What does it mean being “Swedish”?

14/3 9.15-12.00Self-images and representation in contemporary popular culture. Film screening.

23/3 End of term. Paper to be handed in via e-mail.

How Sweden became Swedish?

• Nation

• What is a nation?

State

• Constitution• Territory• Citizens• Law • Gouvernment• Rights and duties

Nation

One people, shared culture and shared language

The nation – common roots and history

As nation states we are similar

• National artefacts – national anthem, flag

As national cultures we are different

• The specific national history

• A history of heroes, tradgedies, comedies, freedom…

Imagined communities

• Theory and concepts

By Benedict Anderson

Three paradoxes of nationalism

1. The objective modernity of nations to the historian´s eye vs. Their subjective antiquity in the eyes of nationalists.

2. The formal universiality of nationality as a socio-cultural concept – in the modern world everyone can, should will ”have” a nationality, as he or she ”has´” a gender – vs. The irremediable particularity of its concrete manifestations, such that, by definition, ”Greek” nationality is sui generis.

3. The ”political” power of nationalisms vs. Their philosophical poverty and even incoherence. In other words, unlike most other –isms, nationalism has never produced its own grand thinkers.

It would make things easier if one treated nationalism as if it belonged with ”kinship” and religion” rather than with ”liberalism or ”fascism”

Benedicts definition of nation:

• It is an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign

Imagined

• Members will never know, meet/hear of most of their fellow members, yet in the minds of each lives the imagination of their communion.

Imagined as Limited

• The nation has finite, if elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other nations.

Imagined as Sovereign

• The concept was born in an age in which Enlightment and revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely ordained, hierarchial dynastic realm.

Imagined as Community

• Regardless of the actual inequality and exploatation that may prevail in each, the nation is always concieved as a deep, horizontal comeradeship.

• Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries for som many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings.

• Imagined does not mean false, rather creativity

• Nationalism a strong homogenisizing force, emotional and obvious

• Beloning, community and heritage

Next time:How to build a Nation

We will talk about the Swedish national project, both the history of Sweden and the active creation of unit, community and Swedish identity.

Special features:• National Romanticism• Folkhem and Functionalism• Social Engineering

This is Sweden• 1996

• Presentationhttp://www.google.se/search?tbm=isch&hl=sv&source=hp&biw=1680&bih=853&q=Sverige&gbv=2&oq=Sverige&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=4219l5594l0l10390l7l7l0l2l2l0l172l516l2.3l5l0

• Symbols• Genre (what kind of ”story” self image)• Music• People (what kind of persons)• Values

When we unite within a ”we” we use different kinds of doing. For example we use artefacts as symbols of different kinds. Everyone in the we-group knows these symbols. Sometimes they are secret to outsiders, sometimes they are known to everyone. They are often restricted in the right of use. You may use part of the time to go out of the room or building to find symbols that you think are useful to define a special ”we”. Other ways of defining a ”we” and its belonging/exclusion is through the construction of the groups history or the rules to which the member have to abide.

Your task is to define different ”we”. • We (national identity)• We (your profession)• We men/women• We old Young• We European, African, Asian etc• Or any other we

Discuss: What marks the ”we”? What is not compatible with the ”we”? Is it possible to describe a ”we” without a ”them”? In what respect can a member of the ”we” break rules? Who can break rules?

Prepare a summary of your discussion to be presented to the other participants.