Scandinavian languages and literature

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/4963

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    The Norwegian male chorus movement in America: a study
    (1989) Knudsen, Alf Lunder, 1934-
    Despite the important role song and music have played in the Norwegian immigrant life in the United States since the 1860s, few documented studies about the Norwegian Male Chorus Movement exist. This dissertation, a cultural study, is an historical account of the chronological development of the Norwegian Singers' Movement in America. A discussion of its origin, the European context and its development in Norway, are found in the Introduction and Chapter One. The migration of the Movement to the United States and its development on the East Coast are discussed in Chapter Two, while Chapters Three and Four present the development in the Mid-West and on the West Coast, respectively.The ethnic Singing Societies in America offer a unique musical repertoire of which the Norwegian is still rooted in the National-Romantic period of the nineteenth century. Chapter Five juxtaposes the nineteenth century and the late twentieth century repertoires and examines the works of Norwegian and American composers and lyricists who have contributed to the movement.The Norwegian Male Choruses, contrary to the immigrant churches, have maintained use of the Norwegian language. Indications as discussed in Chapter Six, are however, that in the twenty-first century, they will face a struggle to maintain the language and keep alive the Norwegian Male Chorus tradition itself. Of the 378 choruses which have existed in the United States and Canada, twenty-five currently survive.
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    Mothering at millennium's end: family in 1990s Norwegian literature
    (2004) Gjellstad, Melissa L
    Contemporary Norwegian literature received the label of "family literature" at the end of the 1990s, and this study investigates that term as a contested generational marker within a selection of novels from the decade. The overwhelming presence of mothers in this literature underscores the mixed opinions on what it means to mother, and narrows the focuses from the broad emphasis on the family. Whether she speaks in her own voice or if others speak for her, the mother is the catalyst of the plot and mark for familial success or failure. This body of literature provides a strong literary response to the renegotiation of motherhood and the family occurring in society at the end of the millennium. It questions the idealization of motherhood by creating bad mothers that rebel against societal norms. This study offers feminist readings of the representations of the mother in novels by Roger Kurland, Trude Marstein, Anne Oterhohn, Tore Renberg, and Hanne Orstavik.The discourse surrounding this literature has been primarily concerned with the family, so this study begins with a historical look at the Norwegian literary milieu in the 1990s that anticipated and reacted to this emerging literature. The emphasis on the mother adds a distinctive component to the Norwegian discussions, and therefore requires placement within a larger context of feminist theory and feminist literary criticism to substantiate the inclusion of mothers into this literary conversation. The majority of these novels is beyond the nostalgia for the nuclear family and opposed to a universal image of perfect motherhood. However, this literature does not undermine the position of mother even though the mothers appear as childless, excessive, and absent. A feminist reading of this literature exposes the idealization of motherhood, and transforms the negative images into a challenge for the reader to renegotiate her or his own opinion of what it means to mother well.