Books in the New Directions in Scandinavian Studies series

Smaller nations have a special place in the international system, with a striking capacity to defy the expectations of most observers and many prominent theories of international relations. This volume of classic essays highlights the ability of small states to counter power with superior commitment, to rely on tightly knit domestic institutions with a shared "e;ideology of social partnership,"e; and to set agendas as "e;norm entrepreneurs."e; The volume is organized around themes such as how and why small states defy expectations of realist approaches to the study of power; the agenda-setting capacity of smaller powers in international society and in regional governance structures such as the European Union; and how small states and representatives from these societies play the role of norm entrepreneurs in world politics -- from the promotion of sustainable solutions to innovative humanitarian programs and policies..

Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920, Knut Hamsun (1859-1952) was a towering figure of Norwegian letters. He was also a Nazi sympathizer and supporter of the German occupation of Norway during the Second World War. In 1943, Hamsun sent his Nobel medal to Third-Reich propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels as a token of his admiration and authored a reverential obituary for Hitler in May 1945. For decades, scholars have wrestled with the dichotomy between Hamsun's merits as a writer and his infamous ties to Nazism.In her incisive study of Hamsun, Monika Zagar refuses to separate his political and cultural ideas from an analysis of his highly regarded writing. Her analysis reveals the ways in which messages of racism and sexism appear in plays, fiction, and none-too-subtle nonfiction produced by a prolific author over the course of his long career. In the process, Zagar illuminates Norway's changing social relations and long history of interaction with other peoples.Focusing on selected masterpieces as well as writings hitherto largely ignored, Zagar demonstrates that Hamsun did not arrive at his notions of race and gender late in life. Rather, his ideas were rooted in a mindset that idealized Norwegian rural life, embraced racial hierarchy, and tightly defined the acceptable notion of women in society. Making the case that Hamsun's support of Nazi political ideals was a natural outgrowth of his reactionary aversion to modernity, Knut Hamsun serves as a corrective to scholarship treating Hamsun's Nazi ties as unpleasant but peripheral details in a life of literary achievement.

<P>Nordic Exposures explores how Scandinavian whiteness and ethnicity functioned in classical Hollywood cinema between and during the two world wars. Scandinavian identities could seem mutable and constructed at moments, while at other times they were deployed as representatives of an essential, biological, and natural category. As Northern European Protestants, Scandinavian immigrants and emigres assimilated into the mainstream rights and benefits of white American identity with comparatively few barriers or obstacles. Yet Arne Lunde demonstrates that far from simply manifesting a normative unmarked whiteness, Scandinavianness in massimmigration America and in Hollywood cinema of the twentieth century could be hyperwhite, provisionally offwhite, or not even white at all.</P><P>Lunde investigates key silent films, such as Technicolor's The Viking (1928), Victor Sjostrom's He Who Gets Slapped (1924), and Mauritz Stiller's Hotel Imperial (1927). The crises of Scandinavian foreign voice and the talkie revolution are explored in Greta Garbo's first sound film, Anna Christie (1930). The author also examines Warner Oland's long career of Asian racial masquerade (most famously as Chinese detective Charlie Chan), as well as Hollywood's and Third Reich Cinema's war over assimilating the Nordic female star in the personae of Garbo, Sonja Henie, Ingrid Bergman, Kristina Soderbaum, and Zarah Leander.</P>

Discusses Knut Hamsun's political and cultural ideas together with an analysis of his highly regarded writing. This book reveals the ways in which messages of racism and sexism appear in plays, fiction, and none-too-subtle nonfiction produced by a prolific author over the course of his long career.

One of the earliest ethnic theatres in America was the Norwegian Theater of Marcus Thrane, established in Chicago in September 1866. This book includes seven translated plays written by Thrane between 1866 and 1884, and covers the entire period of his active professional life in America.

Nordic Exposures explores how Scandinavian whiteness and ethnicity functioned in classical Hollywood cinema between and during the two world wars.

Explores the interrelationships between two Norwegian giants of European modernism. Edvard Munch's work stretches from portraits of Ibsen to innovative depictions of scenes from Ibsen's plays such as Ghosts and Peer Gynt to set designs. Joan Templeton is professor of English at Long Island University and president of the Ibsen Society of America. She is the author of Ibsen's Women.

The Norwegian painter, novelist, and social critic Christian Krohg (1852ΓÇô1925) is best known for his highly political paintings of workers, prostitutes, and Skagen fishermen of the 1880s and for serving as a mentor to Edvard Munch. One of the Nordic countriesΓÇÖ most avant-garde naturalist artists, he was highly influenced by French thinkers, including Emile Zola, Claude Bernard, and Hippolyte Taine, and shocked the provincial sensibilities of his time. KrohgΓÇÖs work reached beyond the art world when his book Albertine and its related paintings were banned upon publication. The story of a young seamstress who turns to a life of prostitution, it galvanized support for outlawing prostitution in Norway, but Krohg was punished for its sexual content.In Christian KrohgΓÇÖs Naturalism, Oystein Sjastad examines the theories of Krohg and his fellow naturalists and their reception in Scandinavian intellectual circles, viewing Krohg from an international perspective and demonstrating how KrohgΓÇÖs art made a striking contribution to European naturalism. In the process, he provides the definitive account of KrohgΓÇÖs art in the English language.