Recent News
Spring 2026View in MyPlan DANISH 411 A: Danish for ProfessionalsCombines intensive beginning Danish language for professionals with a substantive introduction to Danish culture and society. This course is geared to upper-division undergraduates and graduate students preparing to hold internships in professional offices in Denmark or study at Danish universities via UW study Abroad. …
The Department of Scandinavian Studies enjoyed participating in UW's annual Study Abroad Fair on January 15th in the HUB Ballroom! Dozens of eager and curious UW undergraduates visited the department's table (pictured) to learn about the many summer programs and semester exchanges available in the Nordic and Baltic region. Faculty members staffed our table and spoke with interested…
We are thrilled to announce that Karin Filipsson has been awarded the PhD degree in Scandinavian Languages and Literature in Autumn quarter 2025. Her PhD dissertation, Jonas Hassen Khemiri and the Swedish Novel: Autofiction, Intertextuality and Postmigrant Melancholy, investigates the novels of the contemporary Swedish writer, whose works have been translated into 35 languages…
On October 23rd, the department hosted a faculty delegation from the University of Bergen who were visiting the UW campus in conjunction with One Ocean Week. Rector Margrethe Haugen along with research scientists and other faculty from Bergen drank coffee and ate apple cake alongside our department's faculty and graduate students. The UW-Bergen Exchange has been a…
The Graduate Program in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington is now accepting applications for its MA and PhD programs for the 2026/27 academic year. If you are interested, mark your calendars as graduate admission for Autumn 2026 will open on 15 December 2025, and the deadline for applications is 15 January 2026. The UW Scandinavian Studies graduate degrees…
Our Department is so pleased to let you all know that one of our former graduates, Mia Spangenberg, has an event at Third Place Books in Ravenna on June 10th to discuss the recent release of Pirkko Saisio's novel 'Backlight', which she translated from Finnish.
See Third Place Books' event information:
In Backlight, the Finlandia Prize-winning author looks backward and inward,…
On May 7, we celebrated 50 years of Danish at UW!Founded by Dr. Sven H. Rossel, Danish studies at UW has been a leading program in North America since 1974. In recent years, the program has been enhanced and supported by the generosity of donors and partners in the Danish community of Seattle, especially Nina Pedersen and her late husband, Georg, who established the Georg and Nina Pedersen…
In exciting department news, Karin Filipsson, a current Ph.D. student, has been awarded the International SWEA prize in literature!
From their announcement:
"Karin Filipsson is awarded SWEA International's scholarship 2025 for research in Swedish language, literature and/or culture. The scholarship of USD 15,000 enables Karin to conduct crucial…
God jul allihopa! Wishing you warm holiday greetings from the UW Swedish Studies program!
This year, Associate Teaching Professor Lauren Poyer and Kim Kraft organized another wildly successful summer study abroad program in Stockholm and Helsinki titled, "Art and Activism in the Nordic Region". Over the course of a month, a group of twenty-one students pursuing a variety of majors…
Gleðilega hátíð! Happy Holidays!
Greetings from the Old Norse Program at UW!
Firstly, I’m absolutely thrilled and honoured to have joined the Department of Scandinavian Studies this past September as Assistant Professor of Old Norse.
I was previously a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at University College London, and over the summer I taught a course on fantasy literature at the University of…