Skip to main content
Navigated to
Syllabus:

Contemporary Swedish Culture, 7.5 credits

The course is discontinued from 2025-05-20

Swedish name: Contemporary Swedish Culture
This syllabus is valid: 2016-01-18 valid to 2018-01-14 (newer version of the syllabus exists)
Syllabus for courses starting before 2018-01-14
Course code: 1KU030
Credit points: 7.5
Education level: First cycle
Main Field of Study and progress level: Cultural Analysis: First cycle, has only upper-secondary level entry requirements
Drama-Theatre-Film: First cycle, has only upper-secondary level entry requirements
Ethnology: First cycle, has only upper-secondary level entry requirements
Art History: First cycle, has only upper-secondary level entry requirements
Comparative Literature: First cycle, has only upper-secondary level entry requirements
Media and Communication Studies: First cycle, has only upper-secondary level entry requirements
Museology: First cycle, has only upper-secondary level entry requirements
Grading scale: Pass with distinction, Pass, Fail
Responsible department: Department of Culture and Media Studies
Established by: Faculty director of studies, Faculty of arts, 2015-12-16

Contents

The course gives an introduction to contemporary Swedish cultural trends and tendencies through the study of some Swedish depictions and narratives. A wide range of cultural expressions and art forms are introduced and used as a basis for discussion and analysis (including but not limited to film, television, literature, mass media, and art). Within the course, several themes are explored, such as equality, ecology, migration and political activism. Special attention is given to the relationship between the urban and the rural, the local and the national, and the national and the global.

Expected learning outcomes

After completing the course the student should have basic knowledge of:

  • Some contemporary Swedish cultural trends and tendencies.
  • Examples of specific Swedish depictions and narratives relating to the main themes of the course.
  • How individual works of art and mass media can be analyzed in relation to public debate and political discourse.

 

Required Knowledge

General entry requirements

Form of instruction

The course is held in English. Teaching consists of lectures, seminars, group projects and local excursions. All seminars and local excursions are compulsory. If a student fails to attend a compulsory session, a written complementary examination will be provided by the teacher. All activities will take place in the evenings.

As an enrolled student with a disability you can apply for support in connection with your studies. For more information contact the Student Services http://www.student.umu.se/english/during-your-studies/support-for-disabled-students/?languageId=1.
 

Examination modes

The course is examined through participation in seminars and excursions, which is graded U (Fail) or G (Pass) and one individually written examination. The written exam is to be handed in at the end of the course and will cover both descriptive and analytic elements. On the written examination one of the grades U (Fail), G (Pass), or VG (Pass with distinction) is given. In order to pass the course all exams and compulsory sessions must be passed and one of the grades U (Fail), G (Pass), or VG (Pass with distinction) is given.   

Students who fail the final examination have the right to retake the examination soon afterwards, but the first exam might also be rewritten with a restriction to receive the highest grade (VG). Examination on the same syllabus as the ordinary examination is guaranteed until two years after the first registration to the course.

Students who have passed an examination cannot redo the examination to receive a higher grade. A student who has failed an examination twice can apply to the The Faculty of Arts Board to have another teacher consider the exam.

Other regulations

Credit transfer is always examined individually.
 

Literature

Some of the literature is provided by teachers in connection to lectures and seminars. The students will also be able to suggest material for seminar discussions.

Booth Michael
The almost nearly perfect people : the truth about the Nordic miracle
London : Jonathan Cape : 2014 : 406 s. :
ISBN: 9780224089623
Mandatory
Search the University Library catalogue
Reading instructions: Selections appointed by the teachers

Modern-day Vikings: A Practical Guide to Interacting With the Swedes (InterAct series)
Carr Lisa Werner, Robinowitz Christina Johansson
Intercultural Press, Incorporated : 2001 :
Mandatory

Sweden after the recent election : the double-binding power of Swedish whiteness through the mourning of the loss of “old Sweden” and the passing of “good Sweden”
Hübinette Tobias, Lundström Catrin
Included in:
Nora
London : Taylor & Francis : 1998- :
Mandatory

Isenhour Cindy
Building sustainable societies: A Swedish case study on the limits of reflexive modernization
Included in:
American ethnologist
Washington : The Soc. : 1974- : 37 : 511-525 pages
Mandatory

Women and men in Sweden : facts and figures. 2014
Stockholm : Statistics Sweden, Population statistics unit (Statistiska centralbyrån) : 2014 : 104 s. :

ISBN: 9789161816095
Mandatory
Search the University Library catalogue
Reading instructions: p. 2-11

Blond och blåögd : vithet, svenskhet och visuell kultur = Blond and blue-eyed : whiteness, Swedishness, and visual culture
Werner Jeff, Björk Tomas
Göteborg : Göteborgs konstmuseum : 2014 : 392 s. :
Fulltext
ISBN: 9789187968877
Mandatory
Search the University Library catalogue
Reading instructions: Skiascope 6, 2014, p. 13-49, 161-169

Challenging the myth of gender equality in Sweden
Martinsson Lena, Griffin Gabriele, Giritli Nygren Katarina
Bristol : Policy Press : 2016 : 222 s. :
ISBN: 9781447325963
Search the University Library catalogue
Reading instructions: Optional reading

Swedish traditions
Swahn Jan-Öjvind, Puryear Rachelle
Bromma : Ordalaget : 2012 : 159 s. :
ISBN: 978-91-7469-040-8
Search the University Library catalogue
Reading instructions: Optional reading

Davis Kathy
Intersectionality as Buzzword
Included in:
Feminist theory.
London : Sage : 2000- : p. 67-86 pages
Mandatory

Citizenship policies and ideas of nationhood in Scandinavia, Citizenship Studies, 14:4
Brochmann Grete, Seland Idunn
Mandatory : 2010 :
Mandatory
Reading instructions: p. 429-443

Hall Stuart
Representation : cultural representations and signifying practices.
London : Sage : 1997 : 400 s. : ill. :
ISBN: 0-7619-5432-5
Mandatory
Search the University Library catalogue
Reading instructions: p. 1-29

Nekby Lena
Cultural Integration in Sweden
Included in:
Cultural integration of immigrants in Europe
Oxford : Oxford University Press : 2012. : xiv, 344 p. : Chapter 6 pages
Mandatory
Reading instructions: Chapter 6

Roald Anne Sofie
From ’People's Home’ to ’Multiculturalism (Chapter 7)
Included in:
Muslims in the West
Oxford : Oxford University Press : 2002. : xvii, 318 p. :
Mandatory
Reading instructions: Chapter 7

Race performativity and melancholic whiteness in contemporary Sweden
Hübinette Tobias, Räterlinck Lennart E.H.
Routledge : 2014 :
Social Identities, 02 November 2014, Vol.20(6), p.501-514
Mandatory

Teitelbaum Benjamin
Come Hear our Merry Song
Brown University : 2013 :
Chapter 1 pp 1-8, chapter 4 pp 225-300
Mandatory

Further reading will be appointed by the lecturer.

Some of the literature is provided by teachers in connection to lectures and seminars. The students will also be able to suggest material for seminar discussions.

Booth Michael
The almost nearly perfect people : the truth about the Nordic miracle
London : Jonathan Cape : 2014 : 406 s. :
ISBN: 9780224089623
Mandatory
Search the University Library catalogue

Modern-day Vikings: A Practical Guide to Interacting With the Swedes (InterAct series)
Carr Lisa Werner, Robinowitz Christina Johansson
Intercultural Press, Incorporated : 2001 :
Mandatory

Further reading will be appointed by the lecturer.