Hans Christian Andersen and the Danish Golden Age (Accelerated)
Fall & Spring
| 3 credits
| Elective
Majors:
Literature
This accelerated course allows students to study the tales of Hans Christian Andersen in depth and intensively by meeting for two time blocks, twice a week – with the course ending in early March with final written assignment due on March 22. With the workload in other courses being relatively manageable at the start of the semester, students in this course will have the time to devote to readings. There is also the advantage that the course ends in mid-March opening up time for students to concentrate on their core and other courses.
This course will be a study of approximately 30 fairytales by Hans Christian Andersen as well as extracts from his diaries and from his autobiography, “The Fairy Tale of My Life.” Andersen’s significance as an international storyteller will be emphasized by analyzing his tales using various approaches and by seeing different perceptions of him through the eyes of his contemporaries and his readers of today. In order to get a feel for Hans Christian Andersen’s world, we will familiarize ourselves with important citizens of Copenhagen such as Kierkegaard (philosopher), Bournonville (choreographer and ballet dancer) and Thorvaldsen (sculptor), who were all contemporaries. Andersen’s fairytales will provide the backbone for this course so we can explore his genuine inventiveness and complexity.
Instructors
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Janis Granger
Ph.D. (Scandinavian Studies, UC Berkeley, 1982). M.A. (Scandinavian Studies, UCLA, 1976). Lecturer in Danish, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1982-1984. With DIS since 1984.
