2024 Spring Program
Thursday May 9, 2024, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Lunch & Lecture at Seattle’s Swedish Club Northwest
“Stories of the Past: How Swedish Americans Shape Their Heritage” by Jennifer Eastman Attebery, Professor Emerita at Idaho State University
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The SAHS is excited to partner with Seattle’s Swedish Club Northwest and the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies (SASS) for a lunch and lecture on the opening day of the SASS conference in Seattle. The SASS conference, held annually in cities across the country, welcomes hundreds of scholars and students of Nordic and Scandinavian studies from all corners of the world to convene and exchange ideas related to their scholarship.
The Thursday lunch will feature guest speaker and Society member Jennifer Eastman Attebery who will share examples from her new book As Legend Has It: History, Heritage, and the Construction of Swedish American Identity (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023). In writing histories of their own communities, Swedish Americans draw on historical legends that distill a sense of ethnic identity and heritage. The book and talk examine how immigrants and their descendants used legendary materials to claim a place in American history.
Jennifer Eastman Attebery is professor emerita of English at Idaho State University, where she taught folklore and American Studies. In addition to her new book, she is the author of academic books concerning letter-writing by Swedish immigrants and the Swedish-Americans’ summer holidays, and articles in Swedish American Historical Quarterly and Scandinavian Studies. And many know Jennifer from her many years of service on the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center advisory committee.
The lunch program is held at Seattle’s Swedish Club Northwest, a dynamic center of Swedish cultural events and Swedish classes with a restaurant and bar, weekly dinners and fikas, and a popular monthly pancake breakfast that draws hundreds. The Club located on Dexter Avenue North is perched above Lake Union overlooking the lake and downtown Seattle. The spectacular mid-century building was designed by architects Einar V. Anderson, Arden Croco Steinhart, and Robert Dennis Theriault Sr., and completed in 1961. The event will include a short tour of the space led by Club staff members.
Purchase tickets to the May 9, 2024 Spring Program Lunch & Lecture in Seattle.