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October 6, 2012
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Speakers: Stina Fagertun & Anita Barth-Jørgensen
Topic: Storytelling, Music, Song and Dance from the Norwegian Arctic
Award winning Sami artist Stina Fagertun & Anita Barth-Jørgensen have come all the way from the Norwegian Arctic to share the traditional stories and music from Northern Norway.
Stina Fagertun has coastal Sámi and Kven (Finnish descendant) ancestry and comes from the local fiords of Arctic Norway. She has written fairytales, and collected ancient, unique fairytales from the Sámi, Kven and Arctic storyteller tradition. Her stories have been published as books and CDs in Norway. Fagertun is the winner of the Northern Norway Cultural Award 2003. She received the award for collecting and making a CD with ancient, unique fairytales from the Arctic region: Sámi, Finnish (Kven) and Norwegian. Anita Barth-Jorgensen is Norwegian and an adopted Sámi. She is proud to be allowed to wear the Sámi dress from her birth area and to do the joik, tribal Sámi chants, and Sámi handcraft. She is an actress and musician. Fagertun and Barth-Jorgensen have been performing music, song, dance and storytelling together, around the world, for over 10 years.
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November 3, 2012 |
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Speaker: Blaine Hedberg, Executive Director of the Norwegian American Genealogical Research Center
Topic: Norwegian Genealogy
Blaine Hedberg has worked at the Norwegian American Genealogical Center and Naeseth Library in Madison since 1982, serving as Director from 1993-2001 and from 2007-2009. Since 2001 he has served as the Gerhard B. Naeseth Chair for Research and Publication, a position named after the organization's founder, Gerhard B. Naeseth. During his career at the genealogical center, Blaine assisted thousands of individuals with tracing their Norwegian roots and has helped many find relatives back in Norway. He is well known around the U.S. as a key lecturer on Norwegian genealogy. Blaine also serves on the Board of Directors of the Norwegian American Genealogical Center, Vestlandslag, and the Norwegian American Historical Association.
His experience is unparalleled; he has also served as volunteer, assistant, researcher, tour leader, lecturer, teacher and editor. In 2010 he was awarded the St. Olav Medal by the King of Norway.
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December is our annual fundraising month.
Please consider making a donation to our scholarship fund!
To make our December meeting more festive,
consider wearing a bunad if you have one.
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December 1, 2012
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Speaker: Doug Bahl, Professor
Topic: Interpreter Training Program and ASL Studies at St. Paul College
Douglas Bahl was born in Montevideo, Minnesota and became deaf at the age of 2 years old. He attended Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf where he was graduated in 1969. He then attended Gallaudet University and graduated with the Class of 1974 with Bachelor's degree in Government. He returned Minnesota and completed his Master's studies in Deaf Education at the University of Minnesota.
He taught Social Studies, English, Deaf Studies at the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf from 1976 to 1990. He is now teaching Interpreter Training Program and ASL Studies at St. Paul College in St. Paul, Minnesota since 1990.
He is involved with Deaf Community affairs such as serving as Minnesota Association of Deaf Citizens president for 10 years (1989-1999), Deaf History International President from 2006 to 2010, the Curator of Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf Museum, Charles Thompson Memorial Hall Board of Trustees (1987-present).
He also has made many presentations at the local, national and international conferences, for example WFD (World Federation of the Deaf) Congresses, Deaf Way conferences and festivals, and DHI (Deaf History International) conferences. He has dedicated his life to the movement of bringing Deaf history to the forefront of all agendas.
Doug took a sabbatical leave from St. Paul during the spring semester of 2011 to teach abroad in Norway. He will share his experience of living in Norway for 6 months.
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January 5, 2013 |
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Speaker: Rachel Peterson, Regional Leader
Topic: Save the Children, Norway
Rachel Peterson was born in Minneapolis in 1981 and grew up in Duluth. The summers of her youth were spent at Skogfjorden, Concordia's Norwegian language village, where an interest in her Scandinavian heritage was encouraged and nurtured. At age 17 she decided to spend her final year of high school as an AFS exchange student in Norway and lived with a family in Alta for the 1999-2000 school year. She attended Luther College, majoring in anthropology and sociology, and spent the summers between her years at Luther working as a counselor at Skogfjorden. In 2004 Rachel was fortunate to receive a scholarship from Lakselaget to pursue a Master's degree in peace and conflict transformation studies at the University of Tromsø. She completed the program in 2007 and has been working as the regional leader for Save the Children in northern Norway since 2008. Rachel is thrilled to be back among the women of Lakselaget!
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February 2, 2013 |
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Speaker: Jane Skinner Peck, Adjunct Professor, Dance and Theater Department, Winona State University
Topic: Nordic Suffragettes in Minnesota
Jane Skinner Peck, movement educator, dance historian, and choreographer is a professor of dance at Winona State University. Not only is Jane a dance historian, but an avid scholar of our vast regional history as well. As a director of her group, Dance Revels Moving History, she has staged shows of seldom-told regional stories filled with dance and movement. Her shows have ranged from the fur trade and mixed blood stories to Brenda Ueland and her ragtime and Norwegian heritage. Brenda's mother Clara was a suffragette leader, as well as Jane's own great-aunt, Anna Fergstad. Jane is half Norwegian, and she owns a barn built by Ole and Lena (Waage) near Lanesboro! www.janepeck.com
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March 2, 2013 |
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Speakers: Jennifer Prestholdt
Topic: Norway's Global Leadership on Human Rights
Jennifer Prestholdt is the Deputy Director of The Advocates for Human Rights and the Director of International Justice. Ms. Prestholdt has a B.A. in political science from Yale and a M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where she studied international human rights law and international refugee policy. She graduated cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1996.
Ms. Prestholdt has worked on refugee and asylum issues for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland. She has also interned for the Reebok Human Rights Program and the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination Against and Protection of Minorities. Prior to becoming Deputy Director of The Advocates for Human Rights, Ms. Prestholdt practiced asylum law for five years as the Director of the Refugee and Immigrant Program. As The Advocates' Deputy Director, she assists in fundraising for and directing organizational operations. Ms. Prestholdt also supervises the development and administration of International Justice programming. Ms. Prestholdt has also taught International Human Rights Law as an adjunct faculty member at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
To learn more about Ms. Prestholdt: http://www.theadvocatesforhumanrights.org/Jennifer_Prestholdt1.html
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April 6, 2013 |
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Speaker: Antonia Felix
Topic: Fact into Fiction
Ms. Felix is a bestselling author with 16 books to her credit, including a novel, Fatal Remedy (Winners Books, 2012) and several political biographies. The most recent of those are Sonia Sotomayor: The True American Dream(Penguin USA, 2010) and Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story (Newmarket Press, 2005). Her books have brought her a wide range of speaking engagements and media appearances on CNN, CNN International, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, SkyNews, Fox News Channel, and others. Antonia is an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Liberal Studies at Hamline University and also the associate director of Minnesota Concert Opera, which she co-founded with her husband, Stanford Felix.
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May 4, 2013
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Speaker: Jon Pederson
Topic: Norway House
About Norway House: The mission of Norway House is to be a bridge between Norway and the United States.
Norway House in the Upper Midwest has as its mission the preservation and promotion of an appreciation and understanding of the American-Norwegian experience and its relationship to modern Norway.
Norway House has three roles:
as a CONVENER to call people together for a common goal,
as a COLLABORATOR to help others achieve success, and
as a PLATFORM, a multi-purpose building to serve as a place to conduct Nor-Am activities.
Norway House focuses on promoting an appreciation and understanding of the American Norwegian experience and its relationship to modern Norway and the world. Physically, Norway House is destined to be a conference center building which will architecturally and functionally link America's Norwegian heritage with contemporary Norway and America. Norway House will be located in the Twin Cities and incorporate all the amenities needed to serve its mission, such as an auditorium, meeting rooms, events hall, food service facility, etc. With both office and meeting space, Norway House can serve as a home for other American-Norwegian and Nordic institutions and organizations. A Capital Campaign will fund its creation and a combination of endowment proceeds and revenue from its use will fund its operational costs.
Bio of Jon Pederson:
Veteran of U.S. Marine Corps
Graduate of Concordia College, Moorhead
Owner/President of Ruffridge-Johnson Equipment Co., Inc., Minneapolis
Board member of Northern Star Council, Boy Scouts of America
National Advisory Board for Concordia Language Villages
Member of Norske Torske Klubben, St. Paul
Norway House Vice President & Capital Campaign Chair
Member of Den Norske Lutherske Mindekirke
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Members Only Picnic
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