Trip to Sweden an Enriching Experience

“I was in Stockholm when the historic meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin was held in Helsinki, Finland – just across the Baltic,” said Dr. Enright. “It was amazing to be in Europe as Europeans react to the repositioning of the United States in international affairs and as post-WWII alliances and assumptions are put in doubt.

“I also hoped to get a sense of how Swedish society has reacted to the sharp rise in immigration from Africa and the Middle East since 1990,” she continued. “As a country with a small population of only ten million, Sweden is arguably more likely to be able to absorb immigrants than some other societies, but I was nevertheless struck by the degree to which the museums/historians/government have taken a hard look at the history of scientific racism, [and] engaged with the question of what it means to be Swedish and advocated a more inclusive national identity.”

Among the highlights of the trip for Enright were a visit to Skansen, a ‘living’ museum of over 150 buildings that serve to chronicle the culture and architecture of Sweden from the 14^th through 19th centuries, and to the Vasa Museum, in which an entire 1628 royal warship is preserved.

“The Swedish National History museum has an extraordinary collection of early medieval Viking trade items including tons of Arabic coins and a little Buddha statue from a thousand years ago!” noted Enright. “And the Stockholm City Hall, where the Nobel dinner is held every year, is the 1920s architectural synthesis of Romantic Nationalism and Italian Renaissance.”

In addition, Enright found two Swedish cultural traditions to be personally enriching.

“First, the Swedish tradition of ‘fika’—which means taking a break or pause in work each day to grab coffee and socialize—is an awesome reminder that happy humans are more productive humans.

“Second, I was inspired by the traditional value of ‘lagom,’ which translates to something like ‘having enough, but not too much.’ The word’s origins may lie in the medieval tradition of sharing a drink with friends from one big horn; as the drink was passed around, each person needed to calibrate their intake so that they had some but not so much that the drink would run out before it had been passed around the whole group. ‘Lagom’ is about simplicity and balance and rejecting a mindless ‘more-for-me’ attitude. This value informs Swedish aesthetics and culture.”

The long-term value of Rivers’ Faculty Enrichment Grant program is evident in the various ways Enright feels her trip will affect her both professionally and personally.

“The trip to Sweden will certainly inform my AP Modern European curriculum, altering lesson plans concerned with the 17th century and the Thirty Years War, the turn of the 20th century and the European Union, and my analysis and understanding of current events. In my new role as Director of the Center for Community and Civic Engagement, I will be reading and thinking and speaking a lot more about the balance between the community and the individual. And finally, I hope to remember to live with lagom and take fikas!”