Thomas A. DuBois
Halls-Bascom Professor of Scandinavian Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Contact: tadubois@wisc.edu
Department of German Nordic and Slavic
832 Van Hise Hall
1220 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Blog: here.
Full CV available here.
Teaching
I teach courses in Nordic Studies, Folklore Studies, and Religious Studies in the Department of German Nordic and Slavic+. I am a big believer in academic service, particularly in what we at the UW call the "Wisconsin Idea," i.e. the active engagement of the university with its surrounding constituencies. I make it a goal to bring academic scholars into productive dialogue with members of the broader public, helping contribute to the intellectual and cultural life of our society.
I teach a variety of courses in the areas of Nordic and American folklore and religious studies. Scroll down to the end of my CV and you will find a listing of my recent courses. I also regularly teach round tables for the Bradley Learning Community, a residential living community for first-year students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I received a Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2017.
Particularly with graduate students and advanced undergraduates, I like to follow a "learning with" rather than a "learning from" approach: i.e., I look for ways that we can collaborate on a research project, producing something in which we share tasks, insights, and responsibilities. You can find examples of research products that have resulted from such collaborations in my CV below.
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Media
"The Sámi People of the North" (2015)
UWMadison College of Letters and Science magazine for spring 2020 features an article by Katie Vaughn entitled "True North" discussing Tom's work as a consultant for Disney's Frozen II .
The article about Tom appears on pp. 22-27.
Research
As a folklorist, I teach and research on a range of topics having to do with the way people think about and use the idea of tradition in their lives. Most of my research focuses on Nordic cultures, especially Finnish and Sámi, although I am also interested in the relations of Nordic peoples with populations and ideas coming from elsewhere, including the Celtic world. My recent research and service has also included work on the repatriation of traditions among Wisconsin Ojibwe people, particularly at the Lac du Flambeau reservation.
Some of my research is available in open access format at Academia.edu.
co-authored with Coppélie Cocq. Sámi Media and Indigenous Agency in the Arctic North. New Directions in Scandinavian Studies, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020.
co-edited with B. Marcus Cederström. Songs of the Finnish Migration: A Bilingual Anthology, based on the anthology Reisaavaisen Laulu Amerikkaan, edited by Simo Westerholm. Kaustinen and Madison: Kansanmusiikki-instituutti and the University of Wisconsin Press, Fall 2019.
Sacred to the Touch: Nordic and Baltic Religious Wood Carving. New Directions in Scandinavian Studies. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017.
Co-edited with Steven P. Sondrup, Mark Sandberg, and Dan Ringgaard. Nordic Literature: A Comparative History. Volume 1. Spatial Nodes Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2017.
Co-edited with Susan Brantly. The Nordic Storyteller: Essays in Honour of Niels Ingwersen. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009.
An Introduction to Shamanism. Introduction to Religion. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Edited. Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.
Lyric, Meaning and Audience in the Oral Tradition of Northern Europe. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2006.
Nordic Religions in the Viking Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
Co-authored with Leea Virtanen. Finnish Folklore.Studia Fennica Folkloristica 9. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society in association with the University of Washington Press, 2000.
Finnish Folk Poetry and the Kalevala. New York: Garland Publications, 1995.
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Translated. Johan Turi. An Account of the Sámi. Chicago: Nordic Studies Press, 2011.
Johan Turi—An Account of the Sámi. A Translation of Muitalus Sámiid birra, Based on the Sámi Original. Karasjok: ČáliidLágádus. (with authored afterword).
Johan Turi—Travel Accounts and Other Accounts. Translated by Thomas A. DuBois. Edited by Mikael Svonni. Translator's Preface.
Rávttas, Giron/Kiruna: Ravda Lágádus.
https://www.ravda.se/
Myths, Tales and Poetry from Four Centuries of Sámi Literature. An Anthology edited by Harald Gaski.Translated by Thomas A. DuBois and others. Karasjok: ČálliidLágádus, 2020.
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Articles and chapters since 2000
Full CV available here.
(with B. Marcus Cederström) “Songs of the Finnish Migration: Amplification and Revitalization” in Culture Work: Folklore for the Public Good. Ed. Tim Frandy and B. Marcus Cederström. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2022. Pp. 145-153.
“In Hand and Underfoot: Reading Medieval Wooden Sculptures” In Sainthood, Scriptoria and Secular Erudition of Medieval and Early Modern Scandinavia. Edited Dario Bullitta and Natalie Van Deusen. Series Acta Scandinavica. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022. Pp. 45-64, figures pp. 11-14.
“Lessons in Magic: Making Use of Early Twentieth-Century Accounts of Magical Procedures in the Folklore Classroom” In Myth, Magic, and Memory in Early Scandinavian Narrative Culture. Acta Scandinavica 11. Ed. Jürg Glauser and Pernille Hermann. Turnhout: Brepols, 2021. Pp. 201-216.
“‘To Surf through the Shared Riches of the Story Hoard’: The oAgora of the Sigurðr Story” In John Miles Foley’s World of Oralities. Text, Tradition, and Contemporary Oral Theory. Ed. Mark Amodio. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2020. Pp. 155-176. Open access link: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/43137
“Encounters: Baltic” “Encounters: Sámi ” “Encounters: Balto-Finnic” articles in The Pre-Christian Religions of the North: History and Structures, Volume I: Basic Premises and Consideration of Sources. Ed. Jens Peter Schjødt, John Lindow, Anders Andrén. Brepols, 2020. ISBN: 978-2-503-57489-9. Pp. 341-352, 353-372, 373-390.
“Recalling—Reconstituting—Migration: Sámi Americans and the Immigrant Experience” in Transnational Finnish Mobilities: Proceedings of FinnForum XI. Ed. Johanna Leinonen and Auvo Kostiainen. Turku: Finnish Migration Institute, 2019. Pp. 53-74. Academia.edu upload: HERE
For an open access pdf copy of the entire volume click HERE
“The Migration of a Building: Representation, Replication, and Repatriation of an Emblem of Norwegian, Norwegian American, and Norwegian-American-Norwegian Identity” Scandinavian Studies 90/3 (2018): 331-349.
(with Ruth Olson, B. Marcus Cederström, James Mathews, David Gagnon). 2018. “Siftr: A Tool for the Folklore Classroom” Journal of Folklore and Education Special Issue: “Common Ground: People and Our Places” 5/1 (2018): 13-29.
“Seeing Snow: A Siftr Challenge Aimed at Transforming Student Perceptions of the Winter Environment and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge” http://www.susted.com/wordpress/content/seeing-snow-a-siftr-challenge-aimed-at-transforming-student-perceptions-of-the-winter-environment-and-indigenous-traditional-knowledge_2018_06/
Journal of Sustainability Education March 2018.
http://www.susted.com/wordpress/march-2018-decolonizing-and-sustainability-education/
"The Mythic Sun: An Areal Perspective" Old Norse Mythology in Comparative Perspective. Edited by Pernille Hermann, Stephen A. Mitchell, Jens Peter Schødt, with Amber Rose. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017. Pp. 191-222.
(with Tim Frandy) "Wiigiwaamikewin: Making a Winter Lodge for an Ojibwe Past and Future." Poster presented at the SIEF 2017 13th Congress, Göttingen, Germany, 26-30 March 2017.
"Performance, Texts, and Contexts: Olaus Sirma, Johan Turi, and the Dilemma of Reifying a Context-Dependent Oral Tradition" Forthcoming, volume edited by David Elmer. E-published January 2017.
(with B. Marcus Cederström, Tim Frandy, and Colin Gioia Connors) “Heritage Repatriation and Educational Sovereignty at an Ojibwe Public School” Journal of Folklore and Education 3 (2016): 31-41.
“Anatomy of the Elite: ‘Learned’ vs. ‘Folk’ in the Analysis of Avowedly Pre-Christian Religious Elements in the Sagas.” Folklore in Old Norse, Old Norse in Folklore. Edited by Daniel Sävborg and Karen Bek-Pedersen. Nordistica Tartuensia no. 20. Tartu: University of Tartu Press, 2014. Pp. 59—82.
“Borg Mesch: The Role of a Culture Broker in Picturing the North” Journal of Northern Studies 8/2 (2014): 45—70. "Editing Johan Turi: Making Turi's Muitalus Make Sense" Western Folklore 72/3/4, 2013. Pp. 272—93.
(co-authored with Jonathan Lang) “Johan Turi’s Animal, Mineral, Vegetable Cures and Healing Practices: An In-depth Analysis of Sami (Saami) Folk Healing One Hundred Years Ago” Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. August 2013.
“Lars Levi Sunna: Crafting a Sámi Presence in the Swedish State Church” Temenos 48/2 (2012): 131—54.
“Johan Turin Duoddaris” Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja.91 (2012): 93—109.
“The Linguistics and Stylistics of Orality.” In Medieval Oral Literature. Ed. Karl Reichl. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012. Pp. 203-224.
“’The Same Nature as the Reindeer’: Johan Turi’s Potrayal of Sámi Knowledge” Scandinavian Studies 83/4 (Winter 2011): 519-44.
“Juxtaposing Cogadh Gáedel re Gallaib with Orkneyinga saga” Oral Tradition 26/2 (2011).
“Trends in Contemporary Research on Shamanism” Numen 58 (2011): 100-128.
“Varieties of Medical Treatment and Hierarchies of Resort in Johan Turi’s Sámi deavsttat” Journal of Northern Studies. 1 (2010): 9-44.
“Un chanteur devenu poète: Sirma Ovllá et le début de la littérature samie” In L’Image du Sápmi. Ed. Kajsa Andersson. Humanistica Oerebroensia. Artes et linguae nr. 15. Örebro: Humanistic Studies at Örebro University, 2009. Pp. 306-19.
“Kaksikymmentä ja yksi Thirty Years Later: Paavo Haavikko’s Kalevala Rewrite and the Epic Genre.” In One and Twenty, Paavo Haavikko. Beaverton ON: Aspasia Books, 2007.
“Rituals, Witnesses, and Sagas” In Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspective: Origins, Changes and Interactions. Ed. Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere. Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2006. Pp. 74-78.
“’I’m a Lumberjack and I’m Okay...’: Popular Film as Collective Therapy in Markku Pölönen’s Kungingasjätkä (1998)” In Transnational Cinema in a Global North: Nordic Cinema in Transition. Ed. Andrew Nestingen and Trevor G. Elkington. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2005. Pp. 243-260.
“Writing of Women, Not Nations: The Development of a Feminist Agenda in the Novellas of Aino Kallas.” Scandinavian Studies 76/2 (2004): 205-32.
“The Little Song-Smith: A Printed Folksong Anthology and Its Reception among Ingrian Peasants, 1849-1900” In Folk Song: Tradition, Revival, and Re-Creation. Ed. Ian Russell and David Atkinson. Aberdeen: The Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, 2004. Pp. 41-52.
“A History Seen: The Uses of Illumination in Flateyjarbók.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 103(1) (2004):1-52.
“With an End in Sight: Sympathetic Portrayals of ‘Vanishing’ Sámi Life in the Works of Karl Nickul and Andreas Alariesto.” Scandinavian Studies, 75/2 (2003): 181-200.
“Dynamics and Continuities of Tradition—What a Finnish Epic Song Can Teach Us About Two Old Norse Poems” In Dynamics of Tradition: Perspectives on Oral Poetry and Folk Belief. Ed. Lotte Tarkka. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2003. Pp. 233-247.
“Narrative Expectations and the Sampo Song.” Scandinavian Studies 73 no. 3 (2001): 457-474. Reprinted in Epics for Students. 2nd Ed., Vol.2. Ed. Sara Constantakis. Gale Group/Cengage Learning.
“‘That Strain Again!’, or, Twelfth Night, a Folkloristic Approach” Arv 56 (2000): 35-56.