Claus Andersen, Ph.D. - Hygge, Health and Happiness

"How does Hygge relate to happiness and health?" In this talk, Professor Claus Andersen will introduce the concept of hygge, the Scandinavian Recipe for Happiness and show what Americans can learn from it. Scandinavians consistently rank among the happiest people in the world. This talk will explore why that is so and what we can learn.

Professor Andersen is the Associate Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. A native Dane who came to Wisconsin in 2017, he has been teaching in the field of Scandinavian Studies for more than 15 years in universities throughout the world, from UW Madison to the University of Helsinki in Finland. He conducts research on Scandinavian culture, history, and literature. His current research focuses on the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard and his six-volume autobiography, My Struggle. He completed his Ph.D. from the University of Helsinki, and his BA as well as advanced studies at the University of Copenhagen.

"Trying to beat the winter blues?" Hygge might be the secret ingredient missing from your life. It's pronounced "hoo-ga" and it's a Danish world with no direct English translation – but Dr. Andersen teaches the concept to students at UW-Madison. The definition he uses most is pleasant togetherness. He describes the feeling as "a warm fuzziness. It's about atmosphere and being with loved ones, and winter is the perfect season to put it into practice."

The idea (Hygge) may have been inspired by necessity, since Denmark is even farther north than Wisconsin. Copenhagen gets about seven hours of daylight on the winter solstice, compared to the nine hours we see in Milwaukee. Yet Danes are consistently ranked as some of the happiest people in the world. "Think candles, candles, and more candles! Electric ones are better for indoor health, but with either choice, the most important part of hygge – and its happiness – is to share space with others." Andersen encourages people to "take out the blankets and invite the friends and the family over and sit around a table and talk to each other. It is about happiness!"

Currently, he has finished a Danish-language monography on Hans Christian Andersen's early fairy tales, which will be published in 2025. He is also in the finished state of co-editing an anthology on Andersen's reception in the US. His next book, Radical Forms in Hans Christian Andersen's Fairytales, is an examination of how Hans Christian Andersen through the formalistic features of his fairytales, offers an early criticism of capitalism and how he early saw that capitalism in addition to commodifying human existence, puts limits on what it means to be human."

https://gns.wisc.edu/staff/andersen-claus-elholm/
Knausgård and the Autofictional Novel - Claus Elholm Andersen (Google Books)
https://badgertalks.wisc.edu/speaker/claus-e-andersen/