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Hei alle sammen! Hello everyone! Want to make good use of your spare time and learn something useful? How about Norwegian? It's quite easy to gain a basic level and the language has some very special traits you will love! We'll learn to introduce ourselves, use simple phrases, talk about everyday things and practise speaking in different common situations. Bonus: every lesson comes with bite-sized facts about Norwegian history and culture. Velkommen til Norge og norske språket! Welcome to Norway and the Norwegian language!

The Communicative language teaching approach will be used: every lesson we'll practice words and phrases in specific contexts, with more focus on sentence and vocabulary building than grammatical content.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Session 1: Introducing yourself, pronunciation basics
	Session 2: Basic activities, days and numbers
Week 2	Session 3: Professions, more activities
	Session 4: Family members, daily routine, telling time
Week 3	Session 5: Weekend plans, simple conversations
	Session 6: Food, clothes, where things are
Week 4	Session 7: Going shopping
	Session 8:Final practice

While Shakespeare is famous for his plays, he also wrote more than 150 sonnets, which display his wit, his charm, his insight, and his unparalleled talent for turning a phrase and playing into double-entendres. Join us as we scan and analyze the whole compendium of Shakespeare's sonnets from beginning to end, exploring the nuances of each individual poem as well as the wide sweep of personal love and loss in his own life explained between the pages of Shakespeare's poetry.

To give each of the sonnets their due, this will be a non-sequential series in which each month, we will cover some of the sonnets, their structure, history and inspiration behind them. No previous knowledge of sonnets is required.

Note: Each module in the series will enrich the understanding of the overall sonnet project, but students will be able to enter into any of the modules of this series independent of each other without needing the context of the previous class.

Please choose this module if you're excited to be part of our Creative Writing mini-modules in the near future! If you add this module to your wish list (or short-list it), we will include you in our communications about upcoming mini modules and let you know what's available.

Note: Our mini modules are special month-long group experiences designed for a small and intimate group of 2 to 3 students for the cost of 1 Token. As soon as we get enough interested students that reserve their seat, we'll schedule this class with the group and fly!

In 2024, Oxford University Press published An Introduction to Middle High German, which promises to become the new standard textbook for learning Middle High German. It has a selection of readings, both prose and poetry, all of which are edited for readability and annotated for instruction.

Due to popular demand, we at Signum University’s SPACE program are offering a month of just perusing the Introduction textbook and reading the prose as a group. We will begin with the introductory text “Von den siben planêten” by Berthold von Regensburg before moving on to the religious literature at the end of the book. Time permitting, we will also look at legal texts in the larger Oxford Guide to Middle High German, which will be supplied as scans according to the Fair Use doctrine. These readings will offer a chance to focus on the language’s syntax when it is not as heavily constrained by the demands of meter and rhyme.

This course is open to both veterans and newcomers to SPACE’s small, but growing Middle High German program.

Discover essential aspects of everyday life in the world of the Norse! In this module we'll be exploring the rich cultural and religious life of the Scandinavian communities between the 8th and 11th century, trying to figure out what their cultural products can tell us about their mindset. We'll have a look at cosmogonical and eschatological concepts from Norse myth, funeray archaeology, the runic writing system and how it evolved, as well as the fascinating art styles that adorned objects ranging from small cups and sword pommels to the front doors of Christian churches. While the first two modules of the Viking age cluster would be recommendable, fell free to join the course regardless.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: Norse myths and beliefs
	Discussion 1: Discussion about Lecture 1 material
Week 2	Lecture 2: Death and afterlife
	Discussion 2: Discussion about Lecture 2 material
Week 3	Lecture 3: Runes and runestones
	Discussion 3: Discussion about Lecture 3 material
Week 4	Lecture 4: Viking art styles
	Discussion 4: Discussion about Lecture 4 material

This course is for those who have an interest in Japanese culture and wish to continue our study of Japanese. We will continue using Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji, and covering grammatical structures. Through use of conversational Japanese, we will continue to explore how the language is used in anime, manga, and music.

Japanese is a language of great nuance and depth. This module will open the door to that world and build a foundation for greater insight into Japan's culture and its people.

From TV shows to computer games, the Vikings still manage to capture our imagination and ensnare us in an odd mix of fact and fiction. But who were they really? This new series aims to take a deep dive and provide challenging perspectives about the real Norse characters that shaped medieval Europe.

In this module we will walk (or sail!) in the footsteps of the Norse to discover how they changed and were changed by the worlds they encountered. In Britain, the great army conquered three kingdoms, intermingled with the local populace and forced the development of Wessex which would ultimately coalesce English unity. The assault on Ireland left monasteries devastated, but the Vikings also founded vital trade centres like Dublin and got involved in local wars. The raids in the Carolingian empire distrupted trade routes and eroded imperial power, ultimately leading to coopting the Norse into what would become the duchy of Normandy. To the East, the Rus reached the Byzantine empire where they formed elite guards, the Russian steppes beginning the process of state formation, as well as the far Muslim world they supplied with slaves. To the West, the troubled seas led them to settle the proto-democracy of Iceland, explore Greenland and even the coast of Canada. Through their travels, the course of medieval history was fundamentally altered by the Viking diaspora.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: Norse kings in Britain and Ireland
	Discussion 1: Discussion about Lecture 1 material
Week 2	Lecture 2: Assault on the Frankish Empire
	Discussion 2: Discussion about Lecture 2 material
Week 3	Lecture 3: From Varangians to Russians
	Discussion 3: Discussion about Lecture 3 material
Week 4	Lecture 4: The Atlantic Way: Iceland, Greenland, Vinland
	Discussion 4: Discussion about Lecture 3 material

It turns out that writing dialogue can be tricky. A writer has to accomplish a lot through the way in which a character speaks, and how that speech is described. How do people talk to one another? Do they orate? Do they exchange fast and witty quips? Do they lecture one another to impart tons of needed exposition material? Does what they say and how they say it tell us anything about who they are?

In this class we will experiment with different ways to write dialogue and incorporate it into a story. We'll explore how details of character diction can change how a reader understands the text of what a character says. We'll do exercises designed to practice achieving particular goals Finally, students will apply what we're working on to their own writing and will receive feedback using our Collaborative Feedback method.

We're going to do a fair bit of writing, some in class, more outside of class as (optional) homework. By the end of the class a student should expect to be able to decide how a character should sound and then write dialogue that meets that goal.

When you think about your favorite stories, chances are you conjure the memory of a scene: the charge of the Rohirim at the coming of the new dawn, Luke turning off his targeting computer as he flies down the trench, or when Ged finally acknowledges the identity of the shadow being that has followed him literally to the land of the dead. Stories are built out of scenes, and scenes like the ones above make stories memorable.

In this class, we'll look at how to build scenes that accomplish specific things, according to the needs of the author and the story. We'll practice achieving specific goals, advancing the plot, expanding a characterization, even providing an opportunity fo exposition. We'll do this through assigned exercises, andby looking at how to apply these skills to the students' own stories.

We'll read each other's scenes and use our Collaborative Feedback method to help one another to sharpen our work. We'll be writers together helping each other's stories thrive.

Join us as we continue learning (advanced) basic Japanese, focusing on the areas of reading and listening comprehension, with some attention to speaking and writing. Over the course of this module series we will work our way through the Genki II textbook, building upon the foundation built from the Genki I text. 一緒に日本語を勉強しませんか