Paper Presentations

I think the presentations from this past week really helped to sort of describe in detail the types of things we highlighted in our group presentations on the countries. It was great to see so many specific examples of all of the broad topics we covered. It was also interesting to learn about such a wide range of topics from art to sustainability and everything in between. I think it helps us paint a good picture of Scandinavia, while at the same time reminding us that generalizations are just that: generalizations, and their is a lot of specific knowledge to be gained from every aspect of studying the Scandinavian countries, and also by looking at them from the perspective of each individual country. I thought it was interesting learning about prisons in Scandinavia, because it had not been something I had though about before, but when you look at the way they build and run their prisons, I think it's incredible how different it is from other regions/countries, and I found it very interesting. Also, you can see how it fits into the general structure of society, and how they are more focused on positive things and moving forward, like rehabilitation and believing in a person's ability to change, than negative things, like punishment. Just by looking at a smaller aspect of society, we can begin to see a broader picture, and it seems that these more specific and focused studies reflect broad Scandinavian views and are consistent with general societal values.