Teaching American Literary Naturalism in the 21st Century

Assuming that most of you will travel by air, I would like to mention first of all that you should set your navigation systems on Stockholm Arlanda Airport (ARN). I then recommend taking the northbound train to Gävle. The trains depart from a station located below ground, in the airport basement, and most of them will whisk you to Gävle in about an hour. I would also recommend booking the train in advance, at sj.se, since prices tend to increase closer to departure. If you are travelling to Sweden by sea or by train, or if you have other questions that I have failed to address here, please send me an email—I will help you out as soon as I can (I am available at f.o.svensson@gmail.com).

Once in Gävle, there are quite a few options in terms of accommodation. However, we have a booking code for Elite Grand, which is a beautiful hotel located very close to the train station (a four-minute walk). The rate for symposium participants is roughly 124 USD a night for a ‘superior double,’ breakfast included.

Link to Elite Grand Hotel Länk till annan webbplats.

I regret to inform you, though, that the distance between the hotel and the University is greater: a brisk walk by the river will take you there in about 25 minutes. However, in the case of tremendously engaging conversations and/or too many seconds at the hotel breakfast, there are also buses that depart frequently from Rådhuset/Town Hall, which is a stone’s throw away from Elite Grand. These buses will transport you to University of Gävle (Högskolan i Gävle) in about six minutes.

Find your way to the University

Link to the bus operator (X-trafik) Länk till annan webbplats.

When you have arrived, please look for the main entrance and then follow the signs to Generalen/The General (Building 91), which will be our home for these two days, and which is named thus because Gävle University used to be a military base, officially known as I-14. The university moved into these buildings in 1996, two years after the former tenants, the Hälsinge Regiment, had left the premises.

As we’re nearing our much-anticipated get-together in Gävle, I wanted to preempt some questions about life in Sweden that may come up.

Will you be needing cash?
Probably not. Sweden has Europe’s lowest number of ATMs per capita, and Swedes almost always pay by card. Hence, my advice is to not withdraw any money until you really need it (which might not happen at all), lest you end up with money unspent when you’re about to fly back home.

Should you tip?
No, usually not. When ordering a beer at a bar, say, very, very few Swedes tip, even though they might be given the option by the card reader to do so—this option, by the way, is a rather new phenomenon, born out of the new technology rather than any real change in the economy or people’s actual behavior.

There is one major exception, however. When we dine in an up-scale restaurant—which we will be doing on the Thursday—and receive more service, the rule tends to be 10%, or slightly more if the experience was life changing or otherwise overwhelming (in a positive sense). Yet another note about the conference dinner: as you know, Anita has sent out an email asking you to make your choices from the restaurant’s (Matilda’s) menu no later than October 9, and I would also like to add that there will be no time between the wine reception and the dinner to go back to the hotel; we have our tables at 7, and we will go directly from the university to the restaurant, either by foot or by bus. The distance is covered in about 20 minutes by foot, and the bus is of course a lot faster.