Anna Rue will be speaking about outdoor museums in the Upper Midwest that pertain to Scandinavian cultures and traditions. She is a Community Curator at the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures in Madison with the Sustaining Scandinavian Folk Arts in the Upper Midwest Project. She holds a Master’s in American Studies from the UMass-Boston and a Master’s and Ph.D. in Scandinavian Studies and Folklore from UW-Madison. Rue teaches courses relating to fieldwork, public folklore, and Scandinavian American and Upper Midwestern cultures. In addition, she researches Norwegian American communities in the region, focusing in particular on musical traditions, identity, immigration, and cultural preservation.

The Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures (CSUMC) was established in 2001 with a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the support of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Based in the College of Letters & Science, CSUMC has offices in the University Club on the University of Wisconsin’s Library Mall.