We are so excited to announce our three expert panellists for the upcoming Dialogue Night. Be sure to register here if you haven’t already, and share with your friends and family. We hope to see you there this Thursday, 3 November 2022.
Dr Julie K. Allen:
Julie is a professor of Scandinavian Studies, Women’s Studies, and Comparative Literature at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, in the US. She grew up in Laie, Hawaii, lived in Germany in high school, served an LDS mission to Denmark during college, and then completed a PhD in Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard. She taught Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for ten years before moving over to BYU-Provo. Julie’s research focuses on questions of cultural identity, especially how it is constructed and disseminated through literature, film, religion and migration. She is the author of many articles and books, including Danish but Not Lutheran: The Impact of Mormonism on Danish Cultural Identity, 1850-1920 (2017) and Screening Europe in Australasia: Transnational Silent Film Before and After the Rise of Hollywood (2022).
Naomi Krüger:
Naomi is a senior lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Central Lancashire (Preston, UK). Her debut novel, May, was published in 2018 by Seren and explores dementia, memory and community through a number of different voices. In 2021, she was awarded an Eccles Centre Fellowship at the British Library to research transatlantic connections in early Mormonism to inform her second novel (still in progress) set in Preston and Nauvoo in 1842.
Michelle Graabek:
Michelle Graabek is a doctoral researcher at the European University Institute in the department of History & Civilization. Her research lies at the intersection of migration, gender and religious history, with a cultural approach. Predominantly her research is on Scandinavian migrants in Latter-day Saint and Danish Lutheran communities. Her current research focuses on agency and community among Danish Latter-day Saint immigrant women during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century.
