Having grown up in Idaho, I have always been fascinated with the peoples of the Western region, their many cultures and common history. Those interests led me to studies at Indiana University's Folklore Institute, and they have always guided my research and teaching. My research with the letters written home by Swedes who immigrated to the northern Rocky Mountain states culminated in the book Up in the Rocky Mountains, from University of Minnesota Press (2007).In that study I define the immigrant letter as a form of vernacular text that can be interpreted using methods from folkloristics. My work with Swedish letters was accomplished in part through having received a teaching/research Fulbright award at University of Gothenburg during spring 1998. I plan further work with Swedish-American folklore in a study of calendar customs.

I joined the ISU Department of English and Philosophy in 1992 after having worked for many years at the Idaho State Historical Society. During my time with the historical society I completed Building Idaho: An Architectural History, which deals with both designed and vernacular architecture. The book won the Idaho Library Association Book Award for 1991 and a commendation from the American Association for State and Local History.

Selected Publications

Up in the Rocky Mountains: Writing the Swedish Immigrant Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

"Peasant Letters Revisited," Swedish-American Historical Quarterly 56.2-3 (2005):126-40.

"Swedish America in the Rocky Mountain West, 1880-1917: Folkloric Perspectives on the Immigrant Letter," Scandinavian Studies 77 (2005): 53-84.

"Swedish Immigrants and the Myth of the West," Swedish-American Historical Quarterly 60.3 (2004): 179-93.

"A Lonely Guy in Rocky Bar, Idaho: Imagining Swedish America from the Mines," Swedish-American Historical Quarterly 54.3 (2003): 164-84.

Building with Logs: Western Log Construction in Context. Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1998.

"Claiming Ethnicity: Implicit and Explicit Expressions of Ethnicity among Swedish Americans." Not English Only, ed. Orm Øverland. European Contributions to American Studies, no. 48. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2001. 12 28. Also published in American Studies in Scandinavia 32.1 (2000): 6-28.

"The Trolls of Fiction: Ogres or Warm Fuzzies?" Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 7.1 (1996): 61-74.

Courses Taught

• English 212, Introduction to Folklore/Oral Tradition

• English g490, Folklore (with focus on various genres and topics)

• American Studies 200, Introduction to American Studies

Office: LA 235/236
Office Phone: 282-2531
attejenn@isu.edu