Speaker examines changes in Scandinavian white nationalist music

Benjamin Teitelbaum of the University of Colorado Boulder will speak “Norwegian Terrorist Breivik, Music, and Ideological Affiliation: Changes in the Sound of Scandinavian Radical Nationalism” on Monday, Nov. 19 at 5:30 p.m. in 601 Herter Hall.

 

The talk is part of the Scandinavian Impulses 2 series on Vengeance and Violence.

 

Teitelbaum’s research on right-wing groups discovered a decline in popularity of hate rock and white power punk, and a rise of white, nationalist hip hop, reggae and light pop. As a teenager in 1990s west Oslo, Andre Breivik explained, “being into the very small right-wing community or the larger mainstream rock community meant Goth girls and hard rock. I disliked both.” He avoided the skinhead scene, but his reasons were not primarily ideological: as a self-declared hip-hopper, he found their music not to his taste.

Using Breivik as a starting point, Teitelbaum will explore changes in Scandinavian white nationalist music during the past 20 years, showing that Scandinavian radical nationalists are using new music in new ways to advance emerging understandings of themselves and the causes they fight for. The discussion will focus on the music of Swedish singer Saga—the most popular singer in the greater white nationalist world, and one of Breivik’s favorite musicians.

 

 

Photo: Benjamin Teitelbaum