Norse Studies at the University of Melbourne: an Elegy
I came across an interesting article by John Stanley Martin in Nordic Notes, a publication of the Centre for Scandinavian Studies at Flinders University, Australia. John traces the long and distinguished history of the teaching of Old Norse/Icelandic and related subjects at the University of Melbourne (where Old Icelandic was the sixth language to be introduced to the university’s curriculum!)
Unfortunately, the article ends on a melancholy note, since the Viking Studies programme at Melbourne was shut down last year, ending more than half a century’s tradition and achievement. It’s an all-too-familiar story: despite Viking Studies apparently pressing many of the correct buttons for modern university administrators — interdisciplinarity, cross-cultural approaches, collaborative teaching and healthy and growing enrollments — internal politics and budget restrictions appear to have sealed its fate. A great shame.
Administered by 
It might be added to John’s account that Katrina Burge organised a one-day seminar, ‘Vikings and their enemies’ in an effort to ensure that Viking Studies ended at University of Melbourne (temporarily, one hopes) with a bang rather than a whimper. The seminar was held on Saturday, 24 November 2007, and attracted fourteen speakers on Viking and Old Norse topics from various parts of Australia. Publication of the proceedings is planned for late 2008.
Actually, quite frankly, the commentary is more interesting messages themselves. (Not to insult the author, of course:))
This was a great disappointment to me and others in Victoria who wanted to study this subject at Melbourne University – Monash Uni had already cut back their History Dept (and virtually wiped out their Classics Dept in the 90′s), and unfortunately Latrobe Uni offers only Modern History from the 1700′s on, and the other unis in Melb are virtually useless as far as history goes ….
Of course, if you want to go on to study/teach in the field people now virtually have to go overseas to either the US or Europe.
This little black duck says: “Not happy Jan” …. >:(
The Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Sydney seems to be doing well, though. They even still offer Old Norse as a language class, which is excellent, so the solution may be (like it was for me, since I’m originally from Melbourne) to go up to Sydney!