Old Norse News

Thanks to Máire Ní Mhaonaigh for sending details of the following conference:

Between the Islands: Interaction with Vikings in Ireland and Britain in the Early Medieval Period

Location: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge

Friday 13 - Sunday 15 March 2009

Website: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/567/

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Location: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge

Theme: Between the Islands: Interaction with Vikings in Ireland and Britain in the Early Medieval Period

Time: Friday 09.15 - Sunday 15.30 | Website: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/567/

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Theme: “Hidden Depths”

Location: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge

Time: TBA | Website: http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/ccasnc.htm

Call for Papers

The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge invites paper proposals for its annual interdisciplinary postgraduate conference, the theme of which is: “Hidden Depths.”

We are pleased to announce that this year’s keynote speaker shall be Michael Winterbottom, Professor Emeritus of Classics at the University of Oxford. Professor Winterbottom will be discussing ‘The Style of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica: How Simple is it?’

Papers should take no more than twenty minutes to deliver. Please submit a 250-word abstract of your paper by 9 January 2009 to ccasnc@yahoo.co.uk

The call for papers has gone out for the fourth symposium run under the aegis of the Viking Identities Network, entitled ‘Language, Texts, and Gender in the Viking Diaspora’. It will take place at the University of Leicester on 30-31 March 2009. The full text of the call for papers follows: Read more »

The second week in November looks like being a busy one in the Old Norse world. The Århus myth conference takes place then, as does the Viking Society meeting in London, where Matthew Driscoll is giving a lecture. Then, on the 17-19 November, the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Bergen is holding a conference entitled Tradition and the Individual Talent: Modes of Authorship in the Middle Ages. Not all the papers are on Scandinavian topics, but several are, and the speakers include Else Mundal, Jonas Wellendorf, Gísli Sigurðsson, Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, Bernt Øyvind Thorvaldsen, Åslaug Ommundsen, Emily Lethbridge and Kristel Zilmer. The full programme is available by clicking the following link: Bergen Authorship Conference Programme. The CMS at Bergen is a fantastic place to visit, and I wish I could go (teaching commitments are going to get in the way of this one for me). Old Norse News will try to get a full report.

Alison Finlay writes:

This year the Viking Society sponsored a successful session at the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo. Next year we are hoping to organize a session in collaboration with St Louis University, and I am writing to invite offers of papers on any area of Old Norse studies. The dates of the Congress are May 7-10, 2009. The deadline for submission of the session is imminent, so proposals should reach me by next Friday - 12th September. No abstract needed in the first instance - just a title (and a few lines of expanation if the
title is not self-explanatory).

As usual, the Viking Society will also sponsor and organize one or more sessions at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds (13-16 July 2009). For once I am hoping to meet the deadline of 30th September, so please send any proposals (again, a title is sufficient) by 25th September. Unfortunately the term ’sponsor’ does not imply that the Society is able to pay expenses. Graduate students and others in need of support may note that the conferences themselves offer limited bursaries to participants in need.

You can contact Alison for further information or to submit a paper title at: a.finlay[at]bbk.ac.uk

This year’s Aarhus conference on matters mythological will take place on 20-21 November, with the theme ‘Myth and Memory in Old Norse Culture’. The programme looks excellent, with the likes of Stefan Brink, John McKinnell, Gísli Sigurðsson, Stephen Mitchell, and Jürg Glauser alongside some of the most up-and-coming younger mythologians. Click on the picture above for details and registration information. Old Norse News certainly plans to send its correspondents to provide a full report!