So: where do (or can) you study Old Norse literature, language, and Medieval Scandinavian history/archaeology in North America (Canada is certainly to be included). Please leave a comment or use the contact page to let us know.

The information that would be most useful is:

• What courses are available?
• Which departments offer them?
• Are they undergraduate or postgraduate level?
• Are there opportunities for PhD research in these disciplines?

Once we’ve built up a database of North American institutions, we’ll move on to the rest of the world. Thanks for your help!

1. Viking Age Scandinavia – Transformation and Expansion

The University of Aarhus Summer School on Viking Age Scandinavia is an intensive short-session course designed to meet the needs of students interested in a brief but challenging educational experience during the summer.

Teaching takes place in a museum environment and brings together Danish and foreign students and staff. The course is open to BA and MA students in archaeology, history, literature and related disciplines from Denmark and elsewhere, as well as to other foreign students in Denmark and history teachers in secondary schools. The language of teaching is English.

Lecturers include Else Roesdahl, Unn Pedersen, and James Graham-Campbell.

2. From Greenland to Hell – Worldly, Mythological and Visionary Travels in Old Norse Literature

This summer school course focuses on travelling and encounters with the Other, themes that are widespread in a variety of Old Norse genres, both in historical, mythological and religious literature. The Old Norse texts will be studied primarily from a literary perspective, but will also be regarded as documents of a culture encountering the unknown.

The course allows you access to the latest knowledge in the field of international Old Norse studies. It is an intensive short session course designed to meet the needs of students interested in a challenging educational experience during the summer. Teaching takes place in a multinational environment, which brings together students and staff from different countries in Europe an abroad. The course provides you with an excellent opportunity to meet international lecturers and fellow students and to earn credit during the summer.

This course will be led by Pernille Hermann and Rolf Stavnem. Full details will be posted on the above website later this month.

This summer school, which is based on the successful format in which Old Irish has been taught at Limerick for the past few years, will be taught by Dr Katrina Burge of the University of Melbourne. Students will spend about 60 hours learning Old Norse over the course of the eleven days

They offer Bed &  Breakfast accommodation at 25 euros per night  and a taxi service to sights of Norse interest in the mid-west of Ireland whenever the teacher allows us to take a break. Price for the course is 300 euros.

The course is open to all. If you’re interested, please contact Cathy directly by email at Catherine.Swift@mic.ul.ie.

Chris Callow writes to give us the very heartening news that Old Norse language is returning to the syllabus at the University of Birmingham, after a few year’s hiatus. Chris will be teaching an introductory level course in the School of History and Cultures. He hopes to extend the teaching to more advanced levels in the future.

Chris also thought that Old Norse News readers might be interested in Birmingham’s new  MA in Medieval History, which has its first
intake in September 2009:
http://www.postgraduate.bham.ac.uk/prog2009/taught/arts/medieval-history.shtml.

It is expected that this will be the precursor to a series of other taught, graduate-level programmes in medieval studies and Late Antiquity which will become available over the next few years.

Finally, he mentions that Old Norse and Viking-Age scholars will be more than welcome at the annual Gender and Medieval Studies conference held in Birmingham on 7th-10th January 2010 (see http://www.medievalgender.co.uk/). The theme of the conference next year will be the family.

Obviously exciting times for medievalists at Birmingham, and I’m grateful to Chris for letting us know about them.

MA in Medieval Icelandic Studies
University of Iceland in cooperation with the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies Reykjavík, Iceland

The programme is aimed at providing postgraduate students with the necessary tools to study Old/Medieval Icelandic Texts in the original and in their manuscript context, with a special emphasis on interdisciplinary study.

Deadline for application is March 15th each year.

For more information visit:
Háskóli Íslands: MA in Medieval Icelandic Studies

Report by Maja Bäckvall, Uppsala University

From Runes to Script: Orality and Literacy in Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, held in July, was the third Old Norse summer school at Aarhus University’s Scandinavian department, but the first on this theme. It consisted of two weeks of lectures and workshops 9 to 4, including Saturdays and a heavy-duty reading list – this is not a summer school for the lazy. The hard work did pay off, however. For one thing, the course was nicely varied, beginning with runes and ending with Íslendingasögur, covering different kinds of poetry and prose as well as the more theoretical aspects of orality and literacy. Add to this the impressive collection of teachers: Michael Lerche Nielsen, Terry Gunnell, Karl G. Johansson, Daniel Sävborg, Rolf Stavnem and Pernille Hermann, with special appearances by Karen Bek-Pedersen and Stephen Mitchell. This might look like almost too many teachers for a two-week course, but since most of them sat in on each other’s lectures, the result was continuity rather than confusion. They were able to comment on, and often disagree with, what was said the previous day, showing the complexity of the subject.

Most practical matters worked fine. Students from outside Aarhus were housed at a dorm 45 minutes’ walk/ 15 minutes’ bus ride from the university – shared kitchen and bath rooms (for most) and not overly expensive. Between the application deadline in April and the weeks leading up to the course, the level of information felt rather low. I remember wondering what and when and where and even if something would happen for a month or so. Once that information started coming, though, most questions were answered. The only thing I could have wished for was to have been able to buy the reading materials on paper as well as the CD-ROM we got. Studying from a screen is annoying, and we were many who did not have the means to print out almost 1000 pages at home. This said, I highly recommend going to Aarhus on similar courses, and will do so myself.

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.