• Old Norse Texts Online

At present, it simply takes the form of an alphabetical list of texts, drawn from the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, with links to all the online editions and translations that I’ve found of each. At some point in the future, I hope to convert this data into a properly searchable format. It excludes poetry, pretty much all of which is available at the Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages project website.

The list will grow over time; at present I can’t pretend it’s anything like comprehensive, but I hope people will find it useful to have a one-stop central location to help them find the texts and translations they need to consult.

Do let me know what you think … all suggestions gratefully received. And, of course, I’ll be particularly pleased to hear about any online texts that are currently missing from the directory.

Alternatively, if you move down to ‘categories’ on the sidebar, and click ‘events‘, you’ll be taken to a chronological list of forthcoming conferences, courses, meetings, lectures: everything we hear about.

If you know of a relevant event that’s not yet listed, or would like to publicize something you’re organizing yourself, please get in touch.

Old Norse News is a new website that provides a hub for information relating to the academic study of medieval Scandinavia. Its aims are to provide a regularly updated overview of new developments in the field; to collate and link to useful resources elsewhere on the internet; to act as a notice board for news and announcements. Medievalists in Scandinavian Studies are a very disparate bunch, international and interdisciplinary, and often working in relative isolation. Over time, we hope also, therefore, to create a sort of virtual community for all scholars, students, and others who share an interest in the Old North.

The shape and scope of Old Norse News has been much influenced by the Old English Newsletter, which is published by the Old English division of the Modern Language Association in both print form and on the web. Our site currently lacks the support of a major sponsor, and to begin with its scope will be somewhat narrower than the OEN. But there are many similarities between Anglo-Saxon Studies and Medieval Scandinavian Studies, and we feel that a resource similar to the OEN is a desideratum in our field.

Initially, Old Norse News will publish the following types of posts:

• Announcements: conferences, calls for papers, job postings, new publications, etc.
• Reports from conferences and about on-going projects, and round-ups of current periodical literature
• Links to electronic resources relevant to the study of medieval Scandinavia
• Information and discussion relating to teaching and studying Old Norse, medieval Scandinavian history, and related subjects. Descriptions of institutions, departments, and courses that offer the chance to study medieval Scandinavia, as a resource for prospective students
• Occasional short essays about the state of the field and current trends and developments in it

Possible future developments include reports of individuals’ research-in-progress; abstracts of recent dissertations in the field; book reviews; and perhaps one day a new electronic bibliography to replace or supplement the Bibliography of Old Norse-Icelandic Studies (BONIS), whose database is still functional, but which is not comprehensive and which does not seem to be altogether up-to-date.

But we’re starting this website from the bottom-up, and hope that it will grow organically to reflect the interests and wishes of its readers. By using Web 2.0 blogging technology, the site is (a) cheap to run (b) easily extensible and (c) interactive. The last of these factors is the most important: if Old Norse News is to be a useful resource for our community, it will depend on the participation of others.

What you can do:

• Please send us notices about any of the following: calls for papers; conferences; job postings; courses; new books or new issues of journals; links to websites that may be of interest to the Old Norse News readership. If you teach in the area of Medieval Scandinavian Studies, please consider sending us a brief description of your institution and the courses on offer there.
• Suggest anything that you’d like to see on the site that is currently missing.
• Consider joining the team: if you’d be interested in contributing regularly to Old Norse News, or helping to administer the site, please get in touch.
• Comment! The comments section below each post is open to all, and we very much hope to get some sort of dialogue going through these pages. (Comments will be moderated, but gently.)

How to contact us:

Email: contact [at] oldnorsenews.org

Our postal address is: Old Norse News, c/o Chris Abram, Department of Scandinavian Studies, UCL Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK.