Networks in the Medieval North
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Book Series
The North Atlantic World, vol. 7
Ecocriticism and Old Norse Studies
Nature and the Environment in Old Norse Literature and Culture
Reinhard Hennig, Emily Lethbridge, Michael Schulte (eds)
- Pages: 312 p.
- Size:156 x 234 mm
- Illustrations:2 col.
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:2023
- € 90,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-60484-8
- Hardback
- Available
- ISBN: 978-2-503-60485-5
- E-book
- Available
Subject(s)
BIO
Reinhard Hennig is professor of Nordic literature at the University of Agder, Norway.
Emily Lethbridge is head of department and associate professor at the Department of Name Studies at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík, Iceland.
Michael Schulte is professor of historical linguistics at the University of Agder, Norway.
Summary
Ecocriticism and Old Norse Studies is the first anthology to combine environmental humanities approaches and the study of premodern Nordic literature and culture. The chapters gathered here present innovative research based on the most recent developments within ecologically informed literary and cultural studies. Covering a wide variety of sources, the volume provides new insights into the Old Norse environmental imagination, showing how premodern texts relate to nature and the environment — both the real-world environments of the Viking Age and Middle Ages, and the fantastic environments of some parts of saga literature. Collectively, the contributions shed new light on the role of cultural contacts, textual traditions, and intertextuality in the shaping of Old Norse perceptions and representations of nature and the environment, as well as on the modern reception and (mis-)use of these ideas. The volume moreover has a contemporary relevance, inviting readers to consider the lessons that can be learned from how people perceived their environments and interacted with them in the past as we face environmental crises in our own times.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Aknowledgements
Combining Ecocriticism and Old Norse Studies: Opportunities and Challenges
Reinhard Hennig, Emily Lethbridge, and Michael Schulte
Aesthetic Expressions of Nature in Skaldic Verse
Hannah Burrows
Trees in the Saga Dreamscape
Timothy Bourns
‘Brúðir berserkja barðak í hlés eyju’: A Material–Ecocritical Consideration of the Role of the Sea in Myths and Rituals of Premodern Scandinavia
Jonas Koesling
Legal Perspectives on Nature in Old Norse-Icelandic Lawcodes
Elizabeth Walgenbach
Imagining a Viking Age Risk Society: Environmental Threats, Risks, and Manufactured Uncertainties in the Sagas of Icelanders
Reinhard Hennig
Out of the Garden and Into the Forest: The Corruption of the Natural World in Old Icelandic Literature
Tiffany Nicole White
Askr and Embla: The Creation of Man from Trees
Sabine Heidi Walther
The Establishment of Niðaróss: The Nexus between Urban, Environmental, Political, and Salvation History
Stefka G. Eriksen
Imagining Trees in Mágus saga jarls
Philip Lavender
Son of the Soil and Son of Óðinn: Unveiling a Farmer’s Eddic Poetry (1920) and Colonial Germanic Concepts of Nature in South West Africa, Now Namibia
Juliane Egerer
Index
