IMC 2008: Sessions
Session 107: Viking Identities Network: Approaches to Language and Gender in the Viking Diaspora
Monday 7 July 2008, 11.15-12.45
| Sponsor: | Viking Identities Network (VIN) |
|---|---|
| Organiser: | Jayne Carroll, School of English, University of Leicester |
| Moderator/Chair: | Richard Dance, St Catharine's College, University of Cambridge |
| Paper 107-a | Loanwords and Gender in the Viking Diaspora (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Old English, Language and Literature - Scandinavian |
| Paper 107-b | Female Colonists, Place-Names, and Landnámabók (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Onomastics |
| Paper 107-c | Women and Poetry in the Viking Diaspora (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Language and Literature - Scandinavian |
| Abstract | The Viking Age is traditionally seen as the aggressive, militaristic expansion of a Scandinavian seafaring and warrior culture with imperialist ambitions. The Viking Identities Network seeks to reconfigure the period as a diaspora, with subsequent effects on ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural, and genetic identities. The Viking 'migrations' were a physical movement, with the re-settlement of people and the re-establishment of key institutions, but 'diaspora' can be seen as the consciousness of being connected to people and traditions of a homeland and to migrants from the same ethnic origin. While the stereotypical 'Viking' is a male warrior, Scandinavian women settled in the Viking colonies, and are recorded (and sometimes celebrated) in contemporary and later texts and in place-names. This session considers possible ways in which their contribution to the linguistic evidence of the diaspora may be assessed. |