IMC 2016: Sessions
Session 523: Hungrvaka: Stirring Up an Appetite for Old Norse Literature, I
Tuesday 5 July 2016, 09.00-10.30
| Organiser: | Rebecca Merkelbach, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Rebecca Merkelbach, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge |
| Paper 523-a | Got Milk?: Lactose and Masculinity in the Sagas (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Sexuality |
| Paper 523-b | Consumption and Intoxication in Vǫlsunga Saga (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Sexuality |
| Paper 523-c | Bad Beef and Mad Cow Disease in Bósa Saga (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Literacy and Orality, Pagan Religions |
| Abstract | As part of a series of sessions, these papers trace and explore a variety of issues surrounding food and drink, feasting, and nurturing in Old Norse-Icelandic and continental Scandinavian literature and law. They build upon the fruitful collaboration among young academics in the field that was established at the IMC in 2013 and 2014, and are intended to complement the proposed sessions entitled 'Scandinavian History in the Viking and Middle Ages'. This series of sessions will investigate the relationship medieval Icelanders had with food in the way it was played out in the literary and legal texts they produced. What motifs are associated with the consumption of certain types of food and drink? What are the legal implications of food production and distribution? In what ways do nature and nurture play into the construction of characters in saga literature? This first session will focus on the tension between the physical act of consumption and its symbolic meaning in different literary genres, exploring issues of gender, sexuality, and religion along the way. |