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IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 823: Hungrvaka: Stirring Up an Appetite for Old Norse Literature, IV

Tuesday 5 July 2016, 16.30-18.00

Organiser:Rebecca Merkelbach, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:Philip Lavender, Nordisk Forskningsinstitut, Københavns Universitet
Paper 823-aBitten Shields and Broken Families: Nature and Nurture in the Genesis of Human Monsters in the Íslendingasögur
(Language: English)
Rebecca Merkelbach, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Mentalities
Paper 823-bScraps at the Table: Searching for a Saga of Þorsteinn Kuggason
(Language: English)
Joanne Shortt Butler, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Literacy and Orality
Paper 823-cFeasting in Eyrbyggja Saga
(Language: English)
Martina Ceolin, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Social History
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 way do nature and nurture play into the construction of characters in saga literature? This final session will explore the role of feasting and nurturing in the construction of saga narratives and the characters within them, and assemble the ingredients for saga writing.