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IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 144: Borders of Reception, I: Place-Making and Old Norse Literature

Monday 6 July 2020, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:H.M. Queen Margrethe II Distinguished Research Project 'The Danish-Icelandic Reception of Nordic Antiquity'
Organisers:Katarzyna Anna Kapitan, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, Københavns Universitet
Dale Kedwards, Nationaler Forschungsschwerpunkt Medienwandel - Medienwechsel - Medienwissen, Universität Zürich
Moderator/Chair:Katarzyna Anna Kapitan, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, Københavns Universitet
Paper 144-aThe Spatial Imaginary in Old Norse Myth
(Language: English)
Manu Braithwaite-Westoby, Medieval & Early Modern Centre, University of Sydney
Index terms: Geography and Settlement Studies, Language and Literature - Scandinavian
Paper 144-bMythography in the Space Age: Place-Names derived from Old Norse Mythology on Jupiter's Moon Callisto
(Language: English)
Dale Kedwards, Nationaler Forschungsschwerpunkt Medienwandel - Medienwechsel - Medienwissen, Universität Zürich
Index terms: Geography and Settlement Studies, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Medievalism and Antiquarianism, Onomastics
Paper 144-cNo Such Thing as Ethical Medievalism under Tourism?: Medieval Iceland and the Modern Tourism Industry
(Language: English)
Hannah Armstrong, Independent Scholar London
Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Medievalism and Antiquarianism, Social History
Abstract

This session combines a range of disciplinary approaches to the matter of place-making in and through Old Norse literature: from the cosmogenic poems of the Edda, through to the uses of such mythologies in later centuries. Manu Braithwaite-Westoby discusses how medieval Scandinavians rationalised the space around them with particular reference to Norse myth. Dale Kedwards reveals how the same Eddic poems have been productive in providing planetary scientists in modern times with a store of names to apply to land features on worlds in our solar system. Using Iceland as a case study, Hannah Armstrong examines whether it is possible for medievalisms, particularly ones tied to a national identity, to be ethically incorporated into the tourism industry or whether it will invariably feed far-right appropriations of the past.