IMC 2022: Sessions

Session 1122: Demarcating Narratives: Old Icelandic Literature and the Construction of European Cultural and Political Identities

Wednesday 6 July 2022, 11.15-12.45

Organiser:	Ermenegilda Rachel Müller, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
Moderator/Chair:	Eirik Westcoat, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland
Paper 1122-a	Monstrosity and Alterity: Distant Countries and Monsters in Medieval Icelandic and Continental Literature (Language: English) Caeli Athina Diaz Lluberes, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavík Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 1122-b	Reception and Political Use of the Hrafnista Cycle in the Kalmar Union (Language: English) Jan Jürgensen, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavík Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Medievalism and Antiquarianism
Paper 1122-c	The Circulation of Saga Manuscripts at the Periphery of the Kalmar Union: Dissemination and Political Instrumentalisation of Old Icelandic Literature in the Early Modern Period (Language: English) Ermenegilda Rachel Müller, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavík Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 1122-d	The Formation of a Männerbund: Late Reception of the Wild Hunt in Otto Höfler's Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen (Language: English) Pablo Gomes de Miranda, Núcleo de Estudos Vikings e Escandinavos (NEVE), Universidade Federal da Paraíba Index terms: Historiography - Modern Scholarship, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Medievalism and Antiquarianism
Abstract	This session covers key moments in the reception history of Old Icelandic literature where it became central in discourses about identities with political implications - looking at the texts, their dissemination, and their interpretation. The four papers explore: -a) How the literature itself construes identity and alterity; -b) How the Kalmar union used and instrumentalised that literature to build its identity and legitimise its power, and -c) How the politics of the union influenced the manuscript dissemination of the literature; -d) The recuperation of the texts in the construction of identitarian discourses outside of the Nordic countries by exploring their use in Third Reich ideology.