"Myth and Genre"

March 1-3 (4) - 2005
Place: Bergen, Centre for Medieval Studies, Villaveien 1A

The target group for the seminar are Ph.D. students writing about or
using as sources Old Norse mythological texts. The Ph.D. students are
invited to present parts of their thesis (1-2 chapters) at the
seminar.

Number of participants will be restricted.

Teachers:
Professor Joseph Harris, Harvard University
Professor Anders Hultgård, Uppsala University
Professor Else Mundal, Bergen

For more information please contact:

Else Mundal

tel.: (+47) 55 58 24 23

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Dagseminar om Norges landbrukshistorie:

Bonden si rolle i norsk historie

Dato: 16 mars 2005

Tid: kl. 9-16

Sted: Auditoriet, Bryggens Museum

Arrangør: Senter for middelalderstudier i samarbeid med HIFO-Bergen og Historisk institutt, UiB.

Kontakt:

Stipendiat Jo Rune Ugulen

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Creating the medieval saga –

versions, variability and editorial approaches

Date: 13-15 April 2005

Place:   tba

please note: a more detailed programme will be announced later

In collaboration with the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University
of Bergen, the Department of Anglo-Saxon Norse and Celtic at the
University of Cambridge will hold a three-day symposium on the transmission and editing of medieval Icelandic sagas from a literary perspective.
Speakers at the symposium will include:

Professor Vésteinn Ólason, (Reykjavík)

Professor Odd Einar Haugen (Bergen)

Professor Jürg Glauser (Zürich)

Professor Margaret Clunies Ross (Sydney)

Dr Matthew Driscoll (Copenhagen)

Professor Russell Poole (Ontario)

Dr Gudrún Nordal (Reykjavík),

Professor Andrew Wawn (Leeds),

Dr Karl-Gunnar Johansson (Oslo)

Professor Judith Jesch (Nottingham).

The symposium will be limited to 35 participants to maximise interaction and to foster cumulative debate.

The symposium has been organised by Dr Judy Quinn of the University of
Cambridge in collaboration with Professor Else Mundal of the Centre for
Medieval Studies at the University of Bergen, which will host the event.

If you are interested in attending the symposium, please contact: Professor Judy Quinn

Except in the case of invited participants, a registration fee will be charged to cover the cost of meals and accommodation.

The symposium has been funded by Nordisk Kulturfond and the Scandinavian Studies Fund of the University of Cambridge.

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(by invitation)

The base narratives of Roman history - and what medieval scholars made of them

The workshop will take place in Bergen on June 17-18, 2005 with arrival on the 16 and departure on Sunday 19.

The spread and use of Roman histories in the early and high middle ages has been studied with greater attention in recent years. And while the fundamental study of textual history is providing a more solid basis, new approaches to medieval Latin historiography and vernacular translations and adaptations are also gaining ground. These approaches are giving us a richer picture of how and when medieval scholars integrated the Roman past, pagan and Christian, as an essential part of their own regional and European past. Through the workshop we want to create a forum for both manuscript and literary scholars as well as for latinists and vernacularists who have the base narratives of Roman history in their focus - the narratives of Orosius, Justinus, Eutropius, Paul the Deacon, Josephus, Livy, Lucan, Sallust and others.

We envisage brief presentations of max. 30 min. of on-going and recently finished PhDs as well as from senior scholars in the field. Please give me a word if you know of other PhD students for whom this is a central area.

Contact:

Professor Lars Boje Mortensen

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 (by invitation)

Gentes, “Gentile” Identity, and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe

The workshop will take place in September 2005

Archeologists and traditional historians use different approaches, methods, and terminology to describe ethnic, cultural, and political developments in Early Medieval Europe: Archeology operates with such terms as territorial units and tribes. Literary historians often employ Latin terms such as regna or gentes. Those two sets of categories are not identical: in many cases archeological units do not correspond to political units described in early medieval written sources. How to find the links between archeological data and written evidence is an important issue this workshop is planning to address. This issue needs an interdisciplinary approach and a common scholarly language useful for both traditional historians and archeologists and applicable for different regions of Early Medieval Europe. Secondly, state formation was analyzed in terms of Christianization or the emergence of a ruling royal family. What role the previous “gentile” identities and allegiances played in this process and what modifications they underwent are other questions addressed to the participants of this workshop.

Contact:

Post- doc Ildar Garipzanov