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Research Group for Medieval Philology

Workshop Knowledge of the North: Traditions, Transformations, and Practices of Medieval Scandinavian Learning

Jens Eike Schnall (UiB) and Jonas Wellendorf (University of California, Berkeley) have recieved a seed grant from the Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study. The funding covers two exploratory workshops in Bergen and Berkeley.

22nd November: At the Department of Special Collections

Main content

 

 

New impetus to the study of scholarly literature of the medieval North: The exploratory project Knowledge of the North: Traditions, Transformations, and Practices of Medieval Scandinavian Learning aims at laying the foundation for a more exhaustive study of the nature, possible applications, and prestige of book-transmitted learning in the medieval Norse societies and beyond, as well as the milieus in which it circulated and its relation to oral and social practices. The focus lies on three interdependent topics:

 

 

1) The acquisition and written transmission of scientific and cultural knowledge in medieval Iceland and Norway

 

 

2) The ordinatio or organization of knowledge on the manuscript page and within encyclopedic codices and miscellanies

 

 

3) The transformation and circulation of scientific and cultural knowledge in urban culture of the Scandinavian Realms

 

 

The project is supported by the Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study. The funding covers two exploratory workshops, the above-mentioned in Bergen and a second held in Berkeley in april 2014.

Internal and external collegues and students are welcome, please contact:

 

Jens Eike Schnall (eike.schnall@lle.uib.no)

Jonas Wellendorf (wellendorf@berkeley.edu)

 

 

Programme

 

Friday:

09:00               Welcome

09:15-10:00

Bjørn Bandlien (Vestfold University College) – Dialogized hybridity and polyphonic sagas: Bakhtinian approaches to the intellectual cultures in twelfth-century Scandinavia

10:00-10:30    Coffee Break

10:30-12:00

Åslaug Ommundsen (University of Bergen) – Norske skriptorier omkring 1200

Tom Hellers (University of Bergen): The Oldest Sources on Odin: Late Medieval and Early Modern Perspectives

12:00-13:00    Lunch

13:00-14.00

Archivalia at the Department of Special Collections

14:00-14.45

Jonas Wellendorf (UC Berkeley) - Retying the bonds: Theories on the origin of idolatry in the North

14:45-15:15    Coffee Break

15:15-16.45

Jacob Hobson (UC Berkeley) - Learning to Read Skaldic Poetry in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Molly Jacobs (UC Berkeley) - Creating the Medieval Court: Senses, Space, and Spectacle

 

Saturday:

09:15-10:00

Stefan Drechsler (University of Kiel) - The illuminated manuscripts from Helgafell – an interdisciplinary approach

10:00-10:30    Coffee Break

10:30-12:00

Florian Schreck (University of Bergen) - Representation, Processing and Dissemination of Science and Learning in Old Icelandic Romances

Hilde Stoltz (University of Bergen) - Fra fortelling til historie? Pseudohistoriske oversettelsesverk i flere versjoner

12:00-13:00    Lunch

13:00-14:30

Christian Etheridge (University of Copenhagen) – The Icelandic Aratea: Carolingian astronomical knowledge encoded in a fourteenth century manuscript

Jens Eike Schnall (University of Bergen) - From Medieval to Early Modern Times: Learned Traditions and Critical Attitudes towards the Marvels of the Sea

14:30-15:00

Perspectives / Future work