Northern Myths, Modern Identities
Northern Myths, Modern Identities

Author: Simon Halink

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-05-15

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 9004398430

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This anthology of essays, Northern Myths, Modern Identities, explores the various ways in which ancient mythologies have been cultivated in the cultural construction of ethnic, national and supra-national identities from 1800 to the present. How were Old Norse, Finno-Ugric and Frisian myths employed as rhetorical devices in national narratives? And how did (and do) these new interpretations convey a sense of ‘northernness’? This volume approaches these issues from an interdisciplinary and international perspective, and brings together case studies from Scandinavia, the Baltic region, Friesland, Britain, the United States and even Japan. Thus, it provides a unique insight into the reception history and uses of northern myths in the present, and their role in the creation of modern identities. Contributors are: Tim van Gerven, Gylfi Gunnlaugsson, Simon Halink, Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson, Otto S. Knottnerus, Joep Leerssen, Daisy Neijmann, Han Nijdam, Robert A. Saunders, Katja Schulz, Tom Shippey, Carline Tromp, and Kendra Willson.

Arctic Hysteria and Other Strange Northern Emotions
Arctic Hysteria and Other Strange Northern Emotions

Author: Riikka Rossi

Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand

Published: 2024-10-24

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 9518589003

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This volume opens a new perspective on the thriving area of research on the imagined North by studying emotions in the light of case studies in Finnish literature. It addresses the cultural history of Arctic hysteria and maps other strange emotions depicted and evoked in literature of the Finnish North. The case studies range from the works of internationally renowned authors, such as Rosa Liksom, Emmi Itäranta and Tove Jansson, to the affectively controversial and provocative writings of Timo K. Mukka, Marko Tapio and Pentti Linkola. By focusing on the imagined North in the literature of modernism and late modernity, the authors offer fresh views on experiences of modernisation and the changing Northern environment in the age of the Anthropocene. The book is intended for scholars and students in literary studies, together with everyone interested in the imagined North and emotion, Finnish literature and culture.

Mythology and Nation Building
Mythology and Nation Building

Author: Sophie Bønding

Publisher: Aarhus Universitetsforlag

Published: 2021-07-30

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 8772194642

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Stories of gods, heroes and monsters permeated discourses of national selfhood in the nineteenth century. During this tumultuous time, Europe’s modern nations arose from the misty waters of long-forgotten national pasts – or so was the perception at the time. Each embedded in their particular national and political contexts, towering cultural figures – N.F.S. Grundtvig, Jacob Grimm, Jonás Halgrímsson, William Morris, Adam Oehlenschläger and many more – were catalysts for the formation of national discourses of belonging, built upon the mythological story-worlds of Europe’s non-classical vernacular pasts. This interdisciplinary book offers new perspectives on the uses of pre-Christian mythologies in the formation of national communities in nineteenth-century Northern and Western Europe. Through theoretical articles and case studies, it puts forth new understandings of how cultural thinkers across Europe utilized pre-Christian mythologies as symbolic resources in the forging of national communities. Perceptions of national identity were thus shaped, many of which are still at play today.

Beer and Brewing in Medieval Culture and Contemporary Medievalism
Beer and Brewing in Medieval Culture and Contemporary Medievalism

Author: John A. Geck

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-06-25

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 3030946207

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Beer and Brewing in Medieval Culture and Contemporary Medievalism is a cross-cultural analysis of the role that alcohol consumption played in literature, social and cultural history, and gender roles in the Middle Ages. The volume also seeks to correct or offer new insights into historical beer production. By drawing on the expertise of scholars of history, archaeology, Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and Medieval and Early Modern literature, the book shows how historical medieval beer and brewing has influenced nostalgic post-medieval nationalism and romanticized visions of the medieval ale-house seen in beer marketing today. The essays describe alcohol consumption in the Middle Ages across much of Northern Europe, engage with the various myths employed in modern craft beer advertising and beer production, and examine how gender intersects with beer production and consumption. The editors also raise certain critical questions about medievalisms which need to be interrogated, particularly in light of the continued use of the Middle Ages for white supremacist and colonialist ideals. The volume contributes to the study of the popular and historical understandings of the Middle Ages as well the issues of race and gender.

European Modernity and the Passionate South
European Modernity and the Passionate South

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-12-19

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 9004527222

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In the long nineteenth century, dominant stereotypes presented people of the Mediterranean South as particularly passionate and unruly, therefore incapable of adapting to the moral and political duties imposed by European civilization and modernity. This book studies, for the first time in comparative perspective, the gender dimension of a process that legitimised internal hierarchies between North and South in the continent. It also analyses how this phenomenon was responded to from Spain and Italy, pointing to the similarities and differences between both countries. Drawing on travel narratives, satires, philosophical works, novels, plays, operas, and paintings, it shows how this transnational process affected, in changing historical contexts, the ways in which nation, gender, and modernity were imagined and mutually articulated.

Nordic Experiences in Pan-nationalisms
Nordic Experiences in Pan-nationalisms

Author: Ruth Hemstad

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-06-30

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1000903559

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This book seeks to reassess and shed new light on pan-nationalisms in general and on Scandinavianism/Nordism in particular, by seeing them as possible futures and as interconnected ideas and practices across and beyond Europe. An actor and practice oriented approach is applied at the expense of more essentialist categorizations of what pan-nationalism is, or is not to underline both the synchronic and diachronic diversity of various pan-national movements. A range of expert international scholars discuss encounters, transfers, similarities and differences among pan-movements in Norden and Europe based on a broad empirical material, focusing on Scandinavianism/Nordism, pan-Slavism, pan-Turanism, pan-Germanism and Greater Netherlandism, and the position of Britishness in Great Britain. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of nationalism, European history, European studies and Scandinavian studies, history, social science, political geography, civil society and literary studies.

From Iceland to the Americas
From Iceland to the Americas

Author: Tim William Machan

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 1526128772

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This volume investigates the reception of a small historical fact with wide-ranging social, cultural and imaginative consequences. Inspired by Leif Eiriksson’s visit to Vinland in about the year 1000, novels, poetry, history, politics, arts and crafts, comics, films and video games have all come to reflect rising interest in the medieval Norse and their North American presence. Uniquely in reception studies, From Iceland to the Americas approaches this dynamic between Nordic history and its reception by bringing together international authorities on mythology, language, film and cultural studies, as well as on the literature that has dominated critical reception. Collectively, the chapters not only explore the connections among medieval Iceland and the modern Americas, but also probe why medieval contact has become a modern cultural touchstone.

Dreaming of a Glacier
Dreaming of a Glacier

Author: Matthias Egeler

Publisher: utzverlag GmbH

Published: 2020-06-16

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 3831648557

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Snæfellsjökull is one of Iceland’s most famous volcanoes. It is there that Jules Verne located the entrance to the centre of the earth; it is the abode of a medieval saga hero and the location of one of Halldór Laxness’s novels. Travellers, painters, poets, and film-makers have been drawn to it in equal measure – while at the same time and against all expectations, others seem unfazed: as famous as the mountain is on a national and international stage, local folklore and medieval historiography have amazingly little interest in it. Clearly, Snæfellsjökull is not the same to everyone. This volume presents a survey of the place of Snæfellsjökull in the Icelandic and European imagination. It adapts the paradigm of geocriticism, which shifts the focus of the scholarly investigation from the work of individual authors to the multitude of views that different authors, artists, and practitioners have on a single place. The results of the perambulation of Snæfellsjökull presented here show that both its cultural and literary history, as well as the paradigm of geocriticism, open up broad vistas that amply repay the effort necessary to tackle this mountain.

Theosophy and the Study of Religion
Theosophy and the Study of Religion

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2024-06-14

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9004694161

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Since its emergence in the nineteenth century, the Theosophical Society has wielded enormous influence across diverse fields, none more so than the study of religion. This volume explores this legacy in North America, Europe, and India, demonstrating its impact on the conceptualization of “religion” and its influence on methods of comparison. Unveiling overlooked entanglements, the volume challenges standard narratives in the history of religious studies and interrogates the deliberate neglect of theosophy’s influence in the “secular” academy. In doing so, the work confronts lingering ghosts, urging a reappraisal that enriches the study of religion and offers prescriptions for its future.