Category: Reports

The Bergen International Postgraduate Symposium, 2023

With thanks to the Viking Society for Northern Research, and the University of Nottingham, I was able to attend and present a paper at the 14^th Bergen International Postgraduate Symposium in Old Norse Studies, which took place from the 17^th to the 20^th April 2023.

The Symposium has not been held in the last few years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and it was encouraging to once again be part of an academic event which was so motivational, supportive and multi-disciplinary.

The Symposium provided the opportunity to meet young academics from many different Universities, and the input of established scholars meant that it was possible to discuss ideas and consider research from different viewpoints. The feedback and questions from the audience after each paper highlighted how clearly engaged and interested everyone was in stimulating discussion, and delving into one another’s research. This made for a lively and very heartening Symposium, and was further evidenced by the fact that these discussions and questions were not limited to the time we spent in the auditorium, but would spill over into lunchtime debates, and increasingly amusing discussions in ‘Det Akademiske Kvarter’ at the end of the day.

My paper focused on the interactions between Danes and Slavs, as portrayed in the 13^th century text, Knýtlinga saga, and I was delighted to receive questions and suggestions from the audience. These questions have prompted me to look into some ideas which I had not considered before, perhaps most notably about the ways in which Christian saints could be adopted or even deified by non-Christian communities, and I am delighted to have had this experience, which will doubtless help shape my ongoing research.

Although much of our time was spent in the auditorium (and adjoining tea/coffee station), the organisers also arranged excursions, the first of which was a fascinating visit to the University Library Special Collections exhibit, where we were able to hear about the ways in which the library has specialised in manuscript collection and preservation, and how these manuscripts are safely stored and transported when needed. The final day saw us travel slightly out of Bergen to Lyse kloster (Lyse Abbey), the ruins of a 12^th century Cistercian Monastery, with its own quarry nearby, and then on to the Hordamuseet, a museum  which includes exhibits inside showcasing boat building and a history of farming and fishing in the area, as well as open-air sites which included an iron age burial,  the sunken remains of a boat building yard, and examples of different building types from the region.

At the close of this day myself and my fellow University of Nottingham participants had to part ways with the Bergen Symposium organisers and attendees, and say our reluctant goodbyes as we headed to the airport to return to Nottingham. After a very full itinerary I think we were all tired, but the experience had left us excited and ready to head back into our research with a revitalised sense of the importance of research, but also with the knowledge that there is a thriving academic community we belong to.

With sincere thanks to the University of Bergen for hosting and organising this Symposium once more, and with special thanks to the Viking Society for Northern Research and the University of Nottingham for providing me with the means to attend.

Ha det bra, Norge!

I am very grateful to the Viking Society for Northern Research for co-funding my field trip in Copenhagen from 10th March to 16th April 2023, which allowed me to join the Arnamagnæan Institute as a visiting scholar. The experience I have gained at the Institute is invaluable. It allowed me to acquire first-hand experience with manuscripts, test my latest research results, carry out some bibliographical research, and extend my academic network.

Regarding the first point, the Arnamagnæan Institute houses three of four manuscripts I am researching for my PhD project and some manuscripts I would potentially work on during my postdoc. Here I had the opportunity to review only one of them in person and appreciate some codicological and palaeographical features that are not visible in the digital format that I will include in my dissertation. Unfortunately, the second and third manuscripts have developed severe damage over the last few decades, and therefore I could not work on them in person. The Institute has, however, provided an excellent digital version of one of the two damaged manuscripts available from their database for internal users only.

Secondly, the Institute seminar committee has invited me to give a talk on any aspect of my dissertation. The talk, which I titled “The Invasive Model of Illness in an Old-Norse Medical Miscellany: Two Case Studies of við trollriða and við álfavǫlkun” has been well received by both the Institute and the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose (ONP) members. I understand from the following discussions that some of my lexicography points have been taken onboard and used to change some lexicon categories.

Visiting Copenhagen has also given me the opportunity to explore Den Kongelige Bibliotek and the University-based Nordisk Samling, where I found valuable works in Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic unavailable in the UK, which deepened my knowledge of scholarly debates on Old Norse medical miscellanies.

Finally, I have developed a strong network of friends and colleagues in the Institute and at the ONP who have always warmly welcomed me, providing the space and the tools to work comfortably and efficiently, showing great interest and support for my current research and future projects.

The 14^th Bergen International Postgraduate Symposium in Old Norse Studies

The Bergen Symposium was a four-day conference (17^th-20^th April 2023), with papers covering a diverse range of topics in Norse studies and delivered by postgraduate students representing eleven different universities across Europe. This was a highly enjoyable and beneficial experience, and I am most grateful to the VSNR and their Research Support Fund for providing me with the funding I needed to travel there.

Situated between bright blue sea and awe-inspiring mountains, Bergen is a truly beautiful city. It is also an exciting site for medievalists, being home to the World Heritage town of Bryggen (a 14^th-century trading centre) and the hall of the 13^th-century King Hákon Hákonarson. Naturally, as a budding medievalist on my first trip to Norway I was eagerly darting between all these sites – as were many of us at this Symposium. Not too far away, there is also the 12^th-century Cistercian monastery, Lyse kloster, and the Hordamuseet with its collection of boats and an Iron Age excavation site; we visited these sites on the final day. In Bergen, any keen scholar of Norse studies is always bound to learn something fascinating and useful to their research.

Yet the greatest proportion of our time was spent in the equally fascinating talks. With topics ranging from linguistics and corpus research to literature and palaeography, each day filled a new hive of knowledge. Additionally, the Symposium was also immensely beneficial for gaining presentation experience. For myself and many others, as young academics this was our first time delivering a formal paper in front of an audience. Far from this being intimidating, personally I found it great fun to share my own research on dreams and Gísla saga Súrssonar with other students and professors of Norse literature and to hear their feedback on my ideas. I now look forward even more to developing my ideas in response to the questions I was asked in Bergen, and consequently am certain that my future PhD will be a more relevant and solidly-argued contribution to the field of Old Norse studies.

Thus, the Bergen Symposium was a thoroughly enjoyable experience for everyone present. There was so much to learn from the talks and the city itself, and together these made the week truly inspirational for us as the next generation of Norse scholars. Special thanks is due to Helen Leslie-Jacobsen of the University of Bergen for organising this conference, and to the VSNR for making it possible to attend.