Workshop Agenda

Day 1:  Monday, 24 November 2014, HumLab-X of Umeå University

09:00 – 10:00    Welcome, introductions, workshop goals

10:00 – 10:30    Coffee break

10:30 – 12:00    Session 1

Anna Foka & Lewis Webb (Umeå University), From Thule to Hyperborea: The Shifting Definitions of the North in Classical Thought

Eleanor Barraclough (Durham University), North of the Northmen: Visions of the Arctic North in the Old Norse-Icelandic Sagas

12:00 – 13:00    Lunch

13:00 – 14:30    Session 2

Federico Barbierato (University of Verona) & Helena Wangefelt Ström (Umeå University), Omne malum ab Aquilone. Images of the Evil North in Early Modern Italy and their Impact on Cross-Religious Encounters

Mateo Ballester Rodriguez (Complutense University of Madrid), Nordic Europe as a Supernatural and Mysterious Terra Incognita in Early Modern Spain

14:30 – 15:00    Coffee break

15:00 – 17:00    Session 3

Barbara Auger (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bernay), Medieval Normandy: Mythological Cultivation and Acculturation of a Scandinavian Settlement

Stefan Donecker (Austrian Academy of Science), Officina gentium aut vagina nationum. The North as the Origin of Migration in Early Modern Thought

Kim Simonsen (University of Amsterdam), Elevating the Early Modern North. Images of the North and the Use of Ballads and Sagas by Early Modern Scholars

18:00                  Conference Dinner

 

Day 2:  Tuesday, 25 November 2014, Västerbottens museum

08:30 – 10:00    Session 4

Päivi Maria Pihlaja (University of Helsinki), Old Rudbeck resurrected in Paris! Visions of the Arctic Origins of Civilisation and Science in Eighteenth-Century Europe

Virginia Langum (Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study), Complexion and Character in a Cold Climate: Medicine and Geography in the Medieval Imaginary

10:00 – 10:30    Coffee break

10:30 – 12:00    Session 5

Jeremy DeAngelo (University of Connecticut), Making Saami of the Scots: Britain’s and Scandinavia’s Near Norths

Dawn Jackson Williams (University of St. Andrews), The Contours of the North? British Mountains and Northern Peoples, 1600-1800

12:00 – 13:00    Lunch

13:00 – 14:30    Session 6

Vicki E. Szabo (Western Carolina University), Northern Seas, Marine Monsters, and Perceptions of the Pre-modern North Atlantic in the Longue Durée

Dolly Jørgensen (Umeå University), Beastly Belonging in the Premodern North

14:30 – 15:00    Coffee break

15:00 – 16:00    Sami rock art exhibit guided tour

16:00 – 17:00    Discussion and workshop wrap-up

Call for Papers

Call for Papers

Northern visions in the pre-modern era

24-25 November 2014

Umeå, Sweden

This two-day workshop will bring together researchers from across the globe interested in exploring the idea of the North before 1800, including prehistoric, ancient, medieval, and early modern periods. Some potential questions we would like to collectively address are:

• How was North defined in the pre-modern age?
• Who or what was thought to inhabit the North?
• How do outsider ideas compare to the lived reality of making a home in the North?
• What was the relationship between indigenous peoples of the North and outsiders?
• How did the discovery of a new North in the New World change perceptions?
• Do concepts of North vary across the globe?

We have specifically left the idea of North open so that scholars can explore how it was defined by their historical subjects, unconstrained by 21^st century notions of what or where North exists.

The workshop will be intentionally interdisciplinary. We invite papers grounded in history, literature, art history, archeology, or other related humanities disciplines dealing with North anywhere in the world. The interdisciplinary design will facilitate an integrated and comparative cultural study of the pre-modern North.

The workshop is designed as a discussion of pre-circulated draft papers. There will be 12 paper presenters and each paper will be allocated 30-45 minutes for discussion. The intended outcome of the workshop is an edited volume published with an international academic press.

To apply, send a 300-word abstract for the proposed paper and a 2-page CV to premodernnorth@gmail.com by 15 July 2014.

Participants will be notified of acceptance before 1 August 2014. Draft papers of 3000 to 4000 words are due 1 November 2014. Drafts will be pre-circulated and participants are expected to read all papers before the workshop.

Accommodation and meals during the workshop will be paid. In addition, travel expenses of up to 800€ will be reimbursed for international participants.

The workshop is organized by the Umeå Group for Premodern Studies (UGPS) and the Arctic Research Centre at Umeå University (Arcum), with financial support from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and the Umeå University Faculty of Arts. The workshop leaders are Dr. Dolly Jørgensen and Dr. Virginia Langum.

The idea of this workshop

This two-day workshop will bring together researchers from across the globe interested in exploring the idea of the North before 1800, including prehistoric, ancient, medieval, and early modern periods. Some potential questions we would like to collectively address are:

• How was North defined in the pre-modern age?
• Who or what was thought to inhabit the North?
• How do outsider ideas compare to the lived reality of making a home in the North?
• What was the relationship between indigenous peoples of the North and outsiders?
• How did the discovery of a new North in the New World change perceptions?
• Do concepts of North vary across the globe?

We have specifically left the idea of North open so that scholars can explore how it was defined by their historical subjects, unconstrained by 21^st century notions of what or where North exists.

The workshop will be intentionally interdisciplinary. We invite papers grounded in history, literature, art history, archeology, or other related humanities disciplines dealing with North anywhere in the world. The interdisciplinary design will facilitate an integrated and comparative cultural study of the pre-modern North.

The workshop is designed as a discussion of pre-circulated draft papers. There will be 12 paper presenters and each paper will be allocated 30-45 minutes for discussion. The intended outcome of the workshop is an edited volume published with an international academic press.