Media-eval ventures to Valholl as Sarah and returning guest Miti von Weissenberg tackle 2022 film The Northman! Join us as we explore masculinity, gender, slavery, race, and vengeance in the film and in the real Norse past. CW for discussion of sexual assault (which is not graphically depicted in the film but is thematically important) and for discussion of white nationalism (which is relevant to the audience response to the film and to attitudes toward the Vikings in general).
Want to learn more about the context for the film?
Check out some classic Icelandic revenge sagas:
The Saga of the People of Laxardal and Bolli Bollason’s Tale. Transl. Keneva Kunz. London: Penguin Books, 2008
1903 Translation into English: https://sagadb.org/laxdaela_saga.en2
Njal’s Saga. Transl. Robert Cook. London, Penguin Books, 2008.
1861 translation into English free and online: https://sagadb.org/brennu-njals_saga.en
Read some excellent scholarship on the Vikings and Scandinavia:
Brink, Stefan, in collaboration with Neil Price. The Viking World. London: Routledge, 2012.
Callmer, Johan, Ingrid Gustin, and Mats Roslund, eds. Identity Formation and Diversity in the Early Medieval Baltic and beyond : Communicators and Communication. The Northern World : North Europe and the Baltic, c. 400-1700 AD. : Peoples, Economics and Cultures: Volume 75. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
Clements, Jonathan. A Brief History of the Vikings (The Last Pagans or the First Modern Europeans?) London: Hachette, 2005.
Duczko, Wladyslaw. Viking Rus : Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe. Brill, 2004.
Frank, Roberta. “The Invention of the Viking Horned Helmet” in International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber: Ein runder Knäuel, so rollt’ es uns leicht aus den Händen, ed. Michael Dallapiazza, Olaf Hansen, Preben Meulengracht-Sørensen, and Yvonne S. Bonnetai, 199-208. Trieste: Edizioni Parnaso, 2000.
Jarman, Cat. River Kings. A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads. London: William Collins, 2021.
Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir. Valkyrie. The Women of the Viking World. London: Bloomsbury, 2020.
Price, Neil. The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2019.
Price, Neil, Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, Torun Zachrisson, Anna Kjellstrom, Jan Stora, Maja Krzewinska, Torsten Guenther, Veronica Sobrado, Mattias Jakobsson, and Anders Gotherstrom. “Viking Warrior Women? Reassessing Birka Chamber Grave Bj.581.” Antiquity 93, no. 367 (February 1, 2019): 181–98. doi:10.15184/aqy.2018.258.
Price, Neil. Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings. New York, Basic Books, 2020.
Samson, Vincent. Les Berserkir. Les Guerriers-Fauves dans la Scandinavie ancienne, de l’Âge de Vendel aux Vikings (VIe-XIe Siècle). Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Universitaires du Septentrion, 2011.
Weiss, Daniel. “The Viking Great Army.” Archaeology 71, no. 2 (2018): 50–56.
Winroth, Anders. The Age of the Vikings. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.
Winroth, Anders. The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants and Missionaries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.
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Find Miti at @MvonWeissenberg
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