Summer Roundup

In the summer 'vacation', most academics are busy writing books and articles (or their PhD), but they also use this time to extend their skills and knowledge by attending conferences and courses, go on pilgrimages to the places they study, organise conferences, and give lectures to both academic and wider audiences. This summer, members of the CSVA have been busy with all of the above.

In July, PhD student Elizaveta Matveeva and MA students Martina Fazio, Aidan Gaunt, and Rebecca Gregory formed the team organising the Institute for Medieval Research's annual Postgraduate Conference, this year on the theme of 'Reception and Transmission of Viking Age Culture'. The quality of both papers and discussion was extremely high. Alongside several international participants (including PhD student Benoit Humbert from France who will be visiting Nottingham in 2013-14), Nottingham contributions were a keynote paper by Dr John Shafer on 'Transmitting the Tales of the Norwegian Hrafnista Heroes from the Middle Ages to Today', as well as talks on their research by current PhD students Ruarigh Dale and Teva Vidal, and MA student Thomas Spray.

PhD student Eleanor Rye extended her Norwegian skills by attending the International Summer School at the University of Oslo.

In August, both Professor Judith Jesch and Dr Christina Lee took part in the Seventeenth Viking Congress, a prestigious quadrennial event, held this time in Shetland, where among others they caught up with former Nottingham Special Professors Else Roesdahl and James Graham-Campbell, and former MA student Dale Kedwards. Although the Congress is invitation-only, the first day was given over to public lectures open to non-delegates. In this session, Judith gave a talk on 'The Concept of "Homeland" in the Viking Diaspora', presaging some of the themes of her forthcoming book.

In these weeks before term starts, both Judith and Christina have been invited to give talks on their research. Christina is lecturing on 'Do sagas tell us anything useful about the status of the physically different?' at the University of Iceland. Judith is at a conference in Copenhagen associated with both the Jelling project and the Viking exhibition currently on at the National Museum there (and coming to London in 2014). She has been asked to give a public lecture in association with the conference, this time it will be on 'The Ship in the Viking Imagination'.

As the summer draws to a close, we are looking forward to welcoming this year's intake of new students. More about them in a forthcoming news item!