L’article examine la vie d’une jeune fille islandaise qui a parcouru le monde connu et inconnu de son temps. Née en Islande vers la fin du dixième siècle, elle s’est rendue avec sa famille au Groenland où elle fut mariée deux fois. Avec son second mari, elle a voyagé vers le Nouveau Monde récemment découvert par ses compatriotes. Elle y donna naissance à un fils, mais elle et sa famille furent contraintes de retourner en Islande. Après la mort de son (...) mari, elle entreprit un pèlerinage à Rome, avant de finir sa vie comme ermite dans son île natale. (shrink)

This article examines the experiences of Norwegian high school girls with Muslim backgrounds in learning about Islam in religious education. The empirical material consists of observations from a high school class in Norway and interviews with girls in the class. The findings support previous reports that Islam as a topic may be challenging for students with Muslim backgrounds. They also suggest that the RE classroom is a space where religious boundaries can go from blurred to bright as a result of (...) students’ reactions to educational content and its foci on Islam. As many teachers find the topic of Islam potentially controversial and thus challenging to teach, this article offers insights that may help teachers to understand and deal with students’ reactions in the classroom context. (shrink)

Can the experience of Icelandic Vikings eight centuries ago teach us a lesson about the dangers of privatization? Jared Diamond thinks so. In his article Living on the Moon ," published in the May 23, 2002, issue of the New York Review of Books , Diamond portrays the history of Iceland in the Viking period as a nightmarish vision of privatization run amuck.

Nazi ideology was premised on a belief in the superiority of the Germanic race. However, the idea of a superior Germanic race was not invented by the Nazis. By the beginning of the 20th century this idea had already gained not only popular but also mainstream scientific support in England, Germany, the U.S., Scandinavia, and other parts of the world in which people claimed Germanic origins (p. xiii). Yet how could this idea, which is now recognised as ideology of the (...) most dangerous kind, be given the appearance of scientific legitimacy by some of the leading physical anthropologists of the day? (shrink)

Snake or serpent is one the most widespread and oldest symbols which is known among different cultures folklore and mythology. As the role of symbolic notions is at the center of understanding any mythology, we would like to determine imagery meanings of the snake which could help researchers for knowing the myths more accurate and descriptive. Sometimes this motif represents the cycle of time and sometimes it does refer to Evil and even could be the symbol of divinity and eternity. (...) So this should be noted that how we can grasp any meaning from the narrations in which applied snake notion. These properties had roots in what they could be aware of snake nature and its biological attributes. As the same time, these properties are meaningful under the conditions that culture and, in some cases, religious thought prepared. The mixture of these end to some image that could be found in the mythology of their region.The very article discusses mythological aspects of snake notion in Indian and Wikings folklore, similarly to those which research on the Indo-Europian and Vikings cultural relationship and connections; except that our research is not focused on ontological and historical debates but only on the descriptive analyzing of mythological semantics. Meanwhile, it can be counted as some base which useful for whom like to dig up relations between two far distance cultures of Indians and Wikings. (shrink)

Cet article met en évidence la manière dont H. Cohen, F. Rosenzweig et E. Levinas inaugurent, dans un même geste spéculatif, une forme nouvelle de « philosophie de la religion », où la religion ne constitue plus seulement un objet, mais un moteur de la rationalité philosophique. Chez chacun d’eux, ce geste passe par l’opposition du paganisme et du judaïsme, qui se prolonge dans l’opposition entre une tradition philosophique enfermée dans l’immanence, et une forme de rationalité philosophique nouvelle, qui (...) s’ouvre à la transcendance.This article emphases the way H. Cohen, F. Rosenzweig et E. Levinas inaugurate, in a same speculative deed, a new form of « philosophy of religion », where religion doesn’t constitute anymore only an object, but a mainspring of the philosophical rationality. In each one of them, this deed goes through the opposition of paganism and Judaism that carries on in the opposition between a philosophical tradition locked in the immanence, and a form of new philosophical rationality, which opens to the transcendence. (shrink)

Archaeologists have been interested in Hollywood films for a few decades. What basically interested them was the theme of how cinema misperceives the practice of archaeology and its object of study (the past). In this paper I focus on How to Train Your Dragon (2010), 3-D animated film about Vikings for children. A film is always already a meta-film. Every film is, to use Hegelian distinction, a story in itself, presents more or less coherent story. At the same time, a (...) film is for itself, a meta-film, a meta-story which reflects on and encapsulates a more general context part of which is a particular film. In this paper both levels are scrutinised with regard to How to Train Your Dragon. My attention is paid especially to the ideological aspects of the film which presents a story about some vision of the past. It is an attempt of showing how archaeology, or more generally, the past is used to mask and stage at the same time elements of contemporary politics. (shrink)

This article applies a life history model to advance the evolutionary understanding of poetry that inspired nineteenth-century Swedish National Romanticism. We show that the characters featured in two of Erik Gustaf Geijer’s poems, “The Viking” and “The Yeoman Farmer”, display patterns of time perspective, mating effort, and parental invest­ment that are now recognized as central life history attributes: a fast strategy and a slow strategy, respectively. These patterns were identified by undergraduate participants who read excerpts of the poems that had (...) been stripped of identifying information and mentions of romantic or sexual relationships. Participants read each poem and rated each character on validated scales of the life history dimensions of mating effort and paren­tal investment, relationship interests and attractiveness, characteristics of his developmen­tal environment, and physiological characteristics. Results are consistent with generally accepted associations in life history theory and also inform current theoretical develop­ments and debates. Geijer had an intuitive understanding of life history patterns, which he used to create recognizable characters for his Romantic depiction of Swedish history. (shrink)

The archaeology of animals is often unhelpfully split between pure symbolism and pure economy. This paper will examine Viking Age Scandinavian religion as one sphere where the two overlapped and where symbolism was manipulated for economic ends and vice versa. Scandinavian Viking Age culture reasoned and understood animal symbols in a way that was internally coherent, yet it was very different from anything in modern science. The paper asks how, or if, this made any difference in the lives of real (...) animals in Viking Age Scandinavian society. Viking Age Scandinavia is a particularly appropriate case study because art and literature suggest a great interest in thinking with animals. Like modern culture, it had a lot of animal references. Yet, unlike modern culture, most people also lived in everyday contact with economically important animals. (shrink)

The story of Anna is a brief description of a faithful prophetess which is consciously paired with the previous and more developed narrative of Simeon. Hannah’s story is significant to the Lukan Gospel and yet her voice, which men and women visiting the temple heard repeatedly, is not articulated by Luke. She has been the topic of much research, in as much as three verses in their context can provide, while no one has sought to let Hannah speak for herself. (...) This article aims to do this by exploring her story within the Lukan narrative, considering prophetesses in the Old Testament, and echoing the dynamics of the Jewish story of Judith with which she is intertextually paired. (shrink)

Soixante-dix ans environ séparent le Discours véritable contre les chrétiens du Contre l'écrit de Celse intitulé Discours véritable. Origène ne tient pas compte de cette distance historique: il discute au présent. Or, la situation de la culture païenne n'est plus exactement la même qu'au siècle précédent. La dynastie des Sévères s'effondre dans le désordre. La pensée s'appauvrit jusqu'à devenir «un Sahara littéraire» selon l'expression tranchante de Ferdinand Lot. De leur côté, les chrétiens ont gagné du terrain et leur recrutement s'est (...) modifié: désormais ils comptent dans leurs rangs des lettrés capables d'articuler la doctrine. Au siècle des apologètes succède celui des premiers théologiens. Cependant, bien que les interlocuteurs de Celse aient changé, païens et Chrétiens se situent dans la continuité de leur courant respectif. On pourrait résumer la situation en disant que le paganisme continue de s'effriter tandis que le christianisme se définit lentement. (shrink)

Avec son ouvrage Visionnaires et prophétesses balkaniques du xxe siècle, Galina Valtchinova a ouvert un champ nouveau dans les sciences humaines en Bulgarie, celui de l’anthropologie religieuse. C’est un ouvrage qui fait date ; aussi n’est-il pas inutile de le présenter au public francophone, fût-ce douze ans après sa parution. Le fait religieux n’était pas un sujet d’étude bienvenu sous le régime communiste (1944-1989), où l’athéisme constituait au contraire un domaine politico-scientifique...

This thesis examines the hogbacks and hammerhead crosses of Viking Age Strathclyde and Northumbria. Both are Insular forms of carved stone sculpture often found in Christian contexts. This thesis aims to highlight the significance of these carved stones within a contemporary landscape dominated by a complex historical and archaeological narrative, with the overall aim of ascribing them functions, beyond those of funerary. The approach this thesis takes is theoretical in its construct, both methodologically and analytically, and is grounded in the (...) phenomenological principles of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It is hoped that this thesis will break down the perceived barrier imposed on research by the modern Scotland-England border, thus potentially alleviate the implied disconnect between Viking Age Strathclyde and Northumbria. While acknowledging the current art-historical work, this thesis archaeologically reappraises hogbacks and provides an original and detailed archaeological treatise of hammerhead crosses. Additionally, this thesis espouses a conceptual framework for approaching, analysing and interpreting carved stones, which considers the idea of what makes space become a place. This framework involves the adoption of a reflexive phenomenological approach to the recording of carved stone monuments in the landscape, and, in approaching material, the adoption and adaption of the concepts of hybrid practice, supervenience, Deleuzian difference, common difference, the third space, and art and agency. In integrating these approaches and concepts, the idea of place-making emerges, discerned via non-dialectical interrelationships between people, material, and space. It is conceptualised here in abstract form as the person/object/place framework. In applying this framework to postulate the functions of hogbacks and hammerhead crosses in the landscape, the following, non-mutually exclusive, themes are considered: commemorative space, economic space, biblical space, mythological space, political space, and sacred space. Considering these themes in the application of the conceptual framework to approaching notable carved stones gives rise to the concept of functional landscapes. These abstract landscapes emerge and are understood through a network of functional places, developing out of particular carved stone monuments inhabiting specific spaces. Ascribing functions to Viking Age carved stones allows for interpretation beyond the traditional and uncritical narrative that hogbacks and hammerhead crosses are simply Viking ‘calling cards’ or gravestones. Furthermore, in considering the Christian context and syncretic nature of many hogbacks, this thesis challenges the common idea that their origins and models often lie solely in Scandinavian paganism and culture. (shrink)

This chapter examines Irish and Anglo-Saxon metalwork in Wales during the pre-Viking period from 400 to 850. The findings indicate that the conscious creation or adaptation of distinctive glitter in metalwork was used to convey the social position, legitimacy, and cultural leanings of some groupings during the early medieval period. The chapter also explains that while it can be argued that the native material culture of some people of Wales became progressively distinctive in parallel with a growing sense of self-identification (...) as Cymru, highly complex patterns of regional variation and expressions of identity appear to have existed. (shrink)

This chapter re-examines the evidence for local ecclesiastical and other burial sites in pre-Viking Ireland. It compares local churches and cemetery settlements in pre-Viking Ireland with those found in England and Wales. The chapter describes the density of the pre-Viking ecclesiastical sites in Ireland, church density and social structure in Anglo-Saxon England, and the local ecclesiastical sites in Cornwall and Wales.