Gleðilega hátíð! Happy Holidays!
Greetings from the Old Norse Program at UW. It’s been another great year filled with classes, conferences, study trips, guest speakers, and activities of all kinds!
Lauren Poyer notes that after taking a year of personal leave, they are excited to return to teaching in the department. And now with a full Old Norse faculty contingent, they are finally able to offer SCAND 460: History of the Scandinavian Languages, which has not been offered at UW for over a decade. They are already looking forward to a potential faculty-led summer study abroad in 2026 with their long-time co-director Kim Kraft (Lund University). This past summer, the pair led seventeen students on a month-long program to Stockholm, Uppsala, and Helsinki – see photos below!
Some highlights for Tim Bourns from this past year include the 19th International Saga Conference at the University of Silesia in Poland, where he presented on “Lithic Affect in Medieval Iceland”; a visit by Claudia Pétursson from the Njáls saga Tapestry Project in his Scandinavian Mythology class (following which the UW Department of Scandinavian Studies became the project’s first official university sponsor in North America!); and, to celebrate a successful graduate seminar on “The Sagas of Icelanders”, a trip to #BLADEANDTIMBER in which the graduate students showed off their impressive axe-throwing skills – see photos below!
Lars Jenner continues to teach for the department and adds that we offer courses online in the summer. He’s previously taught Sagas of the Vikings and Scandinavian Mythology online during the summer for many years. While in-person instruction is our main focus, distance learning is a great option for students (of all ages) who want to take these courses, but for a variety of reasons cannot fit them into the regular academic year.
Kær kveðja – Kind regards,
The Old Norse Team