1st Edition

Viking Heritage and History in Europe Practices and Re-creations

Edited By Sara Ellis Nilsson, Stefan Nyzell Copyright 2024
262 Pages 34 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

262 Pages 34 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

262 Pages 34 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Viking Heritage and History in Europe presents new research and perspectives on the use of the Vikings in public history, especially in relation to museums, re-creation, and re-enactment in a European context. Taking a critical heritage approach, the volume provides new insights into the re-creation of history, imagining the past, interpretation, ambivalence of authenticity, authority of... Read more

Introduction

1. The Mythopoetic Viking in European Cultural Heritage

Sara Ellis Nilsson and Stefan Nyzell

 

Section I: Viking Tourism, Living-history, and Re-enactment as European Cultural Heritage

 

2. Cross-Cultural Contact, the Tourist Gaze and Viking Heritage Spaces

Megan Arnott

 

3. Viking Hiking and other Time Travel

Ragnhild Ljosland

 

4. Vikings in Historical Pageants and Public Events

Chris Tuckley

 

5. Viking Re-enactment

Stefan Nyzell

 

Section II: Perspectives on Vikings in European Popular Culture

6. Towards Inclusive Interpretations

Shannon Lewis-Simpson 

 

7. Alcohol Consumption, Masculinity, and the Modern Viking

Simon Trafford

 

8. Viking and Old Norse Memoryscapes in Comics

Martin Lund

 

9. Vikings and Gaming: Cultural Representations of the North in Video Games

Lysiane Lasausse

 

Section III: Vikings in European Museums, Heritage, and Politics

10 10. Reconstructing Viking Ships in European Cultural Heritage Institutions

Sara Ellis Nilsson

 

11. Uncanny Encounters with Iceland’s Vikings at the Saga Museum

Gudrun D. Whitehead

 

12. Runes and Racism

Andrea Freund

 

13. Political Uses of the Viking Age: The Sweden Democrats and the Danish People’s Party

Julia Håkansson

 

Conclusion

14  14. Towards Public Viking Research

Howard Williams

 

 

 

 

Biography

Sara Ellis Nilsson is Researcher of Nordic Medieval History and Director of Studies in History at Linnaeus University, Sweden. Her research interests are interdisciplinary and include cultural heritage, social and cultural history, material culture, hagiography/liturgy, and digital humanities. She is currently the project lead for the Swedish Research Council funded, 'digitization and accessibility of cultural heritage collections' (DigARV) project, Mapping Lived Religion: Medieval Cults of Saints in Sweden and Finland, and one of the co-leads of the NOS-HS funded Nordic Spatial Humanities initiative. Her research and publications have previously focused on, for instance, the digitization of cultural heritage, medieval lived religion, identity and the construction of sanctity, medieval travel, and the formation of textual networks and communities, as well as how objects and their reconstructions are used by different actors in the creation of narratives about the past, with especial focus on the Viking Age.

Stefan Nyzell is Associate Professor of History at the Department of Society, Culture and Identity, Malmö University, Sweden. His research interests include medievalism, cultural heritage, public history, police history, and contentious politics. He is currently researching historical re-enactment as a form of history from below, or grassroots public history, in which the past is not only consumed by the participants but also produced and mediated within the domain of public history. His research and publications have previously focused on violent social conflict in modern society.