The Vikings

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course will be devoted to the history, culture and literature of Scandinavia during the age of the Vikings. Our concerns will be both with the social and political events of the period and with the ways in which medieval Scandinavians used fiction, history, and mythology in order to present and interpret the world in which they lived. The issues we will consider include Viking religion and mythology; the unification of the individual Scandinavian kingdoms; the Christianization of a heroic warrior culture; the Vikings' own concerns with history and self-representation; the raids and colonizing missions that they effected in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the North Atlantic; and the reception of the Vikings in the post-medieval era. Readings will include selections from Norse sagas and poetry (all in translation) as well as secondary works on history and art.