CSS International Conference
Nordic Romanticism and Viking Culture
The Conference committee have decided that the conference will be transformed into a book project. Consequently, the events in Lund on 10–13 June are cancelled, with the exception of the lecture to be given by Alan Macniven as part of the Kulturens lecture series on 11 June.
Quite simply, there were too few registrered delegates for a successful conference. However, of the abstracts submitted, an impressive series of contributions form a wonderfully brilliant line-up for a book on the subject, rich in humanist scrutiny and offering a wide range of perspectives. Therefore, our volume, bearing the same title as the conference, Nordic Romanticism and Viking Culture, is already a work in progress. It will be published in CSS’s new book series, Spleen Nordic International, in Autumn 2027.
10–13 June 2026, Lund
We at the Centre for Scandinavian Studies, Lund University, are delighted to announce the next CSS International Conference, Nordic Romanticism and Viking Culture, which will be held in Lund 10–13 June 2026.
The conference is jointly organized by CSS and Kulturen in Lund, and connects to CSS’s recurring series of international conferences and seminars focusing on Nordic culture in the world. The theme, Nordic Romanticism and Viking Culture, welcomes participants from the widest range of interdisciplinary fields and diverse historical perspectives of international Scandinavian Studies.
The omnipresence of Viking culture in the Western world is hard to ignore. In recent years, major Viking-Age exhibitions have been launched at the national historical museums in all the capitals of Scandinavia and the British Isles. Viking documentaries, TV series and feature films are an inescapable part of streaming media services. The bewildering array of Viking fiction, jewellery, toys, ceramics, computer games, reenactment merchandise, food, and theme parks reminds us how immensely connected popular culture of today is to Norse mythology and medieval Icelandic sagas. However, the modern story of Viking culture appropriation and repurposing cannot be told without reference to its restart in Nordic Romanticism, from where it spread and gained cultural and political importance in the world.