Alessia Bauer

Affiliation: École Pratique des Hautes Études and Sorbonne, Paris

Abstract:

“The ‘Construction’ of Viking Culture Across Historical Periods”

Historical cycles and recurrences suggest that (nearly) nothing is created ex nihilo; rather, cultural forms are continually reworked and recycled. In recent years, Western society has rediscovered Viking culture, which has become ubiquitous across popular culture. Yet a retrospective view shows that the reception of themes and motifs associated with this remote culture can already be traced to the late Middle Ages and continues through the Romantic period. Each era appropriated these elements in different ways, pursuing its own objectives that often had little or nothing to do with Viking culture itself.

From the very outset, one can observe the creation of an artificial construct that, at various times, foregrounded particular features regarded as essential to this distant past. In fact, the only genuinely contemporary sources for this historical period consist of archaeological evidence and laconic runic inscriptions which — as current scholarship has shown — are highly susceptible to subjective interpretation.

However, by applying to historical research an approach analogous to that of New Philology, rather than reconstructing the ‘archetype’ of a historical period, it can be interesting to examine how a given cultural phenomenon is reused and recontextualised within specific historical frameworks.

Biography: Alessia Bauer has held the Chair of Scandinavian Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris since October 2019. She has been working in the field of runology since completing her PhD in 2001. Her other research interests include Northern manuscript culture and travel literature from the modern period.