Pernille Hermann

Tænkepauser er bogserien, hvor topforskere fra Aarhus Universitet formidler deres viden om centrale emner som frihed, netværk og tillid. Idéen er at kanalisere forskningen ud til nye målgrupper og ind i hverdagens pauser - fra sofahjørnet til løbeturen. Hver bog er lækkert designet og udstråler den kæmpemæssige begejstring, som forskerne har for deres emne. Kombineret med lettilgængeligt sprog, en overskuelig længde og en ofte humoristisk tone gør det serien til en intet mindre end fremragende formidling af vigtig viden, som ellers ofte kun skrives af fagfolk for fagfolk.

Det er en saga blot, siger vi om det, der går i glemmebogen. Men det gør sagaernes blodige krigere og nådesløsekvinder ikke frivilligt. De har tilkæmpet sig en plads i verdenslitteraturen med slagkraftige historier om at være menneske. Nu bliver de ikke længere genfortalt i generationer ved knitrende ildsteder på en vulkanø, men genopstår som globale tv-serier på nutidens lysende skærme. For ifølge Pernille Hermann, fortælleglad litteraturforsker ved Aarhus Universitet, giver de os syn for sagn om livets store følelser og evige dilemmaer. Sorg og glæde. Tilgive … eller hævne.

This book brings together Old Norse-Icelandic literature and critical strategies of memory, and argues that some of the particularities of this vernacular textual tradition are explained by the fact that this literature derives from, represents, and incorporates into its designs mnemonic devices of different kinds. Even if Old Norse-Icelandic manuscript culture is relatively silent about the mnemonic context of the literature, the texts themselves exhibit multiple reminiscences of memory. By showing that this literature reveals glimpses of mnemonic technologies at the same time as it testifies to a cultural memory, this study demonstrates how ‘the past’, and narrative traditions about the past, were constructed in a dynamic relationship with ideas that existed at the time the texts were written. Moreover, the book deals with the function of memory in early book-culture, with metaphors of memory, and with mnemonic cues such as spatiality and visuality. With its new readings of canonical texts like the Íslendingasogur, the Prose Edda and selected eddic poems, as well as of less widely studied branches of Old Norse-Icelandic literature, such as the sagas of bishops and religious texts, this book will be of interest to Old Norse scholars and to scholars interested in medieval Scandinavia and memory studies.

Over recent decades the concept of literacy has been an important field of discussion in Medieval and Early Modern studies, and questions concerning the uses of literacy, the number of literates, differing writing systems, modes of communication and the interaction between orality and literacy have occupied researchers from various disciplines. The aim of this volume is to introduce Scandinavian literacy to the international field of research. On the one hand, to provide a basis that can contribute to a better general understanding of literacy. Because of the volume's interdisciplinary approach, a relatively wide range of material is invoked to illuminate the subject matter.

Elucidates the transition to written proceedings in the early Norman and Nordic cultures and places the process within the historical evolution. This book emphasises the notion of history as detached from the history of salvation and secondly the dual meaning of the writing as both secular and the way to salvation, bound to the bible.