An elite group of scholars will meet at Brigham Young University this week for a Scandinavian Literary History Conference Thursday through Saturday, Feb. 5-7.
Prior to the conference, Margaret Clunies Ross, McCaughey Professor of English Language and Early English Literature and director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Sydney, will give the annual Loftur Bjarnason Lecture in Scandinavian Studies Thursday at 11 a.m. in 3714 Harold B. Lee Library. Her lecture is titled "The Poetry of Egill Skallagrímsson." The public is welcome to attend.
The conference is a follow-up to a planning session held in March 2003 to begin work on a new Scandinavian literary history.
"I feel this conference will provide an important and decisive step in the realization of our goal to rethink the approach to the literary and cultural history of Scandinavia," says Steven Sondrup, Scandinavian Research Program coordinator at BYU's David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies and a comparative literature professor.
Sondrup will host Thomas A. DuBois and Niels Ingwersen, University of Wisconsin-Madison; James E. Knirk, University of Oslo, Norway; Lars Lönnroth, emeritus University of Göteborg, Sweden; Pirjo Lyytikäinen, University of Helsinki, Finland; James Massengale, University of California-Los Angeles; Finn Hauberg Mortensen, University of Southern Denmark; Margaret Clunies Ross, University of Sydney, Australia; Mark B. Sandberg and Karen Sanders, University of California-Berkeley; Stefanie von Schnurbein, Humboldt University, Berlin; George Schoolfield, emeritus Yale University; Tone Selboe, University of Tromsro, Norway; and Mario J. Valdes, University of Toronto, Canada. All are experts in Scandinavian literature.
The group has been charged by the International Comparative Literature association to compile, edit and publish a three-volume set of research comparable to work that Valdes was responsible for publishing in Spanish and Portuguese last fall (Oxford University Press).
Sondrup is looking forward to meeting with his colleagues from around the world. "I am grateful for the assistance provided by the university and feel honored by this opportunity to work closely with some of the leading experts in our field," he said.
During the conference, these specialists in various aspects of Scandinavian literature and culture will explore the theoretical framework for the project and construct a working table of contents from which they will each be designated to head specific sections and make contact with other scholars to contribute articles for the project.
For more information, contact the Scandinavian Studies office at 422-5598.
Writer: Lee Simons
