This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

This seminar engages with theories on culture, narrative, and mediation. Active class participation is required.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of language will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

An important tradition in linguistics proposes that the patterns in which the arguments of a verb appear in the syntax are partially conditioned by the semantics of the verb. For instance, agents are always subjects, and verbs of externally caused change of state in English generally allow both transitive and intransitive uses. This course evaluates the evidence for this position and the theoretical tools that linguistics have used to capture the relevant generalisations.

This course elucidates foundational ideas in Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy, educational theory and teaching methods with a particular focus on Confucianism, while some attention will be given to its response from its Daoist critics. We will begin with discussing conceptions of education, pedagogy, educational psychology and personal cultivation in the Confucian Analects (Lunyu 論語), then move to selected parts of other important Confucian writings, such as the Zhongyong (中庸, Doctrine of the Mean / Focusing the Familiar), Daxue (大學, The Great Learning), the Xueji (學記, Records of Learning / On Teaching and Learning), the Mengzi 孟子 and the Xunzi 荀子. Primary notions of the Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy and educational theory will be introduced and explained, including jiao 教 (teaching), xue 學 (study/emulation), xiuji 修己 and xiushen 修身 (self-cultivation), li 禮 (rituals, customs, norms), xing 性 (natural dispositions), and junzi 君子 (exemplary people), among others. The Confucian importance of role models as pedagogical means for cultivation and descriptions of teaching methods, for instance in the Xueji, will be explored. If time allows, we will look into critical responses to these ideas by Daoist thinkers, notably the authors of the Daodejing 道德經 and the Zhuangzi 莊子. Arguing that the Confucian educational theory is likely to lead to dogmatism and hypocrisy, they suggest a less socially bound and more independent kind of learning or cultivation that takes seriously the “way of the world,” or the general cosmological tendency and how to align with it. In this regard, they suggest “metaphilosophical” ideas of “unlearning” and “reducing the self”. As an alternative to concentrating on learning from classics and others, Daoist texts advocate being more natural, acting in ziran 自然 (self-so) and wuwei 無爲 (non-action, non-coercive action) manners.

Some of the main questions that will be raised (and possibly answered) are: How is education understood in early Chinese culture? What are its pedagogical foundations? What are its primary aims and how should it be conducted? What sort of educational theories does it propose? What social and what “individualist” aspects do education and personal cultivation entail? What role do others play in education? Are role models necessary? What sort of roles do tradition and emulation play as means and methods of learning in Confucianism? What happens when education fails? Can education be bad or dangerous? And, finally, can tradition and emulation be overemphasized? What status does education generally play in Confucian philosophy? Can Daoism be a useful critic of Confucianism? An effort will be made to contextualize the discussion in contemporary philosophies of education.

Approach and readings:
We will mainly focus on selections from the primary texts mentioned in the course description. Students may follow along with any translation (in English or their native language) of these classics. During the class we will likely read directly from the original, students may refer to the website ctext.org for all the abovementioned texts but instructor will in some cases provide other versions. No prior knowledge of Chinese philosophy is expected. A highly recommended supplementary reading is Confucian Philosophy for Contemporary Education by Charlene Tan (Routledge 2020).

The fascination with gambling manifested itself in the plots of plays and novels as characters take financial and personal risks, excited by the prospect of a potentially prosperous and beneficial new venture. Susanna Centlivre’s comedies The Gamester (1705) and The Basset Table (1705) dramatize the financial and personal risks of gambling and their consequences. The eighteenth century also witnessed the character of the female gambler held up as an example of vice. We will discuss the association between gambling, lotteries, and other forms of financial risk and how literature represented their impact on the family and on personal relationships in plays and novels, such as  Mary Pix’s The Beau Defeated (1700), Susanna Centlivre’s The Gamester (1705), Henry Fieldng’s The Lottery (1732), Edward Moore’s The Gamester (1753), Frances Brooke's The Excursion (1777), Thomas Holcroft’s The Road to Ruin (1792), and Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801).  We will also consider personal risks taken by characters in the romance plots of stage comedies and the novel and to what extent these characters are rewarded or reformed.

By 1945, the United States had emerged as the dominant global economic and military power. The American standard of living was the envy of the world and political leaders in the US were never more confident in the ideals and myths of the American system. Yet the twenty years after the war were marked by increasing paranoia, dissension, and divisions within the country. An irrational fear of communist infiltration created a police state atmosphere; civil rights’ movements were met with new forms of intolerance, persecution, and oppression; a counterculture movement challenged the very foundations of US society; and major rifts opened between numerous groups divided on intersectional, regional, and generational lines. From out of the turmoil of these years emerged a new generation of literary voices in America—authors who celebrated the potential of their culture even as they exposed and subverted its failings. This course will explore the interrelationship between the dynamics of postwar American society and literature written during this period.

The course explores how Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, is represented in a variety of mediums, such as biography, literature and film. Students read selected works dealing with the life and reign of Mary Stuart, and watch films where she is a central and/or minor character. Aspects of historical, literary and cultural interpretations of Mary's role in history are explored, with emphasis on Scots-English relations, the Catholic-Protestant struggle, and the wider context of the Reformation in Europe. Students work on different types of assignments as part of the course assessment.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course after the first week of classes will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

This course explores the subject of heritage and exile in late 19th and early 20th century Icelandic-North American literature. The course will explore the subject through a selection of poems by Helga Steinvör Baldvinsdóttir (1858 – 1942), who wrote her poetry under the pseudonym Undína; a selection of poems by Stephan G. Stephansson (1853 – 1927), and a selection of poems and plays by Guttormur J. Guttormsson (1878 – 1966). Ideas on exile in modern Western literature will also be explored, in the context of poetics of exile in the works of Undína, Stephan G., and Guttormur.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

This course explores what it means to speak of a Buddhist philosophy of education - or, more precisely, a Buddhist pedagogy of education. While still examining what Buddhism teaches – compassion, wisdom, peace – our primary focus will be on how Buddhism teaches, and how its pedagogical strategies have shifted across cultures, traditions, and historical contexts.

At the heart of this inquiry lies the Buddhist concept of “upaya” or, “skillful means”: the idea that the form of any teaching must be adapted to the capacities, needs, and unique conditions of learners. From the highly structured monastic curriculum of early Theravada to the imaginative parables of Mahayana; from the silence and paradoxes of Zen to the magico-ritual performance of Vajrayana, Buddhism demonstrates a remarkable diversity of educational strategies. Each is less a fixed doctrine than a pedagogical gesture: a way of opening students to the possibility of enormous spiritual transformation.

We will also encourage an experiential engagement with Buddhism. First, through field visits to three different local Buddhist communities: to Wat Thai, to Nátthagi, and to Hugleiðslu og friðarmiðstöðin, which covers Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist schools, respectively. Students will be given specific questions to ask their hosts as well as reflection questions concerning the nature of teaching at each center.

Secondly, students are invited to participate in weekly meditation classes taught by José as part of the Hugleiðsluhópur Háskólans group. This is an optional component and not assessed for the course. However, for those seeking additional academic credit, a two ECTS Meditation Practicum involving attendance at eight of ten successive sessions during the course is being applied for. If approved, this would grant students a seven-ECTS total credit immersion in Buddhist studies.

The course deals with interconnections between political radicalism, culture, tradition and power. We will focus on contemporary representations of dissent in particular, look at the discourse of democracy and cultural difference, reactions to and criticism of protest in the Western political tradition and dissent in more repressive political systems. The role of intellectuals and writers will be explored as well as the function of artistic expression and design in transforming cultural and social environments. We will also discuss media and social media discourse in connection with an attempt to understand the various and sometimes contradictory objectives of public institutions. A few points of conflict will be discussed that to some extent expose fundamental conflicts in liberal democratic societies such as questions about the wisdom and ignorance of publics, reactions to climate change, inequality and extreme poverty. Finally corruption and power will be discussed as well as social and cultural expression, the possibilities and limitations of freedom of speech, the use and abuse of information, disinformation, secrecy, fake and “fake news”.

World renowned Canadian director David Cronenberg is commonly recognized as a cinematic pioneer of the body horror genre. However, much of Cronenberg’s work branches off from the horror genre, applying his auteurist imagery of body horror to other genres and stories. Cronenberg’s career, which began in the 1970s and continues to grow today, presents a large number of filmic adaptations of novels, short stories, and the lives of real life and historical figures.

In this course, we will examine four different films by Cronenberg, adapted from four different sources, to study the varying capacities of adaptation and adaptation theory, as well as auteur theory, in the attempt to understand how Cronenberg retells established narratives, which include his signature themes of body horror.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

This course looks at the ways in which women of history (in a broad sense) have been rewritten in historical fiction, focusing on some key texts published since 2000. It examines various aspects of the project of (re-)making space for women in an otherwise mostly male-dominated history, and how this challenges stereotypical classifications of women such as angels, virgins, witches and whores. Theories and criticism relating to the topic will be studied alongside the set texts, with focus on readings of the historical novel as feminist, revisionist and postmodern counter-narratives that question and challenge written history.

NB. This is not formally a distance course but students interested in taking it without attending on-site classes are encouraged to contact the teacher regarding possible arrangements.

This course treats different aspects of English vocabulary: baby names, place names, the function of jargon, the value of slang words, and dialect humour. We will also learn how to estimate the size of our vocabulary and how languages interact. Finally, we will consider the history of words and how language changes. The central question is: Where do our words come from?

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

An important tradition in linguistics proposes that the patterns in which the arguments of a verb appear in the syntax are partially conditioned by the semantics of the verb. For instance, agents are always subjects, and verbs of externally caused change of state in English generally allow both transitive and intransitive uses. This course evaluates the evidence for this position and the theoretical tools that linguistics have used to capture the relevant generalisations.

This course elucidates foundational ideas in Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy, educational theory and teaching methods with a particular focus on Confucianism, while some attention will be given to its response from its Daoist critics. We will begin with discussing conceptions of education, pedagogy, educational psychology and personal cultivation in the Confucian Analects (Lunyu 論語), then move to selected parts of other important Confucian writings, such as the Zhongyong (中庸, Doctrine of the Mean / Focusing the Familiar), Daxue (大學, The Great Learning), the Xueji (學記, Records of Learning / On Teaching and Learning), the Mengzi 孟子 and the Xunzi 荀子. Primary notions of the Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy and educational theory will be introduced and explained, including jiao 教 (teaching), xue 學 (study/emulation), xiuji 修己 and xiushen 修身 (self-cultivation), li 禮 (rituals, customs, norms), xing 性 (natural dispositions), and junzi 君子 (exemplary people), among others. The Confucian importance of role models as pedagogical means for cultivation and descriptions of teaching methods, for instance in the Xueji, will be explored. If time allows, we will look into critical responses to these ideas by Daoist thinkers, notably the authors of the Daodejing 道德經 and the Zhuangzi 莊子. Arguing that the Confucian educational theory is likely to lead to dogmatism and hypocrisy, they suggest a less socially bound and more independent kind of learning or cultivation that takes seriously the “way of the world,” or the general cosmological tendency and how to align with it. In this regard, they suggest “metaphilosophical” ideas of “unlearning” and “reducing the self”. As an alternative to concentrating on learning from classics and others, Daoist texts advocate being more natural, acting in ziran 自然 (self-so) and wuwei 無爲 (non-action, non-coercive action) manners.

Some of the main questions that will be raised (and possibly answered) are: How is education understood in early Chinese culture? What are its pedagogical foundations? What are its primary aims and how should it be conducted? What sort of educational theories does it propose? What social and what “individualist” aspects do education and personal cultivation entail? What role do others play in education? Are role models necessary? What sort of roles do tradition and emulation play as means and methods of learning in Confucianism? What happens when education fails? Can education be bad or dangerous? And, finally, can tradition and emulation be overemphasized? What status does education generally play in Confucian philosophy? Can Daoism be a useful critic of Confucianism? An effort will be made to contextualize the discussion in contemporary philosophies of education.

Approach and readings:
We will mainly focus on selections from the primary texts mentioned in the course description. Students may follow along with any translation (in English or their native language) of these classics. During the class we will likely read directly from the original, students may refer to the website ctext.org for all the abovementioned texts but instructor will in some cases provide other versions. No prior knowledge of Chinese philosophy is expected. A highly recommended supplementary reading is Confucian Philosophy for Contemporary Education by Charlene Tan (Routledge 2020).

The fascination with gambling manifested itself in the plots of plays and novels as characters take financial and personal risks, excited by the prospect of a potentially prosperous and beneficial new venture. Susanna Centlivre’s comedies The Gamester (1705) and The Basset Table (1705) dramatize the financial and personal risks of gambling and their consequences. The eighteenth century also witnessed the character of the female gambler held up as an example of vice. We will discuss the association between gambling, lotteries, and other forms of financial risk and how literature represented their impact on the family and on personal relationships in plays and novels, such as  Mary Pix’s The Beau Defeated (1700), Susanna Centlivre’s The Gamester (1705), Henry Fieldng’s The Lottery (1732), Edward Moore’s The Gamester (1753), Frances Brooke's The Excursion (1777), Thomas Holcroft’s The Road to Ruin (1792), and Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801).  We will also consider personal risks taken by characters in the romance plots of stage comedies and the novel and to what extent these characters are rewarded or reformed.

By 1945, the United States had emerged as the dominant global economic and military power. The American standard of living was the envy of the world and political leaders in the US were never more confident in the ideals and myths of the American system. Yet the twenty years after the war were marked by increasing paranoia, dissension, and divisions within the country. An irrational fear of communist infiltration created a police state atmosphere; civil rights’ movements were met with new forms of intolerance, persecution, and oppression; a counterculture movement challenged the very foundations of US society; and major rifts opened between numerous groups divided on intersectional, regional, and generational lines. From out of the turmoil of these years emerged a new generation of literary voices in America—authors who celebrated the potential of their culture even as they exposed and subverted its failings. This course will explore the interrelationship between the dynamics of postwar American society and literature written during this period.

The course explores how Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, is represented in a variety of mediums, such as biography, literature and film. Students read selected works dealing with the life and reign of Mary Stuart, and watch films where she is a central and/or minor character. Aspects of historical, literary and cultural interpretations of Mary's role in history are explored, with emphasis on Scots-English relations, the Catholic-Protestant struggle, and the wider context of the Reformation in Europe. Students work on different types of assignments as part of the course assessment.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course after the first week of classes will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

MA-thesis in Literature, Culture and Media.

This course explores the subject of heritage and exile in late 19th and early 20th century Icelandic-North American literature. The course will explore the subject through a selection of poems by Helga Steinvör Baldvinsdóttir (1858 – 1942), who wrote her poetry under the pseudonym Undína; a selection of poems by Stephan G. Stephansson (1853 – 1927), and a selection of poems and plays by Guttormur J. Guttormsson (1878 – 1966). Ideas on exile in modern Western literature will also be explored, in the context of poetics of exile in the works of Undína, Stephan G., and Guttormur.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This course explores what it means to speak of a Buddhist philosophy of education - or, more precisely, a Buddhist pedagogy of education. While still examining what Buddhism teaches – compassion, wisdom, peace – our primary focus will be on how Buddhism teaches, and how its pedagogical strategies have shifted across cultures, traditions, and historical contexts.

At the heart of this inquiry lies the Buddhist concept of “upaya” or, “skillful means”: the idea that the form of any teaching must be adapted to the capacities, needs, and unique conditions of learners. From the highly structured monastic curriculum of early Theravada to the imaginative parables of Mahayana; from the silence and paradoxes of Zen to the magico-ritual performance of Vajrayana, Buddhism demonstrates a remarkable diversity of educational strategies. Each is less a fixed doctrine than a pedagogical gesture: a way of opening students to the possibility of enormous spiritual transformation.

We will also encourage an experiential engagement with Buddhism. First, through field visits to three different local Buddhist communities: to Wat Thai, to Nátthagi, and to Hugleiðslu og friðarmiðstöðin, which covers Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist schools, respectively. Students will be given specific questions to ask their hosts as well as reflection questions concerning the nature of teaching at each center.

Secondly, students are invited to participate in weekly meditation classes taught by José as part of the Hugleiðsluhópur Háskólans group. This is an optional component and not assessed for the course. However, for those seeking additional academic credit, a two ECTS Meditation Practicum involving attendance at eight of ten successive sessions during the course is being applied for. If approved, this would grant students a seven-ECTS total credit immersion in Buddhist studies.

The course deals with interconnections between political radicalism, culture, tradition and power. We will focus on contemporary representations of dissent in particular, look at the discourse of democracy and cultural difference, reactions to and criticism of protest in the Western political tradition and dissent in more repressive political systems. The role of intellectuals and writers will be explored as well as the function of artistic expression and design in transforming cultural and social environments. We will also discuss media and social media discourse in connection with an attempt to understand the various and sometimes contradictory objectives of public institutions. A few points of conflict will be discussed that to some extent expose fundamental conflicts in liberal democratic societies such as questions about the wisdom and ignorance of publics, reactions to climate change, inequality and extreme poverty. Finally corruption and power will be discussed as well as social and cultural expression, the possibilities and limitations of freedom of speech, the use and abuse of information, disinformation, secrecy, fake and “fake news”.

World renowned Canadian director David Cronenberg is commonly recognized as a cinematic pioneer of the body horror genre. However, much of Cronenberg’s work branches off from the horror genre, applying his auteurist imagery of body horror to other genres and stories. Cronenberg’s career, which began in the 1970s and continues to grow today, presents a large number of filmic adaptations of novels, short stories, and the lives of real life and historical figures.

In this course, we will examine four different films by Cronenberg, adapted from four different sources, to study the varying capacities of adaptation and adaptation theory, as well as auteur theory, in the attempt to understand how Cronenberg retells established narratives, which include his signature themes of body horror.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

This course looks at the ways in which women of history (in a broad sense) have been rewritten in historical fiction, focusing on some key texts published since 2000. It examines various aspects of the project of (re-)making space for women in an otherwise mostly male-dominated history, and how this challenges stereotypical classifications of women such as angels, virgins, witches and whores. Theories and criticism relating to the topic will be studied alongside the set texts, with focus on readings of the historical novel as feminist, revisionist and postmodern counter-narratives that question and challenge written history.

NB. This is not formally a distance course but students interested in taking it without attending on-site classes are encouraged to contact the teacher regarding possible arrangements.

This course treats different aspects of English vocabulary: baby names, place names, the function of jargon, the value of slang words, and dialect humour. We will also learn how to estimate the size of our vocabulary and how languages interact. Finally, we will consider the history of words and how language changes. The central question is: Where do our words come from?

MA-thesis in Literature, Culture and Media.

In the courses Communication channels I and Communication channels II, the basics of methods for the dissemination of cultural material in the humanities and social sciences are presented. Communication channels I is in the fall semester, while Communication channels II is in the spring semester. 

In Communication channels I, the students are working with a) text and images in the first half of the semester and b) short documentaries in the second half of the course. Each subject weighs 50% in the course. Concerning a) Students will receive training in article writing and discourse analysis on the one hand and use of images and image analysis on the other.  Concerning b) Students work on making short documentaries. It includes basic training in screenwriting, shooting and editing, and students work in groups on a documentary, according to a specific theme. 

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Analysis of texts and images
2. An article with an image on a specific theme for publication, about 800 words.
3. A group project where students work on a short documentary that is shown at the end of the course. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course. The course is not taught remotely.

In the course Communication channels II during the spring semester the students work with the following communication methods: a) oral presentation and b) exhibitions of cultural and historical material. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects.

The students will work with the basics of oral presentation and practice in smaller and larger groups. Basic issues regarding the organization of conferences and seminars and their management will also be reviewed and a conference is held where all students present their projects. Digital communication will also be integrated into this section. Following is a section about exhibitions with connection to digital communication. The basics of exhibitions and different ways of presentation will be discussed.  The basics of digital communication will be covered, what are the main channels, advantages and disadvantages, and what rules apply to the presentation of texts on the web.

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Lecture at a conference and other projects in that context
2. Exhibition analysis and a practical project in connection with exhibitions organized by the City History Museum (Borgarsögusafn)
3. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course.

The course is not taught remotely.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

This seminar engages with theories on culture, narrative, and mediation. Active class participation is required.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of language will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

An important tradition in linguistics proposes that the patterns in which the arguments of a verb appear in the syntax are partially conditioned by the semantics of the verb. For instance, agents are always subjects, and verbs of externally caused change of state in English generally allow both transitive and intransitive uses. This course evaluates the evidence for this position and the theoretical tools that linguistics have used to capture the relevant generalisations.

This course elucidates foundational ideas in Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy, educational theory and teaching methods with a particular focus on Confucianism, while some attention will be given to its response from its Daoist critics. We will begin with discussing conceptions of education, pedagogy, educational psychology and personal cultivation in the Confucian Analects (Lunyu 論語), then move to selected parts of other important Confucian writings, such as the Zhongyong (中庸, Doctrine of the Mean / Focusing the Familiar), Daxue (大學, The Great Learning), the Xueji (學記, Records of Learning / On Teaching and Learning), the Mengzi 孟子 and the Xunzi 荀子. Primary notions of the Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy and educational theory will be introduced and explained, including jiao 教 (teaching), xue 學 (study/emulation), xiuji 修己 and xiushen 修身 (self-cultivation), li 禮 (rituals, customs, norms), xing 性 (natural dispositions), and junzi 君子 (exemplary people), among others. The Confucian importance of role models as pedagogical means for cultivation and descriptions of teaching methods, for instance in the Xueji, will be explored. If time allows, we will look into critical responses to these ideas by Daoist thinkers, notably the authors of the Daodejing 道德經 and the Zhuangzi 莊子. Arguing that the Confucian educational theory is likely to lead to dogmatism and hypocrisy, they suggest a less socially bound and more independent kind of learning or cultivation that takes seriously the “way of the world,” or the general cosmological tendency and how to align with it. In this regard, they suggest “metaphilosophical” ideas of “unlearning” and “reducing the self”. As an alternative to concentrating on learning from classics and others, Daoist texts advocate being more natural, acting in ziran 自然 (self-so) and wuwei 無爲 (non-action, non-coercive action) manners.

Some of the main questions that will be raised (and possibly answered) are: How is education understood in early Chinese culture? What are its pedagogical foundations? What are its primary aims and how should it be conducted? What sort of educational theories does it propose? What social and what “individualist” aspects do education and personal cultivation entail? What role do others play in education? Are role models necessary? What sort of roles do tradition and emulation play as means and methods of learning in Confucianism? What happens when education fails? Can education be bad or dangerous? And, finally, can tradition and emulation be overemphasized? What status does education generally play in Confucian philosophy? Can Daoism be a useful critic of Confucianism? An effort will be made to contextualize the discussion in contemporary philosophies of education.

Approach and readings:
We will mainly focus on selections from the primary texts mentioned in the course description. Students may follow along with any translation (in English or their native language) of these classics. During the class we will likely read directly from the original, students may refer to the website ctext.org for all the abovementioned texts but instructor will in some cases provide other versions. No prior knowledge of Chinese philosophy is expected. A highly recommended supplementary reading is Confucian Philosophy for Contemporary Education by Charlene Tan (Routledge 2020).

The fascination with gambling manifested itself in the plots of plays and novels as characters take financial and personal risks, excited by the prospect of a potentially prosperous and beneficial new venture. Susanna Centlivre’s comedies The Gamester (1705) and The Basset Table (1705) dramatize the financial and personal risks of gambling and their consequences. The eighteenth century also witnessed the character of the female gambler held up as an example of vice. We will discuss the association between gambling, lotteries, and other forms of financial risk and how literature represented their impact on the family and on personal relationships in plays and novels, such as  Mary Pix’s The Beau Defeated (1700), Susanna Centlivre’s The Gamester (1705), Henry Fieldng’s The Lottery (1732), Edward Moore’s The Gamester (1753), Frances Brooke's The Excursion (1777), Thomas Holcroft’s The Road to Ruin (1792), and Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801).  We will also consider personal risks taken by characters in the romance plots of stage comedies and the novel and to what extent these characters are rewarded or reformed.

By 1945, the United States had emerged as the dominant global economic and military power. The American standard of living was the envy of the world and political leaders in the US were never more confident in the ideals and myths of the American system. Yet the twenty years after the war were marked by increasing paranoia, dissension, and divisions within the country. An irrational fear of communist infiltration created a police state atmosphere; civil rights’ movements were met with new forms of intolerance, persecution, and oppression; a counterculture movement challenged the very foundations of US society; and major rifts opened between numerous groups divided on intersectional, regional, and generational lines. From out of the turmoil of these years emerged a new generation of literary voices in America—authors who celebrated the potential of their culture even as they exposed and subverted its failings. This course will explore the interrelationship between the dynamics of postwar American society and literature written during this period.

The course explores how Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, is represented in a variety of mediums, such as biography, literature and film. Students read selected works dealing with the life and reign of Mary Stuart, and watch films where she is a central and/or minor character. Aspects of historical, literary and cultural interpretations of Mary's role in history are explored, with emphasis on Scots-English relations, the Catholic-Protestant struggle, and the wider context of the Reformation in Europe. Students work on different types of assignments as part of the course assessment.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course after the first week of classes will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

This course explores the subject of heritage and exile in late 19th and early 20th century Icelandic-North American literature. The course will explore the subject through a selection of poems by Helga Steinvör Baldvinsdóttir (1858 – 1942), who wrote her poetry under the pseudonym Undína; a selection of poems by Stephan G. Stephansson (1853 – 1927), and a selection of poems and plays by Guttormur J. Guttormsson (1878 – 1966). Ideas on exile in modern Western literature will also be explored, in the context of poetics of exile in the works of Undína, Stephan G., and Guttormur.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

This course explores what it means to speak of a Buddhist philosophy of education - or, more precisely, a Buddhist pedagogy of education. While still examining what Buddhism teaches – compassion, wisdom, peace – our primary focus will be on how Buddhism teaches, and how its pedagogical strategies have shifted across cultures, traditions, and historical contexts.

At the heart of this inquiry lies the Buddhist concept of “upaya” or, “skillful means”: the idea that the form of any teaching must be adapted to the capacities, needs, and unique conditions of learners. From the highly structured monastic curriculum of early Theravada to the imaginative parables of Mahayana; from the silence and paradoxes of Zen to the magico-ritual performance of Vajrayana, Buddhism demonstrates a remarkable diversity of educational strategies. Each is less a fixed doctrine than a pedagogical gesture: a way of opening students to the possibility of enormous spiritual transformation.

We will also encourage an experiential engagement with Buddhism. First, through field visits to three different local Buddhist communities: to Wat Thai, to Nátthagi, and to Hugleiðslu og friðarmiðstöðin, which covers Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist schools, respectively. Students will be given specific questions to ask their hosts as well as reflection questions concerning the nature of teaching at each center.

Secondly, students are invited to participate in weekly meditation classes taught by José as part of the Hugleiðsluhópur Háskólans group. This is an optional component and not assessed for the course. However, for those seeking additional academic credit, a two ECTS Meditation Practicum involving attendance at eight of ten successive sessions during the course is being applied for. If approved, this would grant students a seven-ECTS total credit immersion in Buddhist studies.

The course deals with interconnections between political radicalism, culture, tradition and power. We will focus on contemporary representations of dissent in particular, look at the discourse of democracy and cultural difference, reactions to and criticism of protest in the Western political tradition and dissent in more repressive political systems. The role of intellectuals and writers will be explored as well as the function of artistic expression and design in transforming cultural and social environments. We will also discuss media and social media discourse in connection with an attempt to understand the various and sometimes contradictory objectives of public institutions. A few points of conflict will be discussed that to some extent expose fundamental conflicts in liberal democratic societies such as questions about the wisdom and ignorance of publics, reactions to climate change, inequality and extreme poverty. Finally corruption and power will be discussed as well as social and cultural expression, the possibilities and limitations of freedom of speech, the use and abuse of information, disinformation, secrecy, fake and “fake news”.

World renowned Canadian director David Cronenberg is commonly recognized as a cinematic pioneer of the body horror genre. However, much of Cronenberg’s work branches off from the horror genre, applying his auteurist imagery of body horror to other genres and stories. Cronenberg’s career, which began in the 1970s and continues to grow today, presents a large number of filmic adaptations of novels, short stories, and the lives of real life and historical figures.

In this course, we will examine four different films by Cronenberg, adapted from four different sources, to study the varying capacities of adaptation and adaptation theory, as well as auteur theory, in the attempt to understand how Cronenberg retells established narratives, which include his signature themes of body horror.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

This course looks at the ways in which women of history (in a broad sense) have been rewritten in historical fiction, focusing on some key texts published since 2000. It examines various aspects of the project of (re-)making space for women in an otherwise mostly male-dominated history, and how this challenges stereotypical classifications of women such as angels, virgins, witches and whores. Theories and criticism relating to the topic will be studied alongside the set texts, with focus on readings of the historical novel as feminist, revisionist and postmodern counter-narratives that question and challenge written history.

NB. This is not formally a distance course but students interested in taking it without attending on-site classes are encouraged to contact the teacher regarding possible arrangements.

This course treats different aspects of English vocabulary: baby names, place names, the function of jargon, the value of slang words, and dialect humour. We will also learn how to estimate the size of our vocabulary and how languages interact. Finally, we will consider the history of words and how language changes. The central question is: Where do our words come from?

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

An important tradition in linguistics proposes that the patterns in which the arguments of a verb appear in the syntax are partially conditioned by the semantics of the verb. For instance, agents are always subjects, and verbs of externally caused change of state in English generally allow both transitive and intransitive uses. This course evaluates the evidence for this position and the theoretical tools that linguistics have used to capture the relevant generalisations.

This course elucidates foundational ideas in Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy, educational theory and teaching methods with a particular focus on Confucianism, while some attention will be given to its response from its Daoist critics. We will begin with discussing conceptions of education, pedagogy, educational psychology and personal cultivation in the Confucian Analects (Lunyu 論語), then move to selected parts of other important Confucian writings, such as the Zhongyong (中庸, Doctrine of the Mean / Focusing the Familiar), Daxue (大學, The Great Learning), the Xueji (學記, Records of Learning / On Teaching and Learning), the Mengzi 孟子 and the Xunzi 荀子. Primary notions of the Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy and educational theory will be introduced and explained, including jiao 教 (teaching), xue 學 (study/emulation), xiuji 修己 and xiushen 修身 (self-cultivation), li 禮 (rituals, customs, norms), xing 性 (natural dispositions), and junzi 君子 (exemplary people), among others. The Confucian importance of role models as pedagogical means for cultivation and descriptions of teaching methods, for instance in the Xueji, will be explored. If time allows, we will look into critical responses to these ideas by Daoist thinkers, notably the authors of the Daodejing 道德經 and the Zhuangzi 莊子. Arguing that the Confucian educational theory is likely to lead to dogmatism and hypocrisy, they suggest a less socially bound and more independent kind of learning or cultivation that takes seriously the “way of the world,” or the general cosmological tendency and how to align with it. In this regard, they suggest “metaphilosophical” ideas of “unlearning” and “reducing the self”. As an alternative to concentrating on learning from classics and others, Daoist texts advocate being more natural, acting in ziran 自然 (self-so) and wuwei 無爲 (non-action, non-coercive action) manners.

Some of the main questions that will be raised (and possibly answered) are: How is education understood in early Chinese culture? What are its pedagogical foundations? What are its primary aims and how should it be conducted? What sort of educational theories does it propose? What social and what “individualist” aspects do education and personal cultivation entail? What role do others play in education? Are role models necessary? What sort of roles do tradition and emulation play as means and methods of learning in Confucianism? What happens when education fails? Can education be bad or dangerous? And, finally, can tradition and emulation be overemphasized? What status does education generally play in Confucian philosophy? Can Daoism be a useful critic of Confucianism? An effort will be made to contextualize the discussion in contemporary philosophies of education.

Approach and readings:
We will mainly focus on selections from the primary texts mentioned in the course description. Students may follow along with any translation (in English or their native language) of these classics. During the class we will likely read directly from the original, students may refer to the website ctext.org for all the abovementioned texts but instructor will in some cases provide other versions. No prior knowledge of Chinese philosophy is expected. A highly recommended supplementary reading is Confucian Philosophy for Contemporary Education by Charlene Tan (Routledge 2020).

The fascination with gambling manifested itself in the plots of plays and novels as characters take financial and personal risks, excited by the prospect of a potentially prosperous and beneficial new venture. Susanna Centlivre’s comedies The Gamester (1705) and The Basset Table (1705) dramatize the financial and personal risks of gambling and their consequences. The eighteenth century also witnessed the character of the female gambler held up as an example of vice. We will discuss the association between gambling, lotteries, and other forms of financial risk and how literature represented their impact on the family and on personal relationships in plays and novels, such as  Mary Pix’s The Beau Defeated (1700), Susanna Centlivre’s The Gamester (1705), Henry Fieldng’s The Lottery (1732), Edward Moore’s The Gamester (1753), Frances Brooke's The Excursion (1777), Thomas Holcroft’s The Road to Ruin (1792), and Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801).  We will also consider personal risks taken by characters in the romance plots of stage comedies and the novel and to what extent these characters are rewarded or reformed.

By 1945, the United States had emerged as the dominant global economic and military power. The American standard of living was the envy of the world and political leaders in the US were never more confident in the ideals and myths of the American system. Yet the twenty years after the war were marked by increasing paranoia, dissension, and divisions within the country. An irrational fear of communist infiltration created a police state atmosphere; civil rights’ movements were met with new forms of intolerance, persecution, and oppression; a counterculture movement challenged the very foundations of US society; and major rifts opened between numerous groups divided on intersectional, regional, and generational lines. From out of the turmoil of these years emerged a new generation of literary voices in America—authors who celebrated the potential of their culture even as they exposed and subverted its failings. This course will explore the interrelationship between the dynamics of postwar American society and literature written during this period.

The course explores how Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, is represented in a variety of mediums, such as biography, literature and film. Students read selected works dealing with the life and reign of Mary Stuart, and watch films where she is a central and/or minor character. Aspects of historical, literary and cultural interpretations of Mary's role in history are explored, with emphasis on Scots-English relations, the Catholic-Protestant struggle, and the wider context of the Reformation in Europe. Students work on different types of assignments as part of the course assessment.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course after the first week of classes will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

MA-thesis in Literature, Culture and Media.

This course explores the subject of heritage and exile in late 19th and early 20th century Icelandic-North American literature. The course will explore the subject through a selection of poems by Helga Steinvör Baldvinsdóttir (1858 – 1942), who wrote her poetry under the pseudonym Undína; a selection of poems by Stephan G. Stephansson (1853 – 1927), and a selection of poems and plays by Guttormur J. Guttormsson (1878 – 1966). Ideas on exile in modern Western literature will also be explored, in the context of poetics of exile in the works of Undína, Stephan G., and Guttormur.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This course explores what it means to speak of a Buddhist philosophy of education - or, more precisely, a Buddhist pedagogy of education. While still examining what Buddhism teaches – compassion, wisdom, peace – our primary focus will be on how Buddhism teaches, and how its pedagogical strategies have shifted across cultures, traditions, and historical contexts.

At the heart of this inquiry lies the Buddhist concept of “upaya” or, “skillful means”: the idea that the form of any teaching must be adapted to the capacities, needs, and unique conditions of learners. From the highly structured monastic curriculum of early Theravada to the imaginative parables of Mahayana; from the silence and paradoxes of Zen to the magico-ritual performance of Vajrayana, Buddhism demonstrates a remarkable diversity of educational strategies. Each is less a fixed doctrine than a pedagogical gesture: a way of opening students to the possibility of enormous spiritual transformation.

We will also encourage an experiential engagement with Buddhism. First, through field visits to three different local Buddhist communities: to Wat Thai, to Nátthagi, and to Hugleiðslu og friðarmiðstöðin, which covers Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist schools, respectively. Students will be given specific questions to ask their hosts as well as reflection questions concerning the nature of teaching at each center.

Secondly, students are invited to participate in weekly meditation classes taught by José as part of the Hugleiðsluhópur Háskólans group. This is an optional component and not assessed for the course. However, for those seeking additional academic credit, a two ECTS Meditation Practicum involving attendance at eight of ten successive sessions during the course is being applied for. If approved, this would grant students a seven-ECTS total credit immersion in Buddhist studies.

The course deals with interconnections between political radicalism, culture, tradition and power. We will focus on contemporary representations of dissent in particular, look at the discourse of democracy and cultural difference, reactions to and criticism of protest in the Western political tradition and dissent in more repressive political systems. The role of intellectuals and writers will be explored as well as the function of artistic expression and design in transforming cultural and social environments. We will also discuss media and social media discourse in connection with an attempt to understand the various and sometimes contradictory objectives of public institutions. A few points of conflict will be discussed that to some extent expose fundamental conflicts in liberal democratic societies such as questions about the wisdom and ignorance of publics, reactions to climate change, inequality and extreme poverty. Finally corruption and power will be discussed as well as social and cultural expression, the possibilities and limitations of freedom of speech, the use and abuse of information, disinformation, secrecy, fake and “fake news”.

World renowned Canadian director David Cronenberg is commonly recognized as a cinematic pioneer of the body horror genre. However, much of Cronenberg’s work branches off from the horror genre, applying his auteurist imagery of body horror to other genres and stories. Cronenberg’s career, which began in the 1970s and continues to grow today, presents a large number of filmic adaptations of novels, short stories, and the lives of real life and historical figures.

In this course, we will examine four different films by Cronenberg, adapted from four different sources, to study the varying capacities of adaptation and adaptation theory, as well as auteur theory, in the attempt to understand how Cronenberg retells established narratives, which include his signature themes of body horror.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

This course looks at the ways in which women of history (in a broad sense) have been rewritten in historical fiction, focusing on some key texts published since 2000. It examines various aspects of the project of (re-)making space for women in an otherwise mostly male-dominated history, and how this challenges stereotypical classifications of women such as angels, virgins, witches and whores. Theories and criticism relating to the topic will be studied alongside the set texts, with focus on readings of the historical novel as feminist, revisionist and postmodern counter-narratives that question and challenge written history.

NB. This is not formally a distance course but students interested in taking it without attending on-site classes are encouraged to contact the teacher regarding possible arrangements.

This course treats different aspects of English vocabulary: baby names, place names, the function of jargon, the value of slang words, and dialect humour. We will also learn how to estimate the size of our vocabulary and how languages interact. Finally, we will consider the history of words and how language changes. The central question is: Where do our words come from?

MA-thesis in Literature, Culture and Media.

In the courses Communication channels I and Communication channels II, the basics of methods for the dissemination of cultural material in the humanities and social sciences are presented. Communication channels I is in the fall semester, while Communication channels II is in the spring semester. 

In Communication channels I, the students are working with a) text and images in the first half of the semester and b) short documentaries in the second half of the course. Each subject weighs 50% in the course. Concerning a) Students will receive training in article writing and discourse analysis on the one hand and use of images and image analysis on the other.  Concerning b) Students work on making short documentaries. It includes basic training in screenwriting, shooting and editing, and students work in groups on a documentary, according to a specific theme. 

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Analysis of texts and images
2. An article with an image on a specific theme for publication, about 800 words.
3. A group project where students work on a short documentary that is shown at the end of the course. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course. The course is not taught remotely.

In the course Communication channels II during the spring semester the students work with the following communication methods: a) oral presentation and b) exhibitions of cultural and historical material. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects.

The students will work with the basics of oral presentation and practice in smaller and larger groups. Basic issues regarding the organization of conferences and seminars and their management will also be reviewed and a conference is held where all students present their projects. Digital communication will also be integrated into this section. Following is a section about exhibitions with connection to digital communication. The basics of exhibitions and different ways of presentation will be discussed.  The basics of digital communication will be covered, what are the main channels, advantages and disadvantages, and what rules apply to the presentation of texts on the web.

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Lecture at a conference and other projects in that context
2. Exhibition analysis and a practical project in connection with exhibitions organized by the City History Museum (Borgarsögusafn)
3. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course.

The course is not taught remotely.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

This seminar engages with theories on culture, narrative, and mediation. Active class participation is required.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of language will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

An important tradition in linguistics proposes that the patterns in which the arguments of a verb appear in the syntax are partially conditioned by the semantics of the verb. For instance, agents are always subjects, and verbs of externally caused change of state in English generally allow both transitive and intransitive uses. This course evaluates the evidence for this position and the theoretical tools that linguistics have used to capture the relevant generalisations.

This course elucidates foundational ideas in Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy, educational theory and teaching methods with a particular focus on Confucianism, while some attention will be given to its response from its Daoist critics. We will begin with discussing conceptions of education, pedagogy, educational psychology and personal cultivation in the Confucian Analects (Lunyu 論語), then move to selected parts of other important Confucian writings, such as the Zhongyong (中庸, Doctrine of the Mean / Focusing the Familiar), Daxue (大學, The Great Learning), the Xueji (學記, Records of Learning / On Teaching and Learning), the Mengzi 孟子 and the Xunzi 荀子. Primary notions of the Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy and educational theory will be introduced and explained, including jiao 教 (teaching), xue 學 (study/emulation), xiuji 修己 and xiushen 修身 (self-cultivation), li 禮 (rituals, customs, norms), xing 性 (natural dispositions), and junzi 君子 (exemplary people), among others. The Confucian importance of role models as pedagogical means for cultivation and descriptions of teaching methods, for instance in the Xueji, will be explored. If time allows, we will look into critical responses to these ideas by Daoist thinkers, notably the authors of the Daodejing 道德經 and the Zhuangzi 莊子. Arguing that the Confucian educational theory is likely to lead to dogmatism and hypocrisy, they suggest a less socially bound and more independent kind of learning or cultivation that takes seriously the “way of the world,” or the general cosmological tendency and how to align with it. In this regard, they suggest “metaphilosophical” ideas of “unlearning” and “reducing the self”. As an alternative to concentrating on learning from classics and others, Daoist texts advocate being more natural, acting in ziran 自然 (self-so) and wuwei 無爲 (non-action, non-coercive action) manners.

Some of the main questions that will be raised (and possibly answered) are: How is education understood in early Chinese culture? What are its pedagogical foundations? What are its primary aims and how should it be conducted? What sort of educational theories does it propose? What social and what “individualist” aspects do education and personal cultivation entail? What role do others play in education? Are role models necessary? What sort of roles do tradition and emulation play as means and methods of learning in Confucianism? What happens when education fails? Can education be bad or dangerous? And, finally, can tradition and emulation be overemphasized? What status does education generally play in Confucian philosophy? Can Daoism be a useful critic of Confucianism? An effort will be made to contextualize the discussion in contemporary philosophies of education.

Approach and readings:
We will mainly focus on selections from the primary texts mentioned in the course description. Students may follow along with any translation (in English or their native language) of these classics. During the class we will likely read directly from the original, students may refer to the website ctext.org for all the abovementioned texts but instructor will in some cases provide other versions. No prior knowledge of Chinese philosophy is expected. A highly recommended supplementary reading is Confucian Philosophy for Contemporary Education by Charlene Tan (Routledge 2020).

The fascination with gambling manifested itself in the plots of plays and novels as characters take financial and personal risks, excited by the prospect of a potentially prosperous and beneficial new venture. Susanna Centlivre’s comedies The Gamester (1705) and The Basset Table (1705) dramatize the financial and personal risks of gambling and their consequences. The eighteenth century also witnessed the character of the female gambler held up as an example of vice. We will discuss the association between gambling, lotteries, and other forms of financial risk and how literature represented their impact on the family and on personal relationships in plays and novels, such as  Mary Pix’s The Beau Defeated (1700), Susanna Centlivre’s The Gamester (1705), Henry Fieldng’s The Lottery (1732), Edward Moore’s The Gamester (1753), Frances Brooke's The Excursion (1777), Thomas Holcroft’s The Road to Ruin (1792), and Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801).  We will also consider personal risks taken by characters in the romance plots of stage comedies and the novel and to what extent these characters are rewarded or reformed.

By 1945, the United States had emerged as the dominant global economic and military power. The American standard of living was the envy of the world and political leaders in the US were never more confident in the ideals and myths of the American system. Yet the twenty years after the war were marked by increasing paranoia, dissension, and divisions within the country. An irrational fear of communist infiltration created a police state atmosphere; civil rights’ movements were met with new forms of intolerance, persecution, and oppression; a counterculture movement challenged the very foundations of US society; and major rifts opened between numerous groups divided on intersectional, regional, and generational lines. From out of the turmoil of these years emerged a new generation of literary voices in America—authors who celebrated the potential of their culture even as they exposed and subverted its failings. This course will explore the interrelationship between the dynamics of postwar American society and literature written during this period.

The course explores how Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, is represented in a variety of mediums, such as biography, literature and film. Students read selected works dealing with the life and reign of Mary Stuart, and watch films where she is a central and/or minor character. Aspects of historical, literary and cultural interpretations of Mary's role in history are explored, with emphasis on Scots-English relations, the Catholic-Protestant struggle, and the wider context of the Reformation in Europe. Students work on different types of assignments as part of the course assessment.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course after the first week of classes will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

This course explores the subject of heritage and exile in late 19th and early 20th century Icelandic-North American literature. The course will explore the subject through a selection of poems by Helga Steinvör Baldvinsdóttir (1858 – 1942), who wrote her poetry under the pseudonym Undína; a selection of poems by Stephan G. Stephansson (1853 – 1927), and a selection of poems and plays by Guttormur J. Guttormsson (1878 – 1966). Ideas on exile in modern Western literature will also be explored, in the context of poetics of exile in the works of Undína, Stephan G., and Guttormur.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

This course explores what it means to speak of a Buddhist philosophy of education - or, more precisely, a Buddhist pedagogy of education. While still examining what Buddhism teaches – compassion, wisdom, peace – our primary focus will be on how Buddhism teaches, and how its pedagogical strategies have shifted across cultures, traditions, and historical contexts.

At the heart of this inquiry lies the Buddhist concept of “upaya” or, “skillful means”: the idea that the form of any teaching must be adapted to the capacities, needs, and unique conditions of learners. From the highly structured monastic curriculum of early Theravada to the imaginative parables of Mahayana; from the silence and paradoxes of Zen to the magico-ritual performance of Vajrayana, Buddhism demonstrates a remarkable diversity of educational strategies. Each is less a fixed doctrine than a pedagogical gesture: a way of opening students to the possibility of enormous spiritual transformation.

We will also encourage an experiential engagement with Buddhism. First, through field visits to three different local Buddhist communities: to Wat Thai, to Nátthagi, and to Hugleiðslu og friðarmiðstöðin, which covers Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist schools, respectively. Students will be given specific questions to ask their hosts as well as reflection questions concerning the nature of teaching at each center.

Secondly, students are invited to participate in weekly meditation classes taught by José as part of the Hugleiðsluhópur Háskólans group. This is an optional component and not assessed for the course. However, for those seeking additional academic credit, a two ECTS Meditation Practicum involving attendance at eight of ten successive sessions during the course is being applied for. If approved, this would grant students a seven-ECTS total credit immersion in Buddhist studies.

The course deals with interconnections between political radicalism, culture, tradition and power. We will focus on contemporary representations of dissent in particular, look at the discourse of democracy and cultural difference, reactions to and criticism of protest in the Western political tradition and dissent in more repressive political systems. The role of intellectuals and writers will be explored as well as the function of artistic expression and design in transforming cultural and social environments. We will also discuss media and social media discourse in connection with an attempt to understand the various and sometimes contradictory objectives of public institutions. A few points of conflict will be discussed that to some extent expose fundamental conflicts in liberal democratic societies such as questions about the wisdom and ignorance of publics, reactions to climate change, inequality and extreme poverty. Finally corruption and power will be discussed as well as social and cultural expression, the possibilities and limitations of freedom of speech, the use and abuse of information, disinformation, secrecy, fake and “fake news”.

World renowned Canadian director David Cronenberg is commonly recognized as a cinematic pioneer of the body horror genre. However, much of Cronenberg’s work branches off from the horror genre, applying his auteurist imagery of body horror to other genres and stories. Cronenberg’s career, which began in the 1970s and continues to grow today, presents a large number of filmic adaptations of novels, short stories, and the lives of real life and historical figures.

In this course, we will examine four different films by Cronenberg, adapted from four different sources, to study the varying capacities of adaptation and adaptation theory, as well as auteur theory, in the attempt to understand how Cronenberg retells established narratives, which include his signature themes of body horror.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

This course looks at the ways in which women of history (in a broad sense) have been rewritten in historical fiction, focusing on some key texts published since 2000. It examines various aspects of the project of (re-)making space for women in an otherwise mostly male-dominated history, and how this challenges stereotypical classifications of women such as angels, virgins, witches and whores. Theories and criticism relating to the topic will be studied alongside the set texts, with focus on readings of the historical novel as feminist, revisionist and postmodern counter-narratives that question and challenge written history.

NB. This is not formally a distance course but students interested in taking it without attending on-site classes are encouraged to contact the teacher regarding possible arrangements.

This course treats different aspects of English vocabulary: baby names, place names, the function of jargon, the value of slang words, and dialect humour. We will also learn how to estimate the size of our vocabulary and how languages interact. Finally, we will consider the history of words and how language changes. The central question is: Where do our words come from?

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

An important tradition in linguistics proposes that the patterns in which the arguments of a verb appear in the syntax are partially conditioned by the semantics of the verb. For instance, agents are always subjects, and verbs of externally caused change of state in English generally allow both transitive and intransitive uses. This course evaluates the evidence for this position and the theoretical tools that linguistics have used to capture the relevant generalisations.

This course elucidates foundational ideas in Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy, educational theory and teaching methods with a particular focus on Confucianism, while some attention will be given to its response from its Daoist critics. We will begin with discussing conceptions of education, pedagogy, educational psychology and personal cultivation in the Confucian Analects (Lunyu 論語), then move to selected parts of other important Confucian writings, such as the Zhongyong (中庸, Doctrine of the Mean / Focusing the Familiar), Daxue (大學, The Great Learning), the Xueji (學記, Records of Learning / On Teaching and Learning), the Mengzi 孟子 and the Xunzi 荀子. Primary notions of the Chinese philosophy of education, pedagogy and educational theory will be introduced and explained, including jiao 教 (teaching), xue 學 (study/emulation), xiuji 修己 and xiushen 修身 (self-cultivation), li 禮 (rituals, customs, norms), xing 性 (natural dispositions), and junzi 君子 (exemplary people), among others. The Confucian importance of role models as pedagogical means for cultivation and descriptions of teaching methods, for instance in the Xueji, will be explored. If time allows, we will look into critical responses to these ideas by Daoist thinkers, notably the authors of the Daodejing 道德經 and the Zhuangzi 莊子. Arguing that the Confucian educational theory is likely to lead to dogmatism and hypocrisy, they suggest a less socially bound and more independent kind of learning or cultivation that takes seriously the “way of the world,” or the general cosmological tendency and how to align with it. In this regard, they suggest “metaphilosophical” ideas of “unlearning” and “reducing the self”. As an alternative to concentrating on learning from classics and others, Daoist texts advocate being more natural, acting in ziran 自然 (self-so) and wuwei 無爲 (non-action, non-coercive action) manners.

Some of the main questions that will be raised (and possibly answered) are: How is education understood in early Chinese culture? What are its pedagogical foundations? What are its primary aims and how should it be conducted? What sort of educational theories does it propose? What social and what “individualist” aspects do education and personal cultivation entail? What role do others play in education? Are role models necessary? What sort of roles do tradition and emulation play as means and methods of learning in Confucianism? What happens when education fails? Can education be bad or dangerous? And, finally, can tradition and emulation be overemphasized? What status does education generally play in Confucian philosophy? Can Daoism be a useful critic of Confucianism? An effort will be made to contextualize the discussion in contemporary philosophies of education.

Approach and readings:
We will mainly focus on selections from the primary texts mentioned in the course description. Students may follow along with any translation (in English or their native language) of these classics. During the class we will likely read directly from the original, students may refer to the website ctext.org for all the abovementioned texts but instructor will in some cases provide other versions. No prior knowledge of Chinese philosophy is expected. A highly recommended supplementary reading is Confucian Philosophy for Contemporary Education by Charlene Tan (Routledge 2020).

The fascination with gambling manifested itself in the plots of plays and novels as characters take financial and personal risks, excited by the prospect of a potentially prosperous and beneficial new venture. Susanna Centlivre’s comedies The Gamester (1705) and The Basset Table (1705) dramatize the financial and personal risks of gambling and their consequences. The eighteenth century also witnessed the character of the female gambler held up as an example of vice. We will discuss the association between gambling, lotteries, and other forms of financial risk and how literature represented their impact on the family and on personal relationships in plays and novels, such as  Mary Pix’s The Beau Defeated (1700), Susanna Centlivre’s The Gamester (1705), Henry Fieldng’s The Lottery (1732), Edward Moore’s The Gamester (1753), Frances Brooke's The Excursion (1777), Thomas Holcroft’s The Road to Ruin (1792), and Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801).  We will also consider personal risks taken by characters in the romance plots of stage comedies and the novel and to what extent these characters are rewarded or reformed.

By 1945, the United States had emerged as the dominant global economic and military power. The American standard of living was the envy of the world and political leaders in the US were never more confident in the ideals and myths of the American system. Yet the twenty years after the war were marked by increasing paranoia, dissension, and divisions within the country. An irrational fear of communist infiltration created a police state atmosphere; civil rights’ movements were met with new forms of intolerance, persecution, and oppression; a counterculture movement challenged the very foundations of US society; and major rifts opened between numerous groups divided on intersectional, regional, and generational lines. From out of the turmoil of these years emerged a new generation of literary voices in America—authors who celebrated the potential of their culture even as they exposed and subverted its failings. This course will explore the interrelationship between the dynamics of postwar American society and literature written during this period.

The course explores how Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, is represented in a variety of mediums, such as biography, literature and film. Students read selected works dealing with the life and reign of Mary Stuart, and watch films where she is a central and/or minor character. Aspects of historical, literary and cultural interpretations of Mary's role in history are explored, with emphasis on Scots-English relations, the Catholic-Protestant struggle, and the wider context of the Reformation in Europe. Students work on different types of assignments as part of the course assessment.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course after the first week of classes will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

MA-thesis in Literature, Culture and Media.

This course explores the subject of heritage and exile in late 19th and early 20th century Icelandic-North American literature. The course will explore the subject through a selection of poems by Helga Steinvör Baldvinsdóttir (1858 – 1942), who wrote her poetry under the pseudonym Undína; a selection of poems by Stephan G. Stephansson (1853 – 1927), and a selection of poems and plays by Guttormur J. Guttormsson (1878 – 1966). Ideas on exile in modern Western literature will also be explored, in the context of poetics of exile in the works of Undína, Stephan G., and Guttormur.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This course explores what it means to speak of a Buddhist philosophy of education - or, more precisely, a Buddhist pedagogy of education. While still examining what Buddhism teaches – compassion, wisdom, peace – our primary focus will be on how Buddhism teaches, and how its pedagogical strategies have shifted across cultures, traditions, and historical contexts.

At the heart of this inquiry lies the Buddhist concept of “upaya” or, “skillful means”: the idea that the form of any teaching must be adapted to the capacities, needs, and unique conditions of learners. From the highly structured monastic curriculum of early Theravada to the imaginative parables of Mahayana; from the silence and paradoxes of Zen to the magico-ritual performance of Vajrayana, Buddhism demonstrates a remarkable diversity of educational strategies. Each is less a fixed doctrine than a pedagogical gesture: a way of opening students to the possibility of enormous spiritual transformation.

We will also encourage an experiential engagement with Buddhism. First, through field visits to three different local Buddhist communities: to Wat Thai, to Nátthagi, and to Hugleiðslu og friðarmiðstöðin, which covers Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist schools, respectively. Students will be given specific questions to ask their hosts as well as reflection questions concerning the nature of teaching at each center.

Secondly, students are invited to participate in weekly meditation classes taught by José as part of the Hugleiðsluhópur Háskólans group. This is an optional component and not assessed for the course. However, for those seeking additional academic credit, a two ECTS Meditation Practicum involving attendance at eight of ten successive sessions during the course is being applied for. If approved, this would grant students a seven-ECTS total credit immersion in Buddhist studies.

The course deals with interconnections between political radicalism, culture, tradition and power. We will focus on contemporary representations of dissent in particular, look at the discourse of democracy and cultural difference, reactions to and criticism of protest in the Western political tradition and dissent in more repressive political systems. The role of intellectuals and writers will be explored as well as the function of artistic expression and design in transforming cultural and social environments. We will also discuss media and social media discourse in connection with an attempt to understand the various and sometimes contradictory objectives of public institutions. A few points of conflict will be discussed that to some extent expose fundamental conflicts in liberal democratic societies such as questions about the wisdom and ignorance of publics, reactions to climate change, inequality and extreme poverty. Finally corruption and power will be discussed as well as social and cultural expression, the possibilities and limitations of freedom of speech, the use and abuse of information, disinformation, secrecy, fake and “fake news”.

World renowned Canadian director David Cronenberg is commonly recognized as a cinematic pioneer of the body horror genre. However, much of Cronenberg’s work branches off from the horror genre, applying his auteurist imagery of body horror to other genres and stories. Cronenberg’s career, which began in the 1970s and continues to grow today, presents a large number of filmic adaptations of novels, short stories, and the lives of real life and historical figures.

In this course, we will examine four different films by Cronenberg, adapted from four different sources, to study the varying capacities of adaptation and adaptation theory, as well as auteur theory, in the attempt to understand how Cronenberg retells established narratives, which include his signature themes of body horror.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

This course looks at the ways in which women of history (in a broad sense) have been rewritten in historical fiction, focusing on some key texts published since 2000. It examines various aspects of the project of (re-)making space for women in an otherwise mostly male-dominated history, and how this challenges stereotypical classifications of women such as angels, virgins, witches and whores. Theories and criticism relating to the topic will be studied alongside the set texts, with focus on readings of the historical novel as feminist, revisionist and postmodern counter-narratives that question and challenge written history.

NB. This is not formally a distance course but students interested in taking it without attending on-site classes are encouraged to contact the teacher regarding possible arrangements.

This course treats different aspects of English vocabulary: baby names, place names, the function of jargon, the value of slang words, and dialect humour. We will also learn how to estimate the size of our vocabulary and how languages interact. Finally, we will consider the history of words and how language changes. The central question is: Where do our words come from?

MA-thesis in Literature, Culture and Media.

In the courses Communication channels I and Communication channels II, the basics of methods for the dissemination of cultural material in the humanities and social sciences are presented. Communication channels I is in the fall semester, while Communication channels II is in the spring semester. 

In Communication channels I, the students are working with a) text and images in the first half of the semester and b) short documentaries in the second half of the course. Each subject weighs 50% in the course. Concerning a) Students will receive training in article writing and discourse analysis on the one hand and use of images and image analysis on the other.  Concerning b) Students work on making short documentaries. It includes basic training in screenwriting, shooting and editing, and students work in groups on a documentary, according to a specific theme. 

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Analysis of texts and images
2. An article with an image on a specific theme for publication, about 800 words.
3. A group project where students work on a short documentary that is shown at the end of the course. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course. The course is not taught remotely.

In the course Communication channels II during the spring semester the students work with the following communication methods: a) oral presentation and b) exhibitions of cultural and historical material. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects.

The students will work with the basics of oral presentation and practice in smaller and larger groups. Basic issues regarding the organization of conferences and seminars and their management will also be reviewed and a conference is held where all students present their projects. Digital communication will also be integrated into this section. Following is a section about exhibitions with connection to digital communication. The basics of exhibitions and different ways of presentation will be discussed.  The basics of digital communication will be covered, what are the main channels, advantages and disadvantages, and what rules apply to the presentation of texts on the web.

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Lecture at a conference and other projects in that context
2. Exhibition analysis and a practical project in connection with exhibitions organized by the City History Museum (Borgarsögusafn)
3. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course.

The course is not taught remotely.