Can literature play a part in the fight against global warming? How do volcanic eruptions and natural disasters feature in Icelandic literature? The course searches answers to these and many more questions regarding the connection between literature and nature or the environment. This connection is what concerns ecocriticism, which will be introduced in the course, along with other research fields within environmental humanities. Works from various periods of the history of Icelandic literature will be read and analysed in view of critical theories within environmental humanities. These include the connection of literature with the ocean, natural disasters, climate, parts of the land, aesthetic sense and the future of life on planet Earth.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

This seminar deals with the history of the inflectional system of Icelandic from Proto-Germanic to modern times with special emphasis on selected problems. Recent writings on Icelandic historical morphology will be discussed. We will study text examples and their value as sources of information on the development of Icelandic morphology. The development of Icelandic word formation and different types of compounds will also be discussed.

Assignments: Students will give presentations on text samples and/or particular morphological problems.

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.

Faroeese is the language that has the strongest similarity to Icelandic among the Nordic languages but it has changed more than Icelandic with respect to phonology, inflections and syntax. Investigating Faroese is important for Icelandic linguistics because Faroese provides a unique perspective on how Icelandic could have changed or may change in the next centuries.

This course will give an overview of the grammar of Faroese (phonology, inflections, word-formation and syntax) in comparison to Icelandic and the other Nordic languages. Language changes, dialects and foreign influence on Faroese will also be discussed. Moreover, students will get some training in listening to spoken Faroese.

The aim of the course is to create a venue in which graduate students can access an overview of the current landscape in Icelandic language technology and work on a project consistent with its latest challenges. The course is organized as a seminar series with weekly lectures sponsored by Máltæknisetur (the Icelandic Center for Language Technology, ICLT). Before each lecture, registered students meet and discuss the course readings with the instructor. The lectures will mostly be by researchers affiliated with the institutions of the ICLT (UI, RU and The Árni Magnússon Institute) but representatives from the private sector will also be invited.  

The course is first and foremost organized for students in language technology that have a background in linguistics (or humanities) but are not experienced in computer science. This course is most often taken in the same semester as the course “Computer Science 1a”. If someone with a different background is interested in the course, please contact the teacher for further information.  The course is taught alongside ÍSL333G Programming for the humanities at the BA-level and all students attend the same lectures but MA students get longer assignments than BA students.

The main goal of this course is to support students in taking their first step toward learning programming, help them to knack the basis and train them in solving simple but diverse assignments in language technology using Python. Besides, students will be introduced to a few text processing tools that can be used for natural language processing.

The course will explore a variety of films from the U.S. and other countries to highlight the evolution of the noir tradition. Students will engage with seven works of fiction, both domestic and international, that connect to this tradition in diverse ways.

In this course, we will explore the various representations of women that appear in literature from earlier centuries, ranging from Norse mythology to folklore. We will examine women and female figures such as goddesses, Norns of fate, trolls (giantesses), Valkyries, shield-maidens, shape-shifting women, maiden kings, seeresses and sorceresses, learned women and nuns, holy virgins, courtly women and princesses, formidable women in the Sagas of Icelanders and legendary sagas, women in the Sturlunga saga, peasant women and female slaves, women writers, rebellious women, women in traditional ballads and sagnakvæði, women in Icelandic fairy tales, and hidden people (huldukonur). In all cases, we will examine the characteristics of these women, their roles in the narratives, their social status, and the societal framework created for them. We will read texts or excerpts where women play significant roles, as well as scholarly works and articles discussing women in Icelandic literature from earlier periods. This course aims to enhance students’ knowledge of women in Icelandic literary history and place them in a new and exciting comprehensive context.

This is a course for people who want to be able to analyze datasets stastically to better understand them, for example through visualization with graphs. 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 computational linguistics and 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.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

Do AI tools work in Icelandic? Do they work as well as in languages such as English? In this course we explore these two questions in the context of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as the ones underlying the ChatGPT and Claude AI assistants. We will examine the methods used to assess the language comprehension and production of LLMs in languages such as Icelandic and discuss whether various potential risks of increased LLM use (e.g. disinformation and bias propagation) are exacerbated in lower-resource language communities. We will place these discussions in the context of current theoretical debates, asking what AI performance in Icelandic tells us about the nature of LLMs and human language, e.g. regarding questions about how children and machines learn language.

This 10 credit course will present different theoretical approaches to the sagas about early Icelanders (Íslendingasögur). A selection of these sagas (Egils saga, Eyrbyggja saga and Grettis saga) will be read and analysed. Different interpretations of them will be discussed. Special attention will be given to the interaction between prose and poetry in the sagas, as well as to the production of meaning, particularly in relation to the period in which they were composed.

Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field of study that bridges medicine and the humanities, particularly literature, by focusing on narratives and the human body. This course explores key concepts and ideas in the medical humanities, examining the insights that literature and film offer into topics such as illness, pain, emotions, trauma, grief, and the relationships between patients and healthcare professionals. Central to the course is an exploration of the role of narrative in medicine, including an analysis of diverse narrative forms and the contrasting languages used by patients and doctors. Discussions will also cover the connections between storytelling and empathy, as well as how experiences of illness and trauma shape narratives. Emphasis will be placed on the phenomenology of illness, medical case studies, patient narratives, and the symbolic and cultural dimensions of illness as reflected in literature, film, and other art forms. Works analyzed in the course will include the novels Ból by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir, Stóri skjálfti by Auður Jónsdóttir, Lífsmörk by Ari Jóhannesson, Krabbaveislan by Hlynur Grímson; the films Still Alice, Wit, and Eiðurinn; as well as the autobiographies Ótuktin by Anna Pálína Árnadóttir and Ástin, dauðinn og drekinn by Vilborg Davíðsdóttir.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

This course provides an overview of Icelandic manuscript culture. Students will get practical training in reading Icelandic manuscripts from different periods, from the earliest extant Icelandic vellums dating to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries down to the paper manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The origins of the Icelandic script will be discussed as well as its development over time, and students will get practical training in reading different types of script from different periods. The orthography of medieval manuscripts differs considerably from the modern orthography. It includes a system of abbreviations that is partly inherited from a much earlier Latin tradition. Students will get practical training in interpreting these abbreviations. The Icelandic language has also changed over time, and different manifestations of these language changes appear when reading and examining Icelandic texts from different periods. A selection of these changes will be discussed. Changes in script, orthography, and language provide valuable indications of the date of the manuscript, and students will get practical training in dating medieval Icelandic manuscripts based on script, orthography, and language.

Various aspects of medieval book production will be discussed, including the making of parchment and ink, and book binding. Scribes and scribal schools will be discussed as well as probable centres of book production in medieval Iceland. The works of some prolific scribes in the fourteenth century will be examined. What did they write? How did they write? Did they change their practice over a long scribal career? The texts contained by the manuscripts will also be examined and the basics of textual criticism introduced. Njáls saga, for instance, has survived in over sixty manuscripts with considerable textual variation. Which manuscript should then constitute the basis for a printed edition of Njáls saga? Different types of printed editions will be discussed, and students try their hand at editing a medieval text. The electronic editing of pre-modern texts will be introduced, and students will get practical training in mark-up with XML according to the guidelines of the Medieval Nordic Text Archive (MENOTA) and the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI).

The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be pre-recorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions.

The course is run in cooperation with the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies which has the custody of the largest single collection of Icelandic medieval manuscripts. Students will visit the institute to learn about its collections and facilities and to examine manuscripts.

Course synopsis

Week 1
(1) Introduction
The course: format, readings, requirements and assessment.
The subject matter: Medieval Icelandic manuscripts.

(2) The earliest Icelandic manuscripts
A sketch of the history of the Latin script and the earliest writings in Icelandic. Where did Icelanders learn to use the Latin alphabet? Which orthography did they employ? Some main characteristics of medieval orthography and the use of abbreviations.

Week 2
(3) Electronic editing of medieval texts
How can medieval texts be presented electronically? The XML mark-up language, TEI, MENOTA, MUFI, and related matters. We will try our hand at electronic editing.

(4) The earliest Icelandic orthography and the First Grammatical Treatise
The use of the Latin alphabet for writing Icelandic: challenges — and the solutions proposed by the author of the First Grammatical Treatise in the middle of the twelfth century.

Week 3
(5) Icelandic script and orthography in the thirteenth century
The difference between Icelandic and Norwegian orthography in the twelfth century. What changed in the course of the thirteenth century?

(6) Different types of print editions: scholarly editions
How accurate should printed editions be? Should every little detail in the manuscript be reproduced? What is “Classical Old Icelandic Normalized Orthography”? What are the needs of the readers? What is the role of the editor?

Week 4
(7) Norwegian influence on script, orthography, and language in Icelandic manuscripts
What is the manifestation of this Norwegian influence? How deep-rooted was it? How long did it last?

(8) The dating of manuscripts: script, orthography, and language
How can medieval Icelandic manuscripts be dated? Features of script, orthography, and language that can be helpful for dating.

Week 5
(9) Icelandic script and orthography in the fourteenth century
Main characteristics and their development.

(10) One scribal hand or many?
Distinguishing different scribal hands: some criteria. The Icelandic Homily Book from around 1200: One scribe or fourteen?

Week 6
(11) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
From animal skin to parchment. How was the ink produced? Book design and book binding. The care and conservation of medieval manuscripts.

(12) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
A visit to the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.

— STUDY WEEK —

Week 7
(13) Scribes, scribal milieus, the export of books
On prolific scribes, scribal collaboration, and extensive production of books. Were books produced in Iceland for export in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries?

(14) Icelandic script and orthography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

Week 8
(15) Textual criticism
On the transmission of texts through copying. Textual variation, manuscript classification, and stemmatology.

(16) Textual criticism
Comparing manuscripts and collecting variants.

Week 9
(17) Manuscript illumination
On illuminated manuscripts, historiated initials, artists and their models.

(18) Manuscript catalogues and cataloguing
We will familiarize ourselves with the most important manuscript catalogues and learn about the principles of manuscript cataloguing.

Week 10
(19) Icelandic script and orthography in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

(20) The transmission of the text: a relic or a living text?
How did the language change when a scribe copied from an old exemplar? Njáls saga is believed to have been written towards the end of the thirteenth century. What is the language of Njáls saga in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts?

Week 11
(21) Antiquarianism, manuscript collectors, and copyists
The sixteenth century saw the rise of interest in antiquities, old manuscripts were collected and copied.

(22) Different types of print editions: popular editions
How is a pre-modern text best presented to the modern reader? Should archaic features of language and orthography be retained or should they be updated? On the allegiance to the manuscript and allegiance to the reader.

Week 12
(23) Manuscript collections and manuscript collectors
The life and work of Árni Magnússon.

(24) The manuscript dispute and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland
The search for Codex Scardensis and a nerve-racking auction in London. The custody dispute with Denmark and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland 1971–1997.

— This synopsis may be subject to change. —

Readings

The reading list is on the course website on Canvas. It consists of readings in several languages, including English, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, German, and French. The reading list is (often) divided into three main sections:

(a) Required readings: Texts that everyone is required to read. These are all in English.

(b) Optional supplementary readings: These are optional readings for those who want a more in-depth discussion. Most of these readings are in English, but not all.

(c) For those who still want more: A variety of optional readings in several languages, not least in Icelandic, for those who still want more. This section is mostly for reference purposes and as a tool for further research.

Many of the required readings (and some of the optional readings) are found on the Canvas course website. Other reading materials are available in the institute library in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Edda and the University Library (Háskólabókasafn) in the Þjóðarbókhlaða.

Prerequisites
Some skills in Icelandic are essential to fully benefit from the course, as emphasis will be placed on practical training in reading and transcribing text from medieval Icelandic manuscripts. MIS105F Old Icelandic 1 or equivalent study of Old Icelandic is sufficient or some skills in Modern Icelandic. Please, consult the instructor if in doubt.

Course format
The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be prerecorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions (flipped classroom).

Working language: This course is open to students with different linguistic backgrounds, and there are two working languages, English and Icelandic. Pre-recorded lectures are in both English and Icelandic (except for guest lecturers who will present in English), written assignments are in both English and Icelandic, and reading materials are in English, Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages, but for those who cannot read Icelandic or the Scan-dinavian languages, all required readings are in English. English is the main working language in the classroom, but questions and contributions to class discussion may also be in Icelandic. — See a separate note on the working languages and the classroom arrangement.

Course requirements and assessment
The final grade for the course will be based on:

(1) Transcription assignments: 30%
(2) Manuscript catalogue assignment: 10%
(3) Manuscript dating assignment: 10%
(4) Presentation: manuscript of the day: 10%
(5) Research paper: 30%
(6) Class participation: 10%

All written assignments will be submitted through Canvas. More detailed instructions and information on deadlines is found on Canvas.

The course will introduce and discuss topics and methods in etymological research. Different types of etymological dictionaries will be compared. Examples from Icelandic will be discussed, i.e., the history of particular words and the information that etymological dictionaries provide on their development.

In this seminar some Eddic poems will be read and their language examined. Features which cast light on the age of the poems will be given particular attention. The evidence of the Eddic poems will be compared with that from other linguistic sources. Various methods of dating the Eddic poems will be discussed.

The main purpose of the course is to give an overview of the syntax of the modern Scandinavian languages from a generative perspective. The emphasis is on the comparison of the Insular Scandinavian languages (Icelandic and Faroese) on the one hand and the Mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) on the other. Aspects of the syntax of some lesser-known Scandinavian varieties is also included for comparison, including Övdalian (Swe. Älvalsmålet), for instance, which preserves certain inflectional and syntactic features of Old Norse that have disappeared from the Mainland Scandinavian standard languages. Selected topics in recent research on variation in Scandinavian syntax are covered and the students will be trained in designing and administering syntactic questionnaires.

The course is designed for master’s students in language technology and translation studies but also open to master’s students in other disciplines. It is possible to take the course for 5 as well as 10 ECTS, Machine translation I (5 ECTS) is taught before the project week and Machine translation II (5 ECTS) is taught after. A pre-requisite for Machine translation II is that students also take Machine Translation I and have taken Programming for Language technology or an equivalent course.

The course is designed for master’s students in language technology and translation studies but also open to master’s students in other disciplines. It is possible to take the course for 5 as well as 10 ECTS, Machine translation I (5 ECTS) is taught before the project week and Machine translation II (5 ECTS) is taught after. Machine translation I does not require programming skills as the objective is to lead together people working on language technology and people working on traditional translations.

In this course we will discuss selected topics in linguistics, with a focus on the origin of language and its influence on thought. Most of the course will be devoted to the origin and evolution of language and speech, seen from a broad perspective. Classic theories and research in the field will be discussed, including hypotheses on the role of gesture (Corballis) and grooming (Dunbar), the “single mutation” theory (Chomsky), and research on the evolution of speech (Fitch). We will also discuss more recent research that provides insights into the origin and nature of speech and the language capacity, such as research on songbirds, musicality and interaction. Did human language originate in gesture or vocal calls of animals? Did it evolve out of the need for gossip and grooming? Did music have any role in the evolution of language? What can genetic studies tell us about the evolution of language? Do biological biases or the environment influence the evolution of languages?  In the course we will also discuss the relationship between language and thought. Categorization of various phenomena and objects in languages of the world will be discussed, for example in relation to color vocabulary. How does the language we speak influence the way we think and perceive the world around us?

One of the distinctive features of Old Norse-Icelandic medieval literature is how connected the narratives are to distinct places. This is especially true of Sagas about early Icelanders (Íslendingasögur) and Kings’ sagas (konungasögur). In many cases, it is possible to visit the scenes where many key events of the saga take place. In the last decades there has been a “spatial turn” in Old Norse-Icelandic studies due to theoretical developments in the humanities and the social sciences during the second half of the twentieth century, but also aided by new perceptions of space made possible by geolocalisation and digital maps. Several scholars have engaged with the sagas from this perspective, f.ex. Emily Lethbridge and Eleanor Barraclough. In this course, the theoretical literature associated with the spatial turn will be explores, the sagas will be studied from this point of view and places where key events of the sagas happen will be visited. Even though the course is taught in the Spring semester, students are encouraged to participate in trips organized by the Viking and Medieval Norse Studies and Medieval Icelandic Studies MA programmes.

An examination will be made of the religious beliefs and practices of people in Scandinavia from the earliest of times until the conversion, material ranging from burial practices to rock carvings, to the written evidence given in the works of Tacitus, Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus, as well as in early Icelandic works like the Eddic poems and the Kings' sagas. Alongside this discussion of the development and key features of Old Norse religion, some attention will be paid to the concepts of seid and shamanism, especially in connection to their role in early religions. Finally, an examination will be made of the conversion of Scandinavia and how Christian concepts and practices both fitted and contrasted with the previously dominant Old Norse worldview.

Teaching format

• The teaching takes place in the form of lectures and discussion on the material of the lectures.

Can literature play a part in the fight against global warming? How do volcanic eruptions and natural disasters feature in Icelandic literature? The course searches answers to these and many more questions regarding the connection between literature and nature or the environment. This connection is what concerns ecocriticism, which will be introduced in the course, along with other research fields within environmental humanities. Works from various periods of the history of Icelandic literature will be read and analysed in view of critical theories within environmental humanities. These include the connection of literature with the ocean, natural disasters, climate, parts of the land, aesthetic sense and the future of life on planet Earth.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

This seminar deals with the history of the inflectional system of Icelandic from Proto-Germanic to modern times with special emphasis on selected problems. Recent writings on Icelandic historical morphology will be discussed. We will study text examples and their value as sources of information on the development of Icelandic morphology. The development of Icelandic word formation and different types of compounds will also be discussed.

Assignments: Students will give presentations on text samples and/or particular morphological problems.

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.

Faroeese is the language that has the strongest similarity to Icelandic among the Nordic languages but it has changed more than Icelandic with respect to phonology, inflections and syntax. Investigating Faroese is important for Icelandic linguistics because Faroese provides a unique perspective on how Icelandic could have changed or may change in the next centuries.

This course will give an overview of the grammar of Faroese (phonology, inflections, word-formation and syntax) in comparison to Icelandic and the other Nordic languages. Language changes, dialects and foreign influence on Faroese will also be discussed. Moreover, students will get some training in listening to spoken Faroese.

The aim of the course is to create a venue in which graduate students can access an overview of the current landscape in Icelandic language technology and work on a project consistent with its latest challenges. The course is organized as a seminar series with weekly lectures sponsored by Máltæknisetur (the Icelandic Center for Language Technology, ICLT). Before each lecture, registered students meet and discuss the course readings with the instructor. The lectures will mostly be by researchers affiliated with the institutions of the ICLT (UI, RU and The Árni Magnússon Institute) but representatives from the private sector will also be invited.  

The course is first and foremost organized for students in language technology that have a background in linguistics (or humanities) but are not experienced in computer science. This course is most often taken in the same semester as the course “Computer Science 1a”. If someone with a different background is interested in the course, please contact the teacher for further information.  The course is taught alongside ÍSL333G Programming for the humanities at the BA-level and all students attend the same lectures but MA students get longer assignments than BA students.

The main goal of this course is to support students in taking their first step toward learning programming, help them to knack the basis and train them in solving simple but diverse assignments in language technology using Python. Besides, students will be introduced to a few text processing tools that can be used for natural language processing.

The course will explore a variety of films from the U.S. and other countries to highlight the evolution of the noir tradition. Students will engage with seven works of fiction, both domestic and international, that connect to this tradition in diverse ways.

In this course, we will explore the various representations of women that appear in literature from earlier centuries, ranging from Norse mythology to folklore. We will examine women and female figures such as goddesses, Norns of fate, trolls (giantesses), Valkyries, shield-maidens, shape-shifting women, maiden kings, seeresses and sorceresses, learned women and nuns, holy virgins, courtly women and princesses, formidable women in the Sagas of Icelanders and legendary sagas, women in the Sturlunga saga, peasant women and female slaves, women writers, rebellious women, women in traditional ballads and sagnakvæði, women in Icelandic fairy tales, and hidden people (huldukonur). In all cases, we will examine the characteristics of these women, their roles in the narratives, their social status, and the societal framework created for them. We will read texts or excerpts where women play significant roles, as well as scholarly works and articles discussing women in Icelandic literature from earlier periods. This course aims to enhance students’ knowledge of women in Icelandic literary history and place them in a new and exciting comprehensive context.

This is a course for people who want to be able to analyze datasets stastically to better understand them, for example through visualization with graphs. 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 computational linguistics and 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.

Students wishing to write a MA thesis shall contact the head of department regarding the choice of supervisor. Requests for a specific supervisor are honoured where possible, but otherwise a supervisor is selected based on the topic of the thesis and the specialist knowledge of teaching staff in Icelandic.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

Do AI tools work in Icelandic? Do they work as well as in languages such as English? In this course we explore these two questions in the context of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as the ones underlying the ChatGPT and Claude AI assistants. We will examine the methods used to assess the language comprehension and production of LLMs in languages such as Icelandic and discuss whether various potential risks of increased LLM use (e.g. disinformation and bias propagation) are exacerbated in lower-resource language communities. We will place these discussions in the context of current theoretical debates, asking what AI performance in Icelandic tells us about the nature of LLMs and human language, e.g. regarding questions about how children and machines learn language.

This 10 credit course will present different theoretical approaches to the sagas about early Icelanders (Íslendingasögur). A selection of these sagas (Egils saga, Eyrbyggja saga and Grettis saga) will be read and analysed. Different interpretations of them will be discussed. Special attention will be given to the interaction between prose and poetry in the sagas, as well as to the production of meaning, particularly in relation to the period in which they were composed.

Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field of study that bridges medicine and the humanities, particularly literature, by focusing on narratives and the human body. This course explores key concepts and ideas in the medical humanities, examining the insights that literature and film offer into topics such as illness, pain, emotions, trauma, grief, and the relationships between patients and healthcare professionals. Central to the course is an exploration of the role of narrative in medicine, including an analysis of diverse narrative forms and the contrasting languages used by patients and doctors. Discussions will also cover the connections between storytelling and empathy, as well as how experiences of illness and trauma shape narratives. Emphasis will be placed on the phenomenology of illness, medical case studies, patient narratives, and the symbolic and cultural dimensions of illness as reflected in literature, film, and other art forms. Works analyzed in the course will include the novels Ból by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir, Stóri skjálfti by Auður Jónsdóttir, Lífsmörk by Ari Jóhannesson, Krabbaveislan by Hlynur Grímson; the films Still Alice, Wit, and Eiðurinn; as well as the autobiographies Ótuktin by Anna Pálína Árnadóttir and Ástin, dauðinn og drekinn by Vilborg Davíðsdóttir.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

This course provides an overview of Icelandic manuscript culture. Students will get practical training in reading Icelandic manuscripts from different periods, from the earliest extant Icelandic vellums dating to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries down to the paper manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The origins of the Icelandic script will be discussed as well as its development over time, and students will get practical training in reading different types of script from different periods. The orthography of medieval manuscripts differs considerably from the modern orthography. It includes a system of abbreviations that is partly inherited from a much earlier Latin tradition. Students will get practical training in interpreting these abbreviations. The Icelandic language has also changed over time, and different manifestations of these language changes appear when reading and examining Icelandic texts from different periods. A selection of these changes will be discussed. Changes in script, orthography, and language provide valuable indications of the date of the manuscript, and students will get practical training in dating medieval Icelandic manuscripts based on script, orthography, and language.

Various aspects of medieval book production will be discussed, including the making of parchment and ink, and book binding. Scribes and scribal schools will be discussed as well as probable centres of book production in medieval Iceland. The works of some prolific scribes in the fourteenth century will be examined. What did they write? How did they write? Did they change their practice over a long scribal career? The texts contained by the manuscripts will also be examined and the basics of textual criticism introduced. Njáls saga, for instance, has survived in over sixty manuscripts with considerable textual variation. Which manuscript should then constitute the basis for a printed edition of Njáls saga? Different types of printed editions will be discussed, and students try their hand at editing a medieval text. The electronic editing of pre-modern texts will be introduced, and students will get practical training in mark-up with XML according to the guidelines of the Medieval Nordic Text Archive (MENOTA) and the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI).

The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be pre-recorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions.

The course is run in cooperation with the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies which has the custody of the largest single collection of Icelandic medieval manuscripts. Students will visit the institute to learn about its collections and facilities and to examine manuscripts.

Course synopsis

Week 1
(1) Introduction
The course: format, readings, requirements and assessment.
The subject matter: Medieval Icelandic manuscripts.

(2) The earliest Icelandic manuscripts
A sketch of the history of the Latin script and the earliest writings in Icelandic. Where did Icelanders learn to use the Latin alphabet? Which orthography did they employ? Some main characteristics of medieval orthography and the use of abbreviations.

Week 2
(3) Electronic editing of medieval texts
How can medieval texts be presented electronically? The XML mark-up language, TEI, MENOTA, MUFI, and related matters. We will try our hand at electronic editing.

(4) The earliest Icelandic orthography and the First Grammatical Treatise
The use of the Latin alphabet for writing Icelandic: challenges — and the solutions proposed by the author of the First Grammatical Treatise in the middle of the twelfth century.

Week 3
(5) Icelandic script and orthography in the thirteenth century
The difference between Icelandic and Norwegian orthography in the twelfth century. What changed in the course of the thirteenth century?

(6) Different types of print editions: scholarly editions
How accurate should printed editions be? Should every little detail in the manuscript be reproduced? What is “Classical Old Icelandic Normalized Orthography”? What are the needs of the readers? What is the role of the editor?

Week 4
(7) Norwegian influence on script, orthography, and language in Icelandic manuscripts
What is the manifestation of this Norwegian influence? How deep-rooted was it? How long did it last?

(8) The dating of manuscripts: script, orthography, and language
How can medieval Icelandic manuscripts be dated? Features of script, orthography, and language that can be helpful for dating.

Week 5
(9) Icelandic script and orthography in the fourteenth century
Main characteristics and their development.

(10) One scribal hand or many?
Distinguishing different scribal hands: some criteria. The Icelandic Homily Book from around 1200: One scribe or fourteen?

Week 6
(11) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
From animal skin to parchment. How was the ink produced? Book design and book binding. The care and conservation of medieval manuscripts.

(12) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
A visit to the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.

— STUDY WEEK —

Week 7
(13) Scribes, scribal milieus, the export of books
On prolific scribes, scribal collaboration, and extensive production of books. Were books produced in Iceland for export in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries?

(14) Icelandic script and orthography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

Week 8
(15) Textual criticism
On the transmission of texts through copying. Textual variation, manuscript classification, and stemmatology.

(16) Textual criticism
Comparing manuscripts and collecting variants.

Week 9
(17) Manuscript illumination
On illuminated manuscripts, historiated initials, artists and their models.

(18) Manuscript catalogues and cataloguing
We will familiarize ourselves with the most important manuscript catalogues and learn about the principles of manuscript cataloguing.

Week 10
(19) Icelandic script and orthography in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

(20) The transmission of the text: a relic or a living text?
How did the language change when a scribe copied from an old exemplar? Njáls saga is believed to have been written towards the end of the thirteenth century. What is the language of Njáls saga in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts?

Week 11
(21) Antiquarianism, manuscript collectors, and copyists
The sixteenth century saw the rise of interest in antiquities, old manuscripts were collected and copied.

(22) Different types of print editions: popular editions
How is a pre-modern text best presented to the modern reader? Should archaic features of language and orthography be retained or should they be updated? On the allegiance to the manuscript and allegiance to the reader.

Week 12
(23) Manuscript collections and manuscript collectors
The life and work of Árni Magnússon.

(24) The manuscript dispute and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland
The search for Codex Scardensis and a nerve-racking auction in London. The custody dispute with Denmark and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland 1971–1997.

— This synopsis may be subject to change. —

Readings

The reading list is on the course website on Canvas. It consists of readings in several languages, including English, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, German, and French. The reading list is (often) divided into three main sections:

(a) Required readings: Texts that everyone is required to read. These are all in English.

(b) Optional supplementary readings: These are optional readings for those who want a more in-depth discussion. Most of these readings are in English, but not all.

(c) For those who still want more: A variety of optional readings in several languages, not least in Icelandic, for those who still want more. This section is mostly for reference purposes and as a tool for further research.

Many of the required readings (and some of the optional readings) are found on the Canvas course website. Other reading materials are available in the institute library in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Edda and the University Library (Háskólabókasafn) in the Þjóðarbókhlaða.

Prerequisites
Some skills in Icelandic are essential to fully benefit from the course, as emphasis will be placed on practical training in reading and transcribing text from medieval Icelandic manuscripts. MIS105F Old Icelandic 1 or equivalent study of Old Icelandic is sufficient or some skills in Modern Icelandic. Please, consult the instructor if in doubt.

Course format
The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be prerecorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions (flipped classroom).

Working language: This course is open to students with different linguistic backgrounds, and there are two working languages, English and Icelandic. Pre-recorded lectures are in both English and Icelandic (except for guest lecturers who will present in English), written assignments are in both English and Icelandic, and reading materials are in English, Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages, but for those who cannot read Icelandic or the Scan-dinavian languages, all required readings are in English. English is the main working language in the classroom, but questions and contributions to class discussion may also be in Icelandic. — See a separate note on the working languages and the classroom arrangement.

Course requirements and assessment
The final grade for the course will be based on:

(1) Transcription assignments: 30%
(2) Manuscript catalogue assignment: 10%
(3) Manuscript dating assignment: 10%
(4) Presentation: manuscript of the day: 10%
(5) Research paper: 30%
(6) Class participation: 10%

All written assignments will be submitted through Canvas. More detailed instructions and information on deadlines is found on Canvas.

The course will introduce and discuss topics and methods in etymological research. Different types of etymological dictionaries will be compared. Examples from Icelandic will be discussed, i.e., the history of particular words and the information that etymological dictionaries provide on their development.

In this seminar some Eddic poems will be read and their language examined. Features which cast light on the age of the poems will be given particular attention. The evidence of the Eddic poems will be compared with that from other linguistic sources. Various methods of dating the Eddic poems will be discussed.

The main purpose of the course is to give an overview of the syntax of the modern Scandinavian languages from a generative perspective. The emphasis is on the comparison of the Insular Scandinavian languages (Icelandic and Faroese) on the one hand and the Mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) on the other. Aspects of the syntax of some lesser-known Scandinavian varieties is also included for comparison, including Övdalian (Swe. Älvalsmålet), for instance, which preserves certain inflectional and syntactic features of Old Norse that have disappeared from the Mainland Scandinavian standard languages. Selected topics in recent research on variation in Scandinavian syntax are covered and the students will be trained in designing and administering syntactic questionnaires.

The course is designed for master’s students in language technology and translation studies but also open to master’s students in other disciplines. It is possible to take the course for 5 as well as 10 ECTS, Machine translation I (5 ECTS) is taught before the project week and Machine translation II (5 ECTS) is taught after. A pre-requisite for Machine translation II is that students also take Machine Translation I and have taken Programming for Language technology or an equivalent course.

The course is designed for master’s students in language technology and translation studies but also open to master’s students in other disciplines. It is possible to take the course for 5 as well as 10 ECTS, Machine translation I (5 ECTS) is taught before the project week and Machine translation II (5 ECTS) is taught after. Machine translation I does not require programming skills as the objective is to lead together people working on language technology and people working on traditional translations.

In this course we will discuss selected topics in linguistics, with a focus on the origin of language and its influence on thought. Most of the course will be devoted to the origin and evolution of language and speech, seen from a broad perspective. Classic theories and research in the field will be discussed, including hypotheses on the role of gesture (Corballis) and grooming (Dunbar), the “single mutation” theory (Chomsky), and research on the evolution of speech (Fitch). We will also discuss more recent research that provides insights into the origin and nature of speech and the language capacity, such as research on songbirds, musicality and interaction. Did human language originate in gesture or vocal calls of animals? Did it evolve out of the need for gossip and grooming? Did music have any role in the evolution of language? What can genetic studies tell us about the evolution of language? Do biological biases or the environment influence the evolution of languages?  In the course we will also discuss the relationship between language and thought. Categorization of various phenomena and objects in languages of the world will be discussed, for example in relation to color vocabulary. How does the language we speak influence the way we think and perceive the world around us?

One of the distinctive features of Old Norse-Icelandic medieval literature is how connected the narratives are to distinct places. This is especially true of Sagas about early Icelanders (Íslendingasögur) and Kings’ sagas (konungasögur). In many cases, it is possible to visit the scenes where many key events of the saga take place. In the last decades there has been a “spatial turn” in Old Norse-Icelandic studies due to theoretical developments in the humanities and the social sciences during the second half of the twentieth century, but also aided by new perceptions of space made possible by geolocalisation and digital maps. Several scholars have engaged with the sagas from this perspective, f.ex. Emily Lethbridge and Eleanor Barraclough. In this course, the theoretical literature associated with the spatial turn will be explores, the sagas will be studied from this point of view and places where key events of the sagas happen will be visited. Even though the course is taught in the Spring semester, students are encouraged to participate in trips organized by the Viking and Medieval Norse Studies and Medieval Icelandic Studies MA programmes.

An examination will be made of the religious beliefs and practices of people in Scandinavia from the earliest of times until the conversion, material ranging from burial practices to rock carvings, to the written evidence given in the works of Tacitus, Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus, as well as in early Icelandic works like the Eddic poems and the Kings' sagas. Alongside this discussion of the development and key features of Old Norse religion, some attention will be paid to the concepts of seid and shamanism, especially in connection to their role in early religions. Finally, an examination will be made of the conversion of Scandinavia and how Christian concepts and practices both fitted and contrasted with the previously dominant Old Norse worldview.

Teaching format

• The teaching takes place in the form of lectures and discussion on the material of the lectures.

Students wishing to write a MA thesis shall contact the head of department regarding the choice of supervisor. Requests for a specific supervisor are honoured where possible, but otherwise a supervisor is selected based on the topic of the thesis and the specialist knowledge of teaching staff in Icelandic.

Can literature play a part in the fight against global warming? How do volcanic eruptions and natural disasters feature in Icelandic literature? The course searches answers to these and many more questions regarding the connection between literature and nature or the environment. This connection is what concerns ecocriticism, which will be introduced in the course, along with other research fields within environmental humanities. Works from various periods of the history of Icelandic literature will be read and analysed in view of critical theories within environmental humanities. These include the connection of literature with the ocean, natural disasters, climate, parts of the land, aesthetic sense and the future of life on planet Earth.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

This seminar deals with the history of the inflectional system of Icelandic from Proto-Germanic to modern times with special emphasis on selected problems. Recent writings on Icelandic historical morphology will be discussed. We will study text examples and their value as sources of information on the development of Icelandic morphology. The development of Icelandic word formation and different types of compounds will also be discussed.

Assignments: Students will give presentations on text samples and/or particular morphological problems.

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.

Faroeese is the language that has the strongest similarity to Icelandic among the Nordic languages but it has changed more than Icelandic with respect to phonology, inflections and syntax. Investigating Faroese is important for Icelandic linguistics because Faroese provides a unique perspective on how Icelandic could have changed or may change in the next centuries.

This course will give an overview of the grammar of Faroese (phonology, inflections, word-formation and syntax) in comparison to Icelandic and the other Nordic languages. Language changes, dialects and foreign influence on Faroese will also be discussed. Moreover, students will get some training in listening to spoken Faroese.

The aim of the course is to create a venue in which graduate students can access an overview of the current landscape in Icelandic language technology and work on a project consistent with its latest challenges. The course is organized as a seminar series with weekly lectures sponsored by Máltæknisetur (the Icelandic Center for Language Technology, ICLT). Before each lecture, registered students meet and discuss the course readings with the instructor. The lectures will mostly be by researchers affiliated with the institutions of the ICLT (UI, RU and The Árni Magnússon Institute) but representatives from the private sector will also be invited.  

The course is first and foremost organized for students in language technology that have a background in linguistics (or humanities) but are not experienced in computer science. This course is most often taken in the same semester as the course “Computer Science 1a”. If someone with a different background is interested in the course, please contact the teacher for further information.  The course is taught alongside ÍSL333G Programming for the humanities at the BA-level and all students attend the same lectures but MA students get longer assignments than BA students.

The main goal of this course is to support students in taking their first step toward learning programming, help them to knack the basis and train them in solving simple but diverse assignments in language technology using Python. Besides, students will be introduced to a few text processing tools that can be used for natural language processing.

The course will explore a variety of films from the U.S. and other countries to highlight the evolution of the noir tradition. Students will engage with seven works of fiction, both domestic and international, that connect to this tradition in diverse ways.

In this course, we will explore the various representations of women that appear in literature from earlier centuries, ranging from Norse mythology to folklore. We will examine women and female figures such as goddesses, Norns of fate, trolls (giantesses), Valkyries, shield-maidens, shape-shifting women, maiden kings, seeresses and sorceresses, learned women and nuns, holy virgins, courtly women and princesses, formidable women in the Sagas of Icelanders and legendary sagas, women in the Sturlunga saga, peasant women and female slaves, women writers, rebellious women, women in traditional ballads and sagnakvæði, women in Icelandic fairy tales, and hidden people (huldukonur). In all cases, we will examine the characteristics of these women, their roles in the narratives, their social status, and the societal framework created for them. We will read texts or excerpts where women play significant roles, as well as scholarly works and articles discussing women in Icelandic literature from earlier periods. This course aims to enhance students’ knowledge of women in Icelandic literary history and place them in a new and exciting comprehensive context.

This is a course for people who want to be able to analyze datasets stastically to better understand them, for example through visualization with graphs. 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 computational linguistics and 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.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

Do AI tools work in Icelandic? Do they work as well as in languages such as English? In this course we explore these two questions in the context of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as the ones underlying the ChatGPT and Claude AI assistants. We will examine the methods used to assess the language comprehension and production of LLMs in languages such as Icelandic and discuss whether various potential risks of increased LLM use (e.g. disinformation and bias propagation) are exacerbated in lower-resource language communities. We will place these discussions in the context of current theoretical debates, asking what AI performance in Icelandic tells us about the nature of LLMs and human language, e.g. regarding questions about how children and machines learn language.

This 10 credit course will present different theoretical approaches to the sagas about early Icelanders (Íslendingasögur). A selection of these sagas (Egils saga, Eyrbyggja saga and Grettis saga) will be read and analysed. Different interpretations of them will be discussed. Special attention will be given to the interaction between prose and poetry in the sagas, as well as to the production of meaning, particularly in relation to the period in which they were composed.

Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field of study that bridges medicine and the humanities, particularly literature, by focusing on narratives and the human body. This course explores key concepts and ideas in the medical humanities, examining the insights that literature and film offer into topics such as illness, pain, emotions, trauma, grief, and the relationships between patients and healthcare professionals. Central to the course is an exploration of the role of narrative in medicine, including an analysis of diverse narrative forms and the contrasting languages used by patients and doctors. Discussions will also cover the connections between storytelling and empathy, as well as how experiences of illness and trauma shape narratives. Emphasis will be placed on the phenomenology of illness, medical case studies, patient narratives, and the symbolic and cultural dimensions of illness as reflected in literature, film, and other art forms. Works analyzed in the course will include the novels Ból by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir, Stóri skjálfti by Auður Jónsdóttir, Lífsmörk by Ari Jóhannesson, Krabbaveislan by Hlynur Grímson; the films Still Alice, Wit, and Eiðurinn; as well as the autobiographies Ótuktin by Anna Pálína Árnadóttir and Ástin, dauðinn og drekinn by Vilborg Davíðsdóttir.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

This course provides an overview of Icelandic manuscript culture. Students will get practical training in reading Icelandic manuscripts from different periods, from the earliest extant Icelandic vellums dating to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries down to the paper manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The origins of the Icelandic script will be discussed as well as its development over time, and students will get practical training in reading different types of script from different periods. The orthography of medieval manuscripts differs considerably from the modern orthography. It includes a system of abbreviations that is partly inherited from a much earlier Latin tradition. Students will get practical training in interpreting these abbreviations. The Icelandic language has also changed over time, and different manifestations of these language changes appear when reading and examining Icelandic texts from different periods. A selection of these changes will be discussed. Changes in script, orthography, and language provide valuable indications of the date of the manuscript, and students will get practical training in dating medieval Icelandic manuscripts based on script, orthography, and language.

Various aspects of medieval book production will be discussed, including the making of parchment and ink, and book binding. Scribes and scribal schools will be discussed as well as probable centres of book production in medieval Iceland. The works of some prolific scribes in the fourteenth century will be examined. What did they write? How did they write? Did they change their practice over a long scribal career? The texts contained by the manuscripts will also be examined and the basics of textual criticism introduced. Njáls saga, for instance, has survived in over sixty manuscripts with considerable textual variation. Which manuscript should then constitute the basis for a printed edition of Njáls saga? Different types of printed editions will be discussed, and students try their hand at editing a medieval text. The electronic editing of pre-modern texts will be introduced, and students will get practical training in mark-up with XML according to the guidelines of the Medieval Nordic Text Archive (MENOTA) and the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI).

The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be pre-recorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions.

The course is run in cooperation with the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies which has the custody of the largest single collection of Icelandic medieval manuscripts. Students will visit the institute to learn about its collections and facilities and to examine manuscripts.

Course synopsis

Week 1
(1) Introduction
The course: format, readings, requirements and assessment.
The subject matter: Medieval Icelandic manuscripts.

(2) The earliest Icelandic manuscripts
A sketch of the history of the Latin script and the earliest writings in Icelandic. Where did Icelanders learn to use the Latin alphabet? Which orthography did they employ? Some main characteristics of medieval orthography and the use of abbreviations.

Week 2
(3) Electronic editing of medieval texts
How can medieval texts be presented electronically? The XML mark-up language, TEI, MENOTA, MUFI, and related matters. We will try our hand at electronic editing.

(4) The earliest Icelandic orthography and the First Grammatical Treatise
The use of the Latin alphabet for writing Icelandic: challenges — and the solutions proposed by the author of the First Grammatical Treatise in the middle of the twelfth century.

Week 3
(5) Icelandic script and orthography in the thirteenth century
The difference between Icelandic and Norwegian orthography in the twelfth century. What changed in the course of the thirteenth century?

(6) Different types of print editions: scholarly editions
How accurate should printed editions be? Should every little detail in the manuscript be reproduced? What is “Classical Old Icelandic Normalized Orthography”? What are the needs of the readers? What is the role of the editor?

Week 4
(7) Norwegian influence on script, orthography, and language in Icelandic manuscripts
What is the manifestation of this Norwegian influence? How deep-rooted was it? How long did it last?

(8) The dating of manuscripts: script, orthography, and language
How can medieval Icelandic manuscripts be dated? Features of script, orthography, and language that can be helpful for dating.

Week 5
(9) Icelandic script and orthography in the fourteenth century
Main characteristics and their development.

(10) One scribal hand or many?
Distinguishing different scribal hands: some criteria. The Icelandic Homily Book from around 1200: One scribe or fourteen?

Week 6
(11) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
From animal skin to parchment. How was the ink produced? Book design and book binding. The care and conservation of medieval manuscripts.

(12) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
A visit to the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.

— STUDY WEEK —

Week 7
(13) Scribes, scribal milieus, the export of books
On prolific scribes, scribal collaboration, and extensive production of books. Were books produced in Iceland for export in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries?

(14) Icelandic script and orthography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

Week 8
(15) Textual criticism
On the transmission of texts through copying. Textual variation, manuscript classification, and stemmatology.

(16) Textual criticism
Comparing manuscripts and collecting variants.

Week 9
(17) Manuscript illumination
On illuminated manuscripts, historiated initials, artists and their models.

(18) Manuscript catalogues and cataloguing
We will familiarize ourselves with the most important manuscript catalogues and learn about the principles of manuscript cataloguing.

Week 10
(19) Icelandic script and orthography in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

(20) The transmission of the text: a relic or a living text?
How did the language change when a scribe copied from an old exemplar? Njáls saga is believed to have been written towards the end of the thirteenth century. What is the language of Njáls saga in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts?

Week 11
(21) Antiquarianism, manuscript collectors, and copyists
The sixteenth century saw the rise of interest in antiquities, old manuscripts were collected and copied.

(22) Different types of print editions: popular editions
How is a pre-modern text best presented to the modern reader? Should archaic features of language and orthography be retained or should they be updated? On the allegiance to the manuscript and allegiance to the reader.

Week 12
(23) Manuscript collections and manuscript collectors
The life and work of Árni Magnússon.

(24) The manuscript dispute and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland
The search for Codex Scardensis and a nerve-racking auction in London. The custody dispute with Denmark and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland 1971–1997.

— This synopsis may be subject to change. —

Readings

The reading list is on the course website on Canvas. It consists of readings in several languages, including English, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, German, and French. The reading list is (often) divided into three main sections:

(a) Required readings: Texts that everyone is required to read. These are all in English.

(b) Optional supplementary readings: These are optional readings for those who want a more in-depth discussion. Most of these readings are in English, but not all.

(c) For those who still want more: A variety of optional readings in several languages, not least in Icelandic, for those who still want more. This section is mostly for reference purposes and as a tool for further research.

Many of the required readings (and some of the optional readings) are found on the Canvas course website. Other reading materials are available in the institute library in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Edda and the University Library (Háskólabókasafn) in the Þjóðarbókhlaða.

Prerequisites
Some skills in Icelandic are essential to fully benefit from the course, as emphasis will be placed on practical training in reading and transcribing text from medieval Icelandic manuscripts. MIS105F Old Icelandic 1 or equivalent study of Old Icelandic is sufficient or some skills in Modern Icelandic. Please, consult the instructor if in doubt.

Course format
The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be prerecorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions (flipped classroom).

Working language: This course is open to students with different linguistic backgrounds, and there are two working languages, English and Icelandic. Pre-recorded lectures are in both English and Icelandic (except for guest lecturers who will present in English), written assignments are in both English and Icelandic, and reading materials are in English, Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages, but for those who cannot read Icelandic or the Scan-dinavian languages, all required readings are in English. English is the main working language in the classroom, but questions and contributions to class discussion may also be in Icelandic. — See a separate note on the working languages and the classroom arrangement.

Course requirements and assessment
The final grade for the course will be based on:

(1) Transcription assignments: 30%
(2) Manuscript catalogue assignment: 10%
(3) Manuscript dating assignment: 10%
(4) Presentation: manuscript of the day: 10%
(5) Research paper: 30%
(6) Class participation: 10%

All written assignments will be submitted through Canvas. More detailed instructions and information on deadlines is found on Canvas.

The course will introduce and discuss topics and methods in etymological research. Different types of etymological dictionaries will be compared. Examples from Icelandic will be discussed, i.e., the history of particular words and the information that etymological dictionaries provide on their development.

In this seminar some Eddic poems will be read and their language examined. Features which cast light on the age of the poems will be given particular attention. The evidence of the Eddic poems will be compared with that from other linguistic sources. Various methods of dating the Eddic poems will be discussed.

The main purpose of the course is to give an overview of the syntax of the modern Scandinavian languages from a generative perspective. The emphasis is on the comparison of the Insular Scandinavian languages (Icelandic and Faroese) on the one hand and the Mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) on the other. Aspects of the syntax of some lesser-known Scandinavian varieties is also included for comparison, including Övdalian (Swe. Älvalsmålet), for instance, which preserves certain inflectional and syntactic features of Old Norse that have disappeared from the Mainland Scandinavian standard languages. Selected topics in recent research on variation in Scandinavian syntax are covered and the students will be trained in designing and administering syntactic questionnaires.

The course is designed for master’s students in language technology and translation studies but also open to master’s students in other disciplines. It is possible to take the course for 5 as well as 10 ECTS, Machine translation I (5 ECTS) is taught before the project week and Machine translation II (5 ECTS) is taught after. A pre-requisite for Machine translation II is that students also take Machine Translation I and have taken Programming for Language technology or an equivalent course.

The course is designed for master’s students in language technology and translation studies but also open to master’s students in other disciplines. It is possible to take the course for 5 as well as 10 ECTS, Machine translation I (5 ECTS) is taught before the project week and Machine translation II (5 ECTS) is taught after. Machine translation I does not require programming skills as the objective is to lead together people working on language technology and people working on traditional translations.

In this course we will discuss selected topics in linguistics, with a focus on the origin of language and its influence on thought. Most of the course will be devoted to the origin and evolution of language and speech, seen from a broad perspective. Classic theories and research in the field will be discussed, including hypotheses on the role of gesture (Corballis) and grooming (Dunbar), the “single mutation” theory (Chomsky), and research on the evolution of speech (Fitch). We will also discuss more recent research that provides insights into the origin and nature of speech and the language capacity, such as research on songbirds, musicality and interaction. Did human language originate in gesture or vocal calls of animals? Did it evolve out of the need for gossip and grooming? Did music have any role in the evolution of language? What can genetic studies tell us about the evolution of language? Do biological biases or the environment influence the evolution of languages?  In the course we will also discuss the relationship between language and thought. Categorization of various phenomena and objects in languages of the world will be discussed, for example in relation to color vocabulary. How does the language we speak influence the way we think and perceive the world around us?

One of the distinctive features of Old Norse-Icelandic medieval literature is how connected the narratives are to distinct places. This is especially true of Sagas about early Icelanders (Íslendingasögur) and Kings’ sagas (konungasögur). In many cases, it is possible to visit the scenes where many key events of the saga take place. In the last decades there has been a “spatial turn” in Old Norse-Icelandic studies due to theoretical developments in the humanities and the social sciences during the second half of the twentieth century, but also aided by new perceptions of space made possible by geolocalisation and digital maps. Several scholars have engaged with the sagas from this perspective, f.ex. Emily Lethbridge and Eleanor Barraclough. In this course, the theoretical literature associated with the spatial turn will be explores, the sagas will be studied from this point of view and places where key events of the sagas happen will be visited. Even though the course is taught in the Spring semester, students are encouraged to participate in trips organized by the Viking and Medieval Norse Studies and Medieval Icelandic Studies MA programmes.

An examination will be made of the religious beliefs and practices of people in Scandinavia from the earliest of times until the conversion, material ranging from burial practices to rock carvings, to the written evidence given in the works of Tacitus, Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus, as well as in early Icelandic works like the Eddic poems and the Kings' sagas. Alongside this discussion of the development and key features of Old Norse religion, some attention will be paid to the concepts of seid and shamanism, especially in connection to their role in early religions. Finally, an examination will be made of the conversion of Scandinavia and how Christian concepts and practices both fitted and contrasted with the previously dominant Old Norse worldview.

Teaching format

• The teaching takes place in the form of lectures and discussion on the material of the lectures.

Can literature play a part in the fight against global warming? How do volcanic eruptions and natural disasters feature in Icelandic literature? The course searches answers to these and many more questions regarding the connection between literature and nature or the environment. This connection is what concerns ecocriticism, which will be introduced in the course, along with other research fields within environmental humanities. Works from various periods of the history of Icelandic literature will be read and analysed in view of critical theories within environmental humanities. These include the connection of literature with the ocean, natural disasters, climate, parts of the land, aesthetic sense and the future of life on planet Earth.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

This seminar deals with the history of the inflectional system of Icelandic from Proto-Germanic to modern times with special emphasis on selected problems. Recent writings on Icelandic historical morphology will be discussed. We will study text examples and their value as sources of information on the development of Icelandic morphology. The development of Icelandic word formation and different types of compounds will also be discussed.

Assignments: Students will give presentations on text samples and/or particular morphological problems.

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.

Faroeese is the language that has the strongest similarity to Icelandic among the Nordic languages but it has changed more than Icelandic with respect to phonology, inflections and syntax. Investigating Faroese is important for Icelandic linguistics because Faroese provides a unique perspective on how Icelandic could have changed or may change in the next centuries.

This course will give an overview of the grammar of Faroese (phonology, inflections, word-formation and syntax) in comparison to Icelandic and the other Nordic languages. Language changes, dialects and foreign influence on Faroese will also be discussed. Moreover, students will get some training in listening to spoken Faroese.

The aim of the course is to create a venue in which graduate students can access an overview of the current landscape in Icelandic language technology and work on a project consistent with its latest challenges. The course is organized as a seminar series with weekly lectures sponsored by Máltæknisetur (the Icelandic Center for Language Technology, ICLT). Before each lecture, registered students meet and discuss the course readings with the instructor. The lectures will mostly be by researchers affiliated with the institutions of the ICLT (UI, RU and The Árni Magnússon Institute) but representatives from the private sector will also be invited.  

The course is first and foremost organized for students in language technology that have a background in linguistics (or humanities) but are not experienced in computer science. This course is most often taken in the same semester as the course “Computer Science 1a”. If someone with a different background is interested in the course, please contact the teacher for further information.  The course is taught alongside ÍSL333G Programming for the humanities at the BA-level and all students attend the same lectures but MA students get longer assignments than BA students.

The main goal of this course is to support students in taking their first step toward learning programming, help them to knack the basis and train them in solving simple but diverse assignments in language technology using Python. Besides, students will be introduced to a few text processing tools that can be used for natural language processing.

The course will explore a variety of films from the U.S. and other countries to highlight the evolution of the noir tradition. Students will engage with seven works of fiction, both domestic and international, that connect to this tradition in diverse ways.

In this course, we will explore the various representations of women that appear in literature from earlier centuries, ranging from Norse mythology to folklore. We will examine women and female figures such as goddesses, Norns of fate, trolls (giantesses), Valkyries, shield-maidens, shape-shifting women, maiden kings, seeresses and sorceresses, learned women and nuns, holy virgins, courtly women and princesses, formidable women in the Sagas of Icelanders and legendary sagas, women in the Sturlunga saga, peasant women and female slaves, women writers, rebellious women, women in traditional ballads and sagnakvæði, women in Icelandic fairy tales, and hidden people (huldukonur). In all cases, we will examine the characteristics of these women, their roles in the narratives, their social status, and the societal framework created for them. We will read texts or excerpts where women play significant roles, as well as scholarly works and articles discussing women in Icelandic literature from earlier periods. This course aims to enhance students’ knowledge of women in Icelandic literary history and place them in a new and exciting comprehensive context.

This is a course for people who want to be able to analyze datasets stastically to better understand them, for example through visualization with graphs. 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 computational linguistics and 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.

Students wishing to write a MA thesis shall contact the head of department regarding the choice of supervisor. Requests for a specific supervisor are honoured where possible, but otherwise a supervisor is selected based on the topic of the thesis and the specialist knowledge of teaching staff in Icelandic.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

Do AI tools work in Icelandic? Do they work as well as in languages such as English? In this course we explore these two questions in the context of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as the ones underlying the ChatGPT and Claude AI assistants. We will examine the methods used to assess the language comprehension and production of LLMs in languages such as Icelandic and discuss whether various potential risks of increased LLM use (e.g. disinformation and bias propagation) are exacerbated in lower-resource language communities. We will place these discussions in the context of current theoretical debates, asking what AI performance in Icelandic tells us about the nature of LLMs and human language, e.g. regarding questions about how children and machines learn language.

This 10 credit course will present different theoretical approaches to the sagas about early Icelanders (Íslendingasögur). A selection of these sagas (Egils saga, Eyrbyggja saga and Grettis saga) will be read and analysed. Different interpretations of them will be discussed. Special attention will be given to the interaction between prose and poetry in the sagas, as well as to the production of meaning, particularly in relation to the period in which they were composed.

Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field of study that bridges medicine and the humanities, particularly literature, by focusing on narratives and the human body. This course explores key concepts and ideas in the medical humanities, examining the insights that literature and film offer into topics such as illness, pain, emotions, trauma, grief, and the relationships between patients and healthcare professionals. Central to the course is an exploration of the role of narrative in medicine, including an analysis of diverse narrative forms and the contrasting languages used by patients and doctors. Discussions will also cover the connections between storytelling and empathy, as well as how experiences of illness and trauma shape narratives. Emphasis will be placed on the phenomenology of illness, medical case studies, patient narratives, and the symbolic and cultural dimensions of illness as reflected in literature, film, and other art forms. Works analyzed in the course will include the novels Ból by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir, Stóri skjálfti by Auður Jónsdóttir, Lífsmörk by Ari Jóhannesson, Krabbaveislan by Hlynur Grímson; the films Still Alice, Wit, and Eiðurinn; as well as the autobiographies Ótuktin by Anna Pálína Árnadóttir and Ástin, dauðinn og drekinn by Vilborg Davíðsdóttir.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

This course provides an overview of Icelandic manuscript culture. Students will get practical training in reading Icelandic manuscripts from different periods, from the earliest extant Icelandic vellums dating to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries down to the paper manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The origins of the Icelandic script will be discussed as well as its development over time, and students will get practical training in reading different types of script from different periods. The orthography of medieval manuscripts differs considerably from the modern orthography. It includes a system of abbreviations that is partly inherited from a much earlier Latin tradition. Students will get practical training in interpreting these abbreviations. The Icelandic language has also changed over time, and different manifestations of these language changes appear when reading and examining Icelandic texts from different periods. A selection of these changes will be discussed. Changes in script, orthography, and language provide valuable indications of the date of the manuscript, and students will get practical training in dating medieval Icelandic manuscripts based on script, orthography, and language.

Various aspects of medieval book production will be discussed, including the making of parchment and ink, and book binding. Scribes and scribal schools will be discussed as well as probable centres of book production in medieval Iceland. The works of some prolific scribes in the fourteenth century will be examined. What did they write? How did they write? Did they change their practice over a long scribal career? The texts contained by the manuscripts will also be examined and the basics of textual criticism introduced. Njáls saga, for instance, has survived in over sixty manuscripts with considerable textual variation. Which manuscript should then constitute the basis for a printed edition of Njáls saga? Different types of printed editions will be discussed, and students try their hand at editing a medieval text. The electronic editing of pre-modern texts will be introduced, and students will get practical training in mark-up with XML according to the guidelines of the Medieval Nordic Text Archive (MENOTA) and the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI).

The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be pre-recorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions.

The course is run in cooperation with the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies which has the custody of the largest single collection of Icelandic medieval manuscripts. Students will visit the institute to learn about its collections and facilities and to examine manuscripts.

Course synopsis

Week 1
(1) Introduction
The course: format, readings, requirements and assessment.
The subject matter: Medieval Icelandic manuscripts.

(2) The earliest Icelandic manuscripts
A sketch of the history of the Latin script and the earliest writings in Icelandic. Where did Icelanders learn to use the Latin alphabet? Which orthography did they employ? Some main characteristics of medieval orthography and the use of abbreviations.

Week 2
(3) Electronic editing of medieval texts
How can medieval texts be presented electronically? The XML mark-up language, TEI, MENOTA, MUFI, and related matters. We will try our hand at electronic editing.

(4) The earliest Icelandic orthography and the First Grammatical Treatise
The use of the Latin alphabet for writing Icelandic: challenges — and the solutions proposed by the author of the First Grammatical Treatise in the middle of the twelfth century.

Week 3
(5) Icelandic script and orthography in the thirteenth century
The difference between Icelandic and Norwegian orthography in the twelfth century. What changed in the course of the thirteenth century?

(6) Different types of print editions: scholarly editions
How accurate should printed editions be? Should every little detail in the manuscript be reproduced? What is “Classical Old Icelandic Normalized Orthography”? What are the needs of the readers? What is the role of the editor?

Week 4
(7) Norwegian influence on script, orthography, and language in Icelandic manuscripts
What is the manifestation of this Norwegian influence? How deep-rooted was it? How long did it last?

(8) The dating of manuscripts: script, orthography, and language
How can medieval Icelandic manuscripts be dated? Features of script, orthography, and language that can be helpful for dating.

Week 5
(9) Icelandic script and orthography in the fourteenth century
Main characteristics and their development.

(10) One scribal hand or many?
Distinguishing different scribal hands: some criteria. The Icelandic Homily Book from around 1200: One scribe or fourteen?

Week 6
(11) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
From animal skin to parchment. How was the ink produced? Book design and book binding. The care and conservation of medieval manuscripts.

(12) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
A visit to the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.

— STUDY WEEK —

Week 7
(13) Scribes, scribal milieus, the export of books
On prolific scribes, scribal collaboration, and extensive production of books. Were books produced in Iceland for export in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries?

(14) Icelandic script and orthography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

Week 8
(15) Textual criticism
On the transmission of texts through copying. Textual variation, manuscript classification, and stemmatology.

(16) Textual criticism
Comparing manuscripts and collecting variants.

Week 9
(17) Manuscript illumination
On illuminated manuscripts, historiated initials, artists and their models.

(18) Manuscript catalogues and cataloguing
We will familiarize ourselves with the most important manuscript catalogues and learn about the principles of manuscript cataloguing.

Week 10
(19) Icelandic script and orthography in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

(20) The transmission of the text: a relic or a living text?
How did the language change when a scribe copied from an old exemplar? Njáls saga is believed to have been written towards the end of the thirteenth century. What is the language of Njáls saga in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts?

Week 11
(21) Antiquarianism, manuscript collectors, and copyists
The sixteenth century saw the rise of interest in antiquities, old manuscripts were collected and copied.

(22) Different types of print editions: popular editions
How is a pre-modern text best presented to the modern reader? Should archaic features of language and orthography be retained or should they be updated? On the allegiance to the manuscript and allegiance to the reader.

Week 12
(23) Manuscript collections and manuscript collectors
The life and work of Árni Magnússon.

(24) The manuscript dispute and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland
The search for Codex Scardensis and a nerve-racking auction in London. The custody dispute with Denmark and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland 1971–1997.

— This synopsis may be subject to change. —

Readings

The reading list is on the course website on Canvas. It consists of readings in several languages, including English, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, German, and French. The reading list is (often) divided into three main sections:

(a) Required readings: Texts that everyone is required to read. These are all in English.

(b) Optional supplementary readings: These are optional readings for those who want a more in-depth discussion. Most of these readings are in English, but not all.

(c) For those who still want more: A variety of optional readings in several languages, not least in Icelandic, for those who still want more. This section is mostly for reference purposes and as a tool for further research.

Many of the required readings (and some of the optional readings) are found on the Canvas course website. Other reading materials are available in the institute library in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Edda and the University Library (Háskólabókasafn) in the Þjóðarbókhlaða.

Prerequisites
Some skills in Icelandic are essential to fully benefit from the course, as emphasis will be placed on practical training in reading and transcribing text from medieval Icelandic manuscripts. MIS105F Old Icelandic 1 or equivalent study of Old Icelandic is sufficient or some skills in Modern Icelandic. Please, consult the instructor if in doubt.

Course format
The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be prerecorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions (flipped classroom).

Working language: This course is open to students with different linguistic backgrounds, and there are two working languages, English and Icelandic. Pre-recorded lectures are in both English and Icelandic (except for guest lecturers who will present in English), written assignments are in both English and Icelandic, and reading materials are in English, Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages, but for those who cannot read Icelandic or the Scan-dinavian languages, all required readings are in English. English is the main working language in the classroom, but questions and contributions to class discussion may also be in Icelandic. — See a separate note on the working languages and the classroom arrangement.

Course requirements and assessment
The final grade for the course will be based on:

(1) Transcription assignments: 30%
(2) Manuscript catalogue assignment: 10%
(3) Manuscript dating assignment: 10%
(4) Presentation: manuscript of the day: 10%
(5) Research paper: 30%
(6) Class participation: 10%

All written assignments will be submitted through Canvas. More detailed instructions and information on deadlines is found on Canvas.

The course will introduce and discuss topics and methods in etymological research. Different types of etymological dictionaries will be compared. Examples from Icelandic will be discussed, i.e., the history of particular words and the information that etymological dictionaries provide on their development.

In this seminar some Eddic poems will be read and their language examined. Features which cast light on the age of the poems will be given particular attention. The evidence of the Eddic poems will be compared with that from other linguistic sources. Various methods of dating the Eddic poems will be discussed.

The main purpose of the course is to give an overview of the syntax of the modern Scandinavian languages from a generative perspective. The emphasis is on the comparison of the Insular Scandinavian languages (Icelandic and Faroese) on the one hand and the Mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) on the other. Aspects of the syntax of some lesser-known Scandinavian varieties is also included for comparison, including Övdalian (Swe. Älvalsmålet), for instance, which preserves certain inflectional and syntactic features of Old Norse that have disappeared from the Mainland Scandinavian standard languages. Selected topics in recent research on variation in Scandinavian syntax are covered and the students will be trained in designing and administering syntactic questionnaires.

The course is designed for master’s students in language technology and translation studies but also open to master’s students in other disciplines. It is possible to take the course for 5 as well as 10 ECTS, Machine translation I (5 ECTS) is taught before the project week and Machine translation II (5 ECTS) is taught after. A pre-requisite for Machine translation II is that students also take Machine Translation I and have taken Programming for Language technology or an equivalent course.

The course is designed for master’s students in language technology and translation studies but also open to master’s students in other disciplines. It is possible to take the course for 5 as well as 10 ECTS, Machine translation I (5 ECTS) is taught before the project week and Machine translation II (5 ECTS) is taught after. Machine translation I does not require programming skills as the objective is to lead together people working on language technology and people working on traditional translations.

In this course we will discuss selected topics in linguistics, with a focus on the origin of language and its influence on thought. Most of the course will be devoted to the origin and evolution of language and speech, seen from a broad perspective. Classic theories and research in the field will be discussed, including hypotheses on the role of gesture (Corballis) and grooming (Dunbar), the “single mutation” theory (Chomsky), and research on the evolution of speech (Fitch). We will also discuss more recent research that provides insights into the origin and nature of speech and the language capacity, such as research on songbirds, musicality and interaction. Did human language originate in gesture or vocal calls of animals? Did it evolve out of the need for gossip and grooming? Did music have any role in the evolution of language? What can genetic studies tell us about the evolution of language? Do biological biases or the environment influence the evolution of languages?  In the course we will also discuss the relationship between language and thought. Categorization of various phenomena and objects in languages of the world will be discussed, for example in relation to color vocabulary. How does the language we speak influence the way we think and perceive the world around us?

One of the distinctive features of Old Norse-Icelandic medieval literature is how connected the narratives are to distinct places. This is especially true of Sagas about early Icelanders (Íslendingasögur) and Kings’ sagas (konungasögur). In many cases, it is possible to visit the scenes where many key events of the saga take place. In the last decades there has been a “spatial turn” in Old Norse-Icelandic studies due to theoretical developments in the humanities and the social sciences during the second half of the twentieth century, but also aided by new perceptions of space made possible by geolocalisation and digital maps. Several scholars have engaged with the sagas from this perspective, f.ex. Emily Lethbridge and Eleanor Barraclough. In this course, the theoretical literature associated with the spatial turn will be explores, the sagas will be studied from this point of view and places where key events of the sagas happen will be visited. Even though the course is taught in the Spring semester, students are encouraged to participate in trips organized by the Viking and Medieval Norse Studies and Medieval Icelandic Studies MA programmes.

An examination will be made of the religious beliefs and practices of people in Scandinavia from the earliest of times until the conversion, material ranging from burial practices to rock carvings, to the written evidence given in the works of Tacitus, Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus, as well as in early Icelandic works like the Eddic poems and the Kings' sagas. Alongside this discussion of the development and key features of Old Norse religion, some attention will be paid to the concepts of seid and shamanism, especially in connection to their role in early religions. Finally, an examination will be made of the conversion of Scandinavia and how Christian concepts and practices both fitted and contrasted with the previously dominant Old Norse worldview.

Teaching format

• The teaching takes place in the form of lectures and discussion on the material of the lectures.

Students wishing to write a MA thesis shall contact the head of department regarding the choice of supervisor. Requests for a specific supervisor are honoured where possible, but otherwise a supervisor is selected based on the topic of the thesis and the specialist knowledge of teaching staff in Icelandic.