Congress of Nordic Historians (Nordisk historikermøde, NHM) was held at the University of Iceland from August 13th to 15th. It was the 31st Congress of Nordic Historians and the third time it has convened in Iceland. More than 500 historians attended the congress, which was opened with a keynote address by Mary Hilson, professor at Aarhus University. Silja Bára Ómarsdóttir, Rector of the University og Iceland, Ólöf Garðarsdóttir, Dean of the School of Humanities, and Rósa Magnúsdóttir, professor and chair of the organizing committee, also addressed the opening of the Congress.
Mary Hilson's keynote was entitled “Animals and other workers in the making of the modern Nordic welfare states” and was in the field of animal history. It set the tone for a very diverse history conference, with topics including environmental history, the history of the Roma people in the Nordic countries, peace movements, entrepreneurs, World War II, artistic interpretations of the Holocaust, the Arctic, populism, and the history of children and youth, just to name a few themes.
In addition to approximately 145 seminars and roundtables, Toby Erik Wikström offered two events for doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows.
The Nordic History Book Prize was awarded at the congress, this time honoring the book Forced Migrants in Nordic Histories, edited by Johanna Leinonen, Miika Tervonen, Hans Otto Frøland, Christhard Hoffmann, Seija Jalagin, Heidi Vad Jønsson and Malin Thor Tureby.
A well-attended congress dinner was held at the Old Cinema in Reykjavík, where Stefán Pálsson, historian, was the master of ceremonies and Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, professor of history and former president of Iceland, gave a keynote speech.
The conference was organized by the Institute of History at the University of Iceland, in collaboration with the Icelandic Historians' Association, the National Archives of Iceland, the National Museum, the History Teachers' Association and the Reykjavík Academy.
