The Modern Historian, the Canadian Medievalist, and other such Oxymorons

I for one am stoked! Tourism and History in Bruce-Grey-Simcoe

2012-01-29T13:09:00.000-08:00

Have we snow? I offer three words. 'Wax up dudes.'

So says historical figure John Graves Simcoe in Bruce-Grey-Simcoe's new advertisement campaign, highlighting this area of Ontario's yearly winter wonderland. In the ad on the radio John Graves Simcoe is purportedly raving about the ski conditions in the county that was named after him. If you look at the advertisement campaign on the web, Sir James Bruce, 2nd Earl Charles Grey and Lt. Governor Simcoe all have something to say. An historic photo of them has had ski gear added to it, and the photo speaks. Simcoe's contribution is mentioned above. Bruce says 'Another robust winter is upon us. I for one am stoked!,' and Grey says 'I quite fancy skiing. Especially the Apres."

Many tourist sites are also historic sites. If you think of a location and you are trying to think of what there is to see there, often you think of the old structures and the museums, the sites where specific events happened. No? Just me? Well anyway, for the sites where it is less about seeing and more about doing, like skiing and theme parks and mini putt, history perhaps plays less of a role. However those kind of tourist sites often break out around historic locations, because those places have been interesting to generations of people, like Niagara Falls, or Wasaga Beach. Skiing is a little different though. The hills are not centres where people have been coming and going for centuries, like harbours, or river intersections. But it is the best place for skiing.

I thought the campaign was so interesting. First of all, people are actually going to engage with historical photos of some of Ontario's first founders. These are not people that are well-known. I am familiar with John Graves Simcoe myself, but I even have not done a lot of research about Charles Grey or James Bruce. People are still not going to know who they are, but they are at least going to realize that the county's are named after specific people. This is the most interesting kind of historical education, because it will open the door for certain people to ask more questions, and it brings that tourist approved historical significance to a tourist attraction devoid of that kind of connection or cultural significance.

How effective it will be as an advertisement campaign is harder to judge. I will certainly remember it. And it's quite clever.

Dragons, Romanesque and Parliament: Medievalisms at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as expressions of power

2012-01-18T19:47:00.000-08:00

When you stand on the edge of Queen’s Park, the site of the Ontario Legislative Assembly since 1893, you find yourself in what is the most medieval-esque looking area of the city. Medieval-esque is a frightfully vague word, but in its vagueness describes that feeling we get when we get the sense that something is inexplicably medieval. Then again, maybe its not that inexplicable.

A medievalism is a number of things. The way we think about the Middle Ages changes as we change, so even when we study the Medieval period that is a medievalism, because we have to interpret the past through our own eyes and our own version of historical events. However, it is also a medievalism when we use elements of what we think the Middle Ages were to create something new. Likewise, we can also call it a medievalism when elements have continued on from the Middle Ages and we use those elements in our own, modern way. A medievalism is anything where the Middle Ages is being interpreted and transmitted to a more modern audience.

There was no European Middle Ages that occurred geographically here in Toronto, so the medievalism we encounter all around us in the architecture at Queen’s Park is where people use symbols from the Middle Ages to create something new. We’re next to the Gothic structures of U of T, including the awe inspiring Trinity College.

Gothic and Romanesque are two quintessential Northern European Medieval Architectural styles. At Queen's Park the central figure is the massive Romanesque Revival structure. So, built in 1893, why did Canadian Victorian society decide to refer to medieval precedents when constructing their civic structures?

In the early Victorian era medieval and not classical elements are sometimes chosen in Canada to emphasize the Britishness of the cultural influence, which is in opposition to their U.S. neighbours, who want to skip Britain and go back to classical roots (see some of the conclusions reached in the project Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier). That is in play here, especially in the structures of U of T which are referencing the medieval university traditions at places like Oxford, or Cambridge with their Gothic style. But I don’t think that is the whole explanation. I think in this time, approx. 1870-1885, they use a medieval style of architecture only in part to emphasize Britishness, but mostly they see this as an appropriate symbol for power. It can’t be wholly to separate themselves from the United States because this is a uniquely American form of Romanesque.

Richard A. Waite, British-born Buffalo architect, was given the contract to design the building. This was after as a member of the selection committee he had decided that the Gothic design (the other most recognizable medieval architectural style), proposed by Darling and Curry was unsuitable. The architectural style Richardsonian Romanesque was developed by Henry Hobson Richardson , and it was perfected in New England. When they were designing the civic structures in Toronto they favoured this Richardsonian Romanesque style. E.J. Lennox designed Old City Hall in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, and R.A. Waite chose the style for these, the Ontario Parliament Buildings. These buildings are associated with power. So at that time Richardsonian Romanesque, this Medieval style tempered with American influence, was how Torontonians, as well as New Englanders, expressed power through a structure.

The carvings on the building reflect the Richardsonian Romanesque style. They are largely floral and whimsical, though there are some allegorical. For instance, the building is covered in gargoyles. Some of them look like they should be spouts,which would have been part of their function on Romanesque cathedrals, but is not their function here. They reflect the medieval tradition of the gargoyle, which adorned medieval Romanesque and gothic structures of power. Gargoyles protect the building, and keep evil from it, while at the same time they are whimsical.

The rose window with the Gothic tracing that can be seen on the southwest corner of the central structure of the building was not part of the original plan. Originally it was supposed to house a clock, but during construction they ran out of funds and so the clock was never built. The building opened in 1893 with that area boarded up. They eventually installed this round window. But the carving around the window reflects the original intent to put in a clock and reflects medieval traditions. The signs of the zodiac were placed around the circle as they were in medieval calendars. It shows a conscious effort on the part of the architect R.A. Waite and possibly chief carver William McCormack, to build a Romanesque building while referencing the Romanesque roots and time period.

A Romanesque cathedral might have figures of apostles or saints, figures which are meant to lend power to that location, and give that power spatial representation. Here it is no different. On either side of the building are important political figures who, in a very similar way, give power to the activities that go on here. These figures say that Canadian politics is represented here in this building. What they give to the abstract concept of politics is a spatial representation in this building and a sense of importance, by giving the history of Canadian politics the sense of a past of mythic and monumental proportions.

Waite wanted to use natural light, to compensate for the darkness of the heavy walls. Part of the result was the use of stained glass, a common medieval art form, which look out on to laylights. This is another medievalism that was used as a tool by Waite to increase the sense of grandeur of this building, and is in keeping with dynamic interior space which is part of Richardsonian Romanesque.

Dragons recur throughout the building, inside and out. Here are the dragons at the base of the pillars on the first floor of the east wing. In the Middle Ages the dragon represented the ‘other.’ The knight defeating the dragon was conquering the other - restoring order. In this case the placement of the dragons at the base of the pillars shows, in a similar way, the wild creatures being subdued. Likewise, the tops of those pillars, on the third floor east wing, have dragons adjacent to the ceiling, so that dragons appear on both ends of the pillars. Not to take away the element of whimsy, but in British culture the dragon has special meaning because of St. George, patron saint of England who slew a dragon, and is it is pervasive as a popular symbol in keeping with the medieval style of the building. The moral is: Victorians like dragons! But there are reasons as to why they like dragons.

For the art and architecture a medieval style was chosen, but when we look at the debts and carry-overs in the parliamentary tradition from the Middle Ages we can see why medieval symbols are appropriate to help represent a British Parliament. One carry-over from the Middle Ages is the use of standards to represent people or a group (in this case a nation). Even before the Middle Ages people would give themselves a symbol, often a symbol to rally around during battle. It was in the medieval period, however, that heraldry becomes more formalized. It might be that heraldry, flags, coats of arms, standards, developed at first because people needed to other recognize people on their side during a battle once armour began to obscure who was who, though some historians argue that it was more a fashion and individual vanity that prompted the use of such signs. At first people chose their own symbols, and eventually, when they were associated with nobility, they became hereditary.The origins of Britain's heraldry are very medieval. The British Flag is made up of the cross of St. George (England’s flag),

the cross of St. Andrew (Scotland’s flag)

and the cross of St. Patrick (Irelands’ flag).
These countries are still represented (in the British flag at least) by their respective saints, a tradition that continues on from the Middle Ages. There has also been a perceived continuity to the British monarchy since 1066. In fact, our concept of Britain, the nation, as we understand it took shape during the Middle Ages.

Ontario's Coat of Arms was established in 1909, so it is easy to tell which parts of the building are more recent additions or were reconstructed because the Coat of Arms won't appear on anything original to 1893. The Chief Herald of Canada is the one who, using elements and tropes established from the Middle Ages onwards, is able to create new Coat of Arms for new groups. Even though the Chief Herald is creating something new the Coat of Arms and heraldry is rooted in tradition, so the forms and symbols the Coat of Arms uses are fitted into pre-existing medieval patterns.

It was the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 which made the King subject to the law and redefined where authority was derived from (that is the basic statement, since as one of the West's favourite documents it is one of the most debated, but for arguments sake lets take this classic view of it). It was signed by King John, but it was King John’s son Henry III who first referred any matter to a ‘parliament,’ meaning he is the first British monarch to also use the word ‘parliament.’ Parliament comes from the French word parlement (remember the French origins of Britain’s rulers since 1066), which is from the Latin parliamentum. Basically it means discussion. He was also the first king to ask his subjects for regular taxation, as the revenues from Crown lands were no longer enough to run the realm. Many of the first members were barons, who were asked for taxation, but eventually they had to ask for taxes directly from representatives of towns, clergy and counties. Length of sessions were based on need, and most often they met in Westminster, but they could meet anywhere. The commons emerged in the 14th century as a group distinct from the barons, but they were usually knights and burgesses. The parliament was also considered the highest court, as people could bring their issues and petitions that they would like to have answered. (For more information see the BBC's History of Parliament).

The medieval borrowings in the building and the Legislative Chamber are then really appropriate, because it is from those traditions that our modern form of government has developed. If you look around the Chamber, in addition to inheriting the parliamentary traditions, there is again a conscious use of medieval style, for instance the gargoyles and the figures of whimsy and power.

We again have human faces carved into the Chamber, though unlike the carved political figures on the outside of the building, these ones are tributes to the artists.They are enhancing the whimsy of the space, but they are also people who will forever watch the parliament, so they are not devoid of symbolic meaning.

But there are actual gargoyles around the Chamber, subdued at the base of pillars.

Finally, resting under the Clerk's table is the Legislative Mace, which is placed on the table when the House is in Session to symbolize Ontario's Parliament's authority to make it's own laws. But, as young grade fives are quick to point out, the mace starts out as a medieval weapon, carried into battle by fighting members of the clergy who are not permitted edged weapons. Its use by important people causes it to be used as a symbol of authority.
By the 1200s, the times of the first real parliaments, the mace is being carried by the sergeants-at-arms who protect the king. In time it comes to stand for the authority of the monarch. All British/Commonwealth parliaments still have them. The mace conveys authority, derived from the monarch, to the parliament. Authority is given through it to the speaker, as no one is allowed to pass between the speaker and the mace while the house is in session. Authority is also given to the Members of (Provincial) Parliament, since they are not allowed to have a session without it, and since the mace still points to the Government, and specifically the leader of the government. It’s role as stand in for monarch is also preserved, because when a Vice-Regal representative or the monarch is in the Chamber the mace is, in our case, placed under the table.

In the Chamber there are more examples of heraldry, standards derived from the Middle Ages. For instance, the Royal Coat of Arms behind the Speaker’s Chair, which includes the three lions of England, the harp of Ireland, the unicorn of Scotland on the shield, is derived from the symbols used during the Middle Ages. For instance, the three lions go back to the symbol used by Richard I and which has endured as a symbol of England.

The question is do we still perceive those symbols as something medieval? I do, but I study medieval things. Do most people just see it as tradition, from a non-descript past?

The Legislative Building houses the Ontario Art Collection. Started by founder of the Normal School, Egerton Ryerson, when he went on his ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe. The grand tour was a custom for Victorians, who would go to Europe to collect copies of masterworks. Ryerson brought the copies back to the school museum to be used as educational tools. He brought back paintings as examples of ‘culture.’ So let’s look at what Victorians thought ‘culture’ meant. The subjects of the paintings are classical and biblical, but the original works are renaissance or medieval. Culture was rooted in the past, not the present or the future. It is in this way, through the art and the architecture, that the Victorians brought the medieval into their present. This painting of St. George and the dragon is one of those copies, brought back to educate people who, living in Canada would probably never see the like otherwise. As was mentioned above, St. George, depicted here, who, even when divorced from religion, is symbolic for the whole English nation. St. George is known for slaying a dragon, to save a princess. He is the Victorian ideal of a medieval hero. The frame around the painting has dragons on it, indicating it was made for this painting. But St. George, again, is part of the reason why the dragons are everywhere in the building.

One thing that is striking is that the medievalisms at Queen’s Park, the parliament, Romanesque, dragons, the mace, all incorporate the medieval as symbols of power. The parliament is the decision making body, the grandeur of the Romanesque is seen as appropriate to be associated with sites of power, the mace confers authority on the parliament, and the dragons are both a power that has to be subdued and represent the power of Britain. So the sense that we get that we are surrounded by the medieval is because we are, though we are also well aware that this is an interpretation both by Canadian Victorian society as well as by modern society. The medieval elements we decide to use in our culture tell us a lot about how we view the medieval, but they also show how our distant medieval past influences our present.

The PhD applicant and the modern Scandinavian language: A Battle of Wills!

2011-10-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

One of the major obstacles standing between me and a PhD in a Scandinavian Studies Department is the lack of a modern Scandinavian language.

I don't know if I could have taken it at University while I was there. I am about 98% certain there was no opportunity while I was doing a Medieval Studies degree at Queen's University in Kingston, though I did take Old Norse and Anglo Saxon. If I did have an opportunity it would probably have been during my MA in Norse/Viking Studies in Nottingham. But in my defense, I neither saw anything about it, nor at the time did I realize how much I was going to need one. I actually had the same problem with German, didn't quite realize how necessary it was, but the fix for that has been very easy. At the University of Western Ontario I took German in a class, but if I wanted to do some night school in German here in Toronto somewhere it would be quite easy.

Now, a modern Scandinavian language however, no such luck. No schools in Toronto offer any such thing. Spanish, sure. Greek, no problem. But Swedish? Nah! But to do a PhD in the departments that are most likely to have supervisors for my work, a.k.a. Scandinavian Studies departments, I need it. Right now the schools that I am particularly looking at are the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UCLA Berkeley. This is why it has become a Battle of Wills: my determination to do whatever it takes to get in. When it comes to my PhD, to quote the immortal Wayne's World, 'it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.'

So this is the result of my research:

I have decided to start by learning Swedish. This choice is in part because, as my two specialties are Norse history and Public History eventually I am going to want to look at how movies portray Norse history. Then I should pick the language of the most robust film industry in Scandinavia. But I was on the fence with Swedish and Norwegian. It was the excellent website, and program, of the Uppsala International Summer Session that put me over the edge. Their intensive program, with easy to understand website and application process, put me over the edge. Since making the decision to go there I have also spoken with at least two other people who have gone there, making me feel more confident in this choice. So the plan is to peruse the Swedish grammar over the next six months, so that I do not have to enter the beginner-beginner program. I will probably sign up for Babbel, or try the University of Stockholm's free exercises. I will also probably get a starter grammar book and work through the exercises and vocabulary. Then I will do the course in Uppsala in the summer (hopefully with the aid of a scholarship, because otherwise it may be more of a problem.)

But in my research I came across several options for people trying to study Scandinavian languages in Canada/North America.

Swedish

As I say, this is the language I have chosen, the language of Ingmar Bergman, the place of many runestones. I have chosen to study in Sweden because of the value this would be to admissions boards, and because there is no better way to learn a language than by immersion. Trust me. I studied French since I was 8, but it wasn't until I spent three months with a Francophone family that I could actually speak the language. But you can also learn from a local institution (though, as I have said this is not everywhere available), or you can learn online.

An excellent summary of options for learning Swedish is provided by Study in Sweden. If you choose to study online, for admissions purposes a paid course is better, as there will be evaluation. However, they cost just as much or more than regular university courses. Folkuniversitet looks like it may be the best. It ends up to be about $860(Canadian) a module. Because I want to study in Sweden, this is why I do not wish to pay for other courses.

Norwegian

I was also thinking about studying Norwegian, because I actually hope to do my dissertation on the King's Sagas. More specifically Harold the Hardruler, who was king of, well, Norway. So in many ways it makes sense, particularly for studying the historiography. However, I will still study this, just in an informal setting. The reasons I did not chose Norwegian is because they had no equivalent classes like that offered at Uppsala. The closest I found was the International Summer School at the University of Oslo, which does still seem to offer a lot for those interested in learning Norwegian in Norway. For a summary of how to learn Norwegian a list of options is provided by this Study in Norway website, which is not quite as comprehensive as the Study in Sweden equivalent.

Danish

Danish is an excellent option because, of course, politically speaking it was dominant for so long that many of the historiographical works from throughout Scandinavia are written in Danish. The University of Copenhagen has courses for students, but it is not obvious whether the classes are Danish. A list of other options is provided on the Danish consulate in New York's website. Those are paces that teach Danish in Denmark. Here is another list, from Work in Denmark that give options for learning Danish. I did less research here, as this was less interesting to me, so there may be a more comprehensive website, but as of now I am yet to find it.

Icelandic

It may be erroneous to say so, but from what I understand Icelanders read Old Norse like we read Chaucer. You can kind of read it. You have to have an open mind for interpretation, but it is possible. Therefore this, you would think, would be really useful for a student of Norse and Viking Studies. But be careful, because some of the Departments require a 'mainland' Scandinavian language. The University Centre of the Westfjords offers Icelandic courses, so it is already up on Denmark on having language courses easy to find over the web. Likewise, there are many online options. I am yet to discover a comprehensive list of ways to learn modern Icelandic, like there are for the other countries, but it may yet be out there.

Finnish

Um, there are many good things to say about Finnish, but if you are a student of Norse/Viking Studies you are barking up the wrong tree. The other languages are in a similar linguistic group. Finnish has so many - was it cases, or maybe it was tenses - that it has been called one of the hardest languages to learn. It is closest to Hungarian, as opposed to anything else. And the history is rich, but different. I did no research here. I say go up and read one of the other languages I looked into.

So good luck to all PhD applicants out there, or people interested in Scandinavia. Hopefully your determination too will win out.

History in the City for the young and the young at heart

2011-08-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

So, you've done Centre Island and they've been to Canada's Wonderland. You went to the zoo and they spent the day at the beach. Now what? And why was any sort of museum programming the last thing you thought of? Don't worry, it's not just for the nerdy children amongst us. Often they have so much fun they don't realize they're learning something. Or they don't learn anything, which is fine too, because you might, and they would learn the same nothing at Canada's Wonderland and they'll still have fun.

Studies often show that most of us did not retain the history we do know from what we were taught in school. Many of us remember snippets of movies, books or, mostly, the museums we visited as children. And don't worry if you don't remember what the population of Toronto was when it was founded in 1834, if you remembered that it's only really been around for less than two hundred years, or even if you got the sense that the city was kinda old you did take something away from the experience, whether you meant to or not.

I loved going to museums when I was little (surprise, surprise). Living history museums shaped a large part of the trajectory of my life. I felt like I was stepping into a story. That interested my sister less, but she always liked things like art and making things, and there was always something interesting for everyone to do.

So if you live in the city and are wondering what to do with these last dog days of summer, here are some of the programs aimed at children being put on until the end of August at Toronto Heritage Institutions (which I think includes things like Halls of Fame, Art Galleries and Science Centres, but that is a debate for another day):

Colborne Lodge

Colborne Lodge has Pay What you Can Sundays. Go and see what you can of the house of High Park founders John and Jemima Howard. And while you're at it, spend the day in the park.
Hours: Tuesday - Sunday noon-5 p.m.
Admission: Adults: $5.71
Seniors (65 +): $2.62
Youth (13-18 yrs.): $2.62
Children (4-12 yrs.): $2.38

Fort York

Fort York has special programming going on all summer. See the cannons fire at 12:30, see the fife and drums in the afternoons, and enjoy the hourly drill demonstrations. This one of the larger living history museums in the city, and certainly represents the oldest time period for Toronto (Fort York was founded when this area was made Upper Canada's capital, around 1796).
Hours: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Admission: Adults: $7.62
Seniors (65 +): $3.81
Youth (13-18 yrs.): $3.81
Children: (4-12 yrs.): $2.86

Gibson House

The Gibson House has a special tour on Sundays, noon to 5 pm, of their 1850s kitchen. This includes a taste of what's cooking and, of course, the hands-on children's activities available in the Discovery Gallery.
Hours: Tuesday - Sunday, noon - 5 p.m.
Admission Adults: $5.48
Seniors (65 +): $3.10
Youth (13-18 yrs.): $3.10
Children (2-12 yrs.): $2.62

Mackenzie House

Mackenzie House, home of Toronto's first mayor has kids crafts on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4:30.
Hours: Tuesday - Sunday, noon - 5 p.m.
Admission: Adults: $5.71
Seniors (65 +): $3.81
Youth (13-18 yrs.): 3.81
Children (5-12 yrs.): $3.33
Children (4 and under): Free

Scarborough Museum

The Scarborough Museum has special activities for adults and kids every Saturday and Sunday for their Summer Victorian Extravaganzas. Shows, music, merriment; experience early life in Scarborough.
Hours: Tuesday - Sunday, noon - 5 p.m.
Admission: Donation

Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The Legislative Assembly of Ontario, perhaps not one of the first places we think of when we think of history, but has been there since 1893 and is one of the rare historic buildings that is still in use today. Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. until the end of the summer there is a scavenger hunt on the grounds, aimed at children between the ages of 6-12. Pre-register or drop in.
Hours: 9:00-5:00
Admission: Free

Royal Ontario Museum

At the Royal Ontario Museum the ongoing exhibit Water includes many hands-on activities and panels aimed at kids. This is in addition to their usual galleries, where the natural history (dinosaurs, bugs, birds and the like) is usually a big hit.
Hours: Saturday - Thursday 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Admission:Adult: $24 + exhibit $31 ($24 + $7)
Senior (65+ years): $21 + exhibit $28 ($21 + $7)
Student (15 to 17 years): $21 + exhibit $28 ($21 + $7)
Child (4 to 14 years): $16 + exhibit $19.50 ($16 + $3.50)
Infant (3 years & under) Free

Bata Shoe Museum

At the Bata Shoe Museum host Weekend Family Fun every weekend, save for when they have other big events. There they can try on shoes, paint a clog or go on a treasure hunt in the galleries. This too is in addition to their usual hands-on exhibits.
Hours:Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday: 10:00am – 5:00pm
Thursday: 10:00am – 8:00pm
Sunday : 12:00pm – 5:00pm
Admission:Adults: $14
Senior citizens (65+): $12
Students (with ID): $8
Children (5-17 years inclusive): $5
children under 5 are free

Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art

At the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art every Sunday is family day. The first Sunday of a month is a movie and a themed scavenger hunt. The second Sunday is themed paper crafts in the lobby. The third Sunday is the guided kids tour and on the fourth Sunday of the month there is typically a performance by storytellers, musicians and other entertainers, though this month the last Sunday will be more crafts in the lobby.
Hours: Monday to Thursday: 10 am – 6 pm
Friday:10 am - 8 pm
Saturday & Sunday: 10 am – 5 pm
Admission:Adults: $12
Seniors: $8
Students: $6
Children: FREE (under 5)

Black Creek Pioneer Village

At Black Creek Pioneer Village, another living history museum, everyday at 2:00 they have a demonstration of something, perhaps butter churning, harness making or something else. They also have daily animal programs, as well as a hands-on history centre. Collect an historic passport and get it stamped at five of the different historic buildings once you complete a task or explore a Country Kids Trail. All these activities are available all summer.
Hours: Week days: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Weekends: 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Admission: Adult (Age 16-59): $15.00
Child (Age 5-15): $11.00
Infant (Age 4 and under): Free - does not apply for group bookings
Senior (60+): $14.00
Student (16+): $14.00

Ontario Science Centre

At the Ontario Science Centre join them for KidSpark, an activity happening each weekday at 11:00 in July and August. It could be a number of things, including a science demonstration or an art project.
Hours:10 am - 6 pm
Admission:Adult (18-64): $20
Child (4-12): $13
Youth (13-17), Student (with ID), Senior (65+): $16
Infant (3 & under): Free!

Canadian Air and Space Museum

The Canadian Air and Space Museum has a Future Pilots program running on August 20-21. This is a hands on full day activity for teens.
Hours:Wednesday, 10:00am - 8:00pm
Thursday - Saturday, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Holiday Mondays, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Admission: Adults 18+: $ 11.00
Seniors 60+: $ 9.00
Students with school ID: $ 9.00
Military with ID:$ 9.00
Children 5 & under: FREE
Family: 2 adults & 2 Students: $ 27.00

And don't forget the other museums etc. around the city:

Art Gallery of Ontario
The Hockey Hall of Fame
Historic Zion Schoolhouse
Montgomery's Inn
Spadina House: Historic House and Gardens
Todmorden Hills Heritage Site
York Museum
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art

For more information of upcoming events check out Toronto Museum Events, or the ROM, AGO, Hockey Hall of Fame, Black Creek Pioneer Village etc. websites.

SNL, Pop Culture and Popular Medieval Misconceptions

2011-08-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

Read my new blog post on the Society for the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages blog .

In it I muse on how when someone says Viking funeral, the image that is recalled is of a burning ship. No one really cares whether or not this is an accurate tradition, because while the people who are saying are only cursorily meaning to refer to the Middle Ages. What they mean to refer to is the pre-existing cultural image of something going up in flames. It is more interesting to medievalists than anyone else the process of how it got from the historical act of burying their dead to the current twentieth/twenty first century idea of a 'Viking' burial.

Review of Mapping Medievalism

2011-07-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

Prof. Richard Utz, in the blog medievally speaking, gives the Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier project a wonderfully glowing review, commenting on both the originality of the project as well as its place in the academic world of medievalism.

medievally speaking: Brush, ed., Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier: "Kathryn Brush, ed., Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier . London, ON: Museum London & McIntosh Gallery, 2010. Reviewed by Richard Utz."

The 44th and 46th International Congress of Medieval Studies

2011-06-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

This is the first year that I presented at the International Congress of Medieval Studies, which you can tell if you look at an earlier post, but it is not the first time I have ever attended.

44th International Congress of Medieval Studies

One of my favourite stories to tell is my trip to the 44th International Congress of Medieval Studies. I had asked my friend to go with me. She is not a medievalist per se, but she is interested in all things historical and I knew that if I could drag anyone to come with me, it would be her. She is not, how shall we say, the most organized of people to ever grace this planet. For the purposes of the story I will call her K.

I had personally helped K to fill out a passport application, as hers was expired, but day of she still didn't have it. So the day when we are supposed to leave we head over to the passport office, and it seems that it's never been processed because for some reason her fee has not been processed. So, no chance there. This is before they got stringent however, and we decided we would try to cross anyway. I proposed, instead of driving to Windsor from Toronto and crossing right into Michigan (the location of the conference) that we would go the shorter distance, to Niagara on the Lake, and cross into New York and go under the lake. Longer in the long run, but shorter if I needed to drive her back to Toronto. On the way down we did a bit of obsessing, and I mentioned, as a joke, that we could hide her in the trunk. She looked at me a little cock eyed, and I had to explain how we weren't actually going to do that. Good thing to, because once we got there, since we were going somewhere academic (probably also because we were young females) and because she had her old passport and health card, they let us across. They did, however, take a scan of the car. Bullet officially dodged.

We got to the other side, and had a lot more driving to do than we otherwise would have, but were basically kissing the American soil.

The 46th International Congress of Medieval Studies

If you want to make one of the border crossing officers actually smile tell them you are going to the International Congress of Medieval Studies. Don't, however, tell them about your paper, as they are amused and not necessarily interested.

I drove up on Thursday evening, and missed Wednesday and Thursday's sessions, but here are the sessions I did attend:

Friday

10:00 am
Session 199
Old Norse Literature and Culture - organized by Paul Acker, St. Louis Univ.

Warriors and Wild Beasts in the Heroic Poems of the Elder Edda
- Richard North, Univ. College, Univ. of London

This was the only presenter for this panel, the others had cancelled. It as a very convincing argument about the connection between wolves, bears and warriors. The premise was that when the warrior goes into battle he takes onthe qualities of an animal. Usually, as well, if they are a bear that is good and wolves are bad.

1:30 pm
Session 262
Twenty-First Century Medievalisms - presider Julie Nelson Couch, Texas Tech Univ.

"The Darkness of the Womb": Allegory and Early Medieval Historiography in S.M. Stirling's Emberverse
- Alicia McKenzie, Wilfred Laurier Univ.
This paper examined how the author not only interprets medieval society, but also how the author interprets medieval historiography and his rejection of the very rigid 'medieval' structure in favour of a fluid and adaptable one.

Rexiles: A Re-envisionist History of the Kings of Britain
-Aaron Long, American Univ.
Unfortunately I do not remember much about this paper.

What is the Impact of Popular 'Medieval Films' on the Public's Understanding of the Middle Ages? A Sociological Approach
- Paul B. Sturtevant, Univ. of Leeds
This looked at the impact of medieval film on popular understanding of the Middle Ages by conducting focus groups to talk about it with members of the public.

Concerning the Newfound Popularity of Lionheart's Acre Massacre in Video Game Narratives
- Carl S. Pyrdum, III, Yale Univ.
This paper was about the appearance of the massacre of Acre in video games. He traced the popularity of the event to it's appearance in Assassin's Creed, and compared it to it's appearance in Dante's Inferno. The conclusion was that while Dante's Inferno is less well done for a video game, it almost had a better treatment of the massacre because it was dealing better with the actual event, and the political correctness of Assassin's Creed limited their interaction with the event.

Saturday

10:00 am
Session 369
Old Norse Literature - presider Jana K. Schulman, Western Michigan Univ.

Out of Silence, Vision: Helga's Gazing in Gunnlaug's saga
- Molly Jacobs, Univ. of California-Berkeley (Graduate Student Prize Winner)
This was a very interesting paper about how Helga's gaze actually makes her an active participant, as opposed to a passive character.

1:30 pm
Session 437
Nineteenth Century Medievalisms - organized by Richard Utz, Western Michigan Univ.

A Tale of Two Medievalisms: Muscular Christianity and the Tour de France
- Christine M. Havens, Hawkeye Community College
This paper argued that the Tour de France celebrates a tradition of masculine and muscular christianity, and uses medieval imagery to celebrate this. And there were so many parallels, including a disgraced hero named Lance.

Recovering a Not so Imaginary Past: Medievalism in Scott's Harold the Dauntless
- Renee Ward, Wilfred Laurier Univ.
This paper talked about the medievalism of Sir Walter Scott in one of his least loved works.

Ancient Mysteries: A Regency Printer Uncovers the Medieval
- Clare A. Simmons Ohio State Univ.
Unfortunately, Ido not really remember what this was about.

Transatlantic Medievalisms: Julian of Norwich's XVI Revelations in the East End and Harvard in the 'Hungry 40s'
- Vickie Larsen, Univ of Michigan-Flint
This looked at one nineteenth century translator's Julian of Norwich and the way that his era affected his work.

3:30 pm
Session 478
Twenty-First Century Medievalism: Re-envisioning the Medieval in the Contemporary World (A Roundtable) - organizer Michael A. Toregrossa, Vistual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages

Siegfried the Volk-Sung: Examining the Interpretations of Siegfried the Dragon-Slayer and the Making of a National History
- Peter H. Johnsson San Francisco State Univ.
This was a paper examining how this saga is used to make a national history in several different nations and how it is used in current popular culture.

Analysis of Arthurian Film Reviews
-Laurie Rizzo, Univ. of Delaware
This was a paper that really stuck with me, about how many couch their criticisms of King Arthur films in terms of their 'inaccuracy.'

Beowulf in the Twenty-First Century
- Suanna H. Davis, Houston Community College: Central
This paper was about the use of Beowulf in Science Fiction and how it is used to give layers to narrative, as a sort of specialized knowledge, where the authors assume we already have this knowledge.

Sunday

8:30am
Session 528
The Central Issue: What does the Public Actually Think about the Middle Ages? - organized by Paul B. Sturtevant, Univ. of Leeds

The Perceptions of Medieval Heritage among Modern Master Falconers
- Leslie Jacoby, San Jose State Univ.
This paper was about how faloners themselves see their art in relation to medieval falconry.

'Viking' North America: The North American Public's Understanding of Its Norse Heritage
- Megan Arnott, Univ. of Western Ontario
My paper!

10:30 am
Session 569
Saga Studies - presider Andrew M. Prefenger, Kent State Univ. - Salem

On the Paroemial Delineation of Character in Grettis saga
- Richard Harris, Univ. of Saskatchewan
A very interesting discussion of how literarily character is created.

Sisterhood and Female Friendship in the Islendingasogur
- Natalie Van Deusen, Univ. of Wisconsin Madison
A good paper that came to the conclusion that friendship amongst females did not really exist in the same way as it did amongst men. Men had friends and women had relatives.

I did not go to the dance. Not because I'm against dances, but mostly because I both went by myself and was presenting at 8:30 the next morning.

One of the best things about this particular congress was that I had the chance to talk one on one with so many professors in this field. I met with Profs. Acker, Schulman, Falk, Mellor and Hill and had a chance to talk about grad school in Norse studies in North America.

I look forward to my next congress. Thanks to everyone who came up to me and said they enjoyed my talk, and especially to Paul Sturtevant for organizing both the Society for the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages and for organizing the session.

Musings on Public History Management

2011-06-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

The majority of Public History Institutions are open and running in the summer. In fact in Canada very few of them have any winter program at all. This means that the majority of the work force is summer students. For most public history managers the trick is to try and create a programming where you can have consistency from year to year even when you are training mostly new people for each summer. This means laying out in detail what is expected of every position, including when you would take lunch, what equipment you will need to complete your task, what information you will need to know and what your curatorial duties could be. In many ways this is the very professional way to run a public history institution, and that professionalism comes through in the programming and interpretation.

And yet, since those that have been hired are often extremely talented, capable people (often they have gone through school to study this subject, and have taken the time to make themselves bilingual) there is a reaction against any micro-management, or criticisms of downtime when they produce such quality work when they are called upon. This is particularly true of places where the same staff are hired every year, or where, in the odd case, the majority of the historical interpretation takes place throughout the education year as opposed to during the summer.

True of all offices, long term people do not like to be micro-managed. But the struggle for Public History management is how to maintain that balance between letting the employees do what they do, and to be flexible to maintain better customer service, and to put in place that well structured programming necessary for places with huge staffing change over from year to year.

There is no answer, it depends on the location and the individuals, which is the trick for public history managers. Often those institutions that offer more all year programming or have the same employees year after year want less structure in their historical interpretation positions because they know how to read a group and offer each individual group the best possible history experience. Likewise, institutions with larger change over benefit more from the structure. But this is not an absolute, because it depends on the individuals. Sometimes long term people want more structure in their jobs because it increases the professionalism of the experience they offer and perhaps as a group they will be taken more seriously the more consistent the program is. But for the profession, particularly for those people who interact with the public on a daily basis, flexibility is key to offering a great experience and to effectively communicating history to the public.

Marvel's Thor and the danger of subverting expectations

2011-05-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

While watching the movie my sister texted me "there were no Asian Vikings!"

I think the expectations for this movie were different than what we would expect from other movies. Thor, like its counterpart Captain America, also coming out this year, have been produced almost for the sole purpose of giving back stories to some Marvel characters that are required to be in the Avengers movie, coming out next year. Both Captain America and Thor were poplar comics, but did not carry over into current generations in the same way that X-men, or Ironman, or Spiderman did. I am not tuned in enough to the Marvel universe to give appropriate explanations for this, however from my point of view I feel that it could be that either these characters never had the depth of the other ones, or that certainly, in the case of Captain America, even his name is hokey by modern standards. This is why the Captain America movie is set in the era in which he was born, the 1940s, because this is the only era where such a name is acceptable. I think it is perhaps a little less clear cut for Thor, but perhaps he was actually hindered rather than helped by the ties to a medieval mythology. The hammer is, in some ways, a less glamorous weapon, though really Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did him no favours by giving him that outfit, but I guess it was okay for the time.

As Laurie Rizzo pointed out in her paper on "Analysis of Arthurian Film Reviews," delivered at Kalamazoo this year, it is the discourse around a film that shapes how that film will be received.

I rather enjoyed Thor. I think it can be said to have lived up to expectations. It was pretty and the acting was also pretty good. It lacked the depth, somehow, of other marvel films like the first Ironman or the Spiderman films, and played out exactly how you would expect Thor's story to play out. And it is interesting because criticisms of the film have taken the form of complaints about the film's accuracy.

One of the criticisms is how well it reflects 'vikings.' The film makes a bit of a play for appealing to Norse mythology, explaining how the world of Asgard came to be interpreted by the old Scandinavian cultures. And it is this more than the marvel comics that makes people question why there should be a black heimdalr or an asian warrior for Asgard. This is an interpretive decision I support, since in the end it is nearly as arbitrary to not include diversity as it is to include it. As I have said before the film will be charged more to stick to the marvel canon than to adhere to any Norse mythology (which is all very interpretive anyway). And the choices of people had more to do with the demography of the sixties than it did with accuracy to Norse mythology, so that it might as well be updated for a modern audience, just as the dialogue and the characters and the plot lines have to be updated. This criticism really comes because out expectations for what a society that inspired Norse mythology would look like.

And speaking of characters, one of the other criticisms I heard was of Natalie Portman's character, Jane Foster. Natalie Portman has been in a few movies this year with vague and yet obvious medievalism references; Thor and also Your Highness. The problem with Jane's character was that she ended up swooning over Thor. Modern heroine's simply do not swoon. Despite the fact that the character is clearly smart, as evidenced by her profession and drive, and is independent, and also makes a show of not being interested in Thor at first, her comments about how nice he looks in his god armour subverted our expectations of a modern heroine. Despite her strength, one of the only things we saw was her apparent weakness. I would argue that it is not inaccurate for a girl to be so taken by a guy, and it is not like she was a bond babe where all he had to do was look at her and she would sleep with him. And yet, it is that subverted expectation. I would compare it to the recent Robin Hood film with Russell Crowe. Cate Blanchett's Marian comes out in armour and with a sword. This is not necessarily inaccurate, but it subverted the audience's expectations for what a woman who was actually in that period would do, and so criticism centered around that issue.

I think it was a highly enjoyable, if kind of flat, film, which has some great Norse medievalisms. One expectation that was not subverted was the appearance of Stan Lee in the film. Look for him when the hillbillies come together and try to lift up Thor's hammer Mjolnir.

“Viking” North America: The North American Public’s Understanding of Its Norse Heritage

2011-05-16T07:11:00.000-07:00

I presented this paper, “Viking” North America: The North American Public’s Understanding of its Norse Heritage at Session 528, 8:30 Sunday Morning in Fetzer 2020 at Western Michigan University for the 2011 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo. The conference was, for me, a great success. As I mention in the paper a lot of these ideas I developed in part while working on the article for Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier at the University of Western Ontario, and some I developed while interning at L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site. In this reproduction all the footnotes are left out, so if you are looking for references please look to the paper I did for Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier. I have, however, included my bibliography and all my visual aids.

“Viking” North America: The North American Public’s Understanding of Its Norse Heritage

(slide 1)

I would like to start off with a clip. During the 2010 Winter Olympics this ad ran in the province of Ontario nearly once a commercial break. It was part of a larger campaign for Newfoundland and Labrador tourism, though this was the ad they chose to run most frequently. While you watch, take note of the way that North America’s Norse heritage is being presented.

And once again:
And so they came,
five centuries before Columbus,
fearless warriors out to discover a New World,
the Vikings.
While they left behind their mark, they have long since gone …
… so far as we can tell.
Newfoundland and Labrador.

This summer, as part of my internship for my public history degree, I worked at L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site.

(slide 2: images from summer 2010)

What I can identify as public knowledge about North America’s Norse heritage comes from informal discussions with tourists, from the study of the way that promoters of heritage frame the Norse-North American connection in order to appeal to the public and finally from cursorily studying the historiography. From my research and my experiences I can tell you that this advertising campaign was widely successful. Through talking with people I discovered that a great many of them (I would be so bold to say as one out of three people) had seen the advertisement and had decided to visit L’Anse aux Meadows because of it. For many it was a case of “well we always wanted to come and then we saw that advertisement, you know, with the children.” It was so successful amongst North American audiences that tourism numbers, I can say unofficially, were the highest they had ever been, despite the drop off in American tourism that resulted from the closing gap between the two dollars.

The success of the ad campaign is in part from its stunning images of Newfoundland landscape. However, what brought people up to the northernmost parts of Newfoundland was not just the landscape, since this is stunning, but not remarkably more stunning than other, perhaps more easily accessed, parts of the province. The draw was this emphasis on a medieval European past that genuinely belonged to North Americans. If we listen to the words of this advertisement, in it the province is appealing to everything that makes the ‘Vikings’ popular amongst North American audiences. The advertisement is emphasizing and then reasserting exactly what North Americans think about their own Norse heritage.

(slide three)

I argue that the North American public understands their Norse heritage as part of their origins mythology as a settler/invader nation. This is seen through the continuous coupling of Norse explorers such as Leifr Eiríksson with late medieval European explorers, specifically Christopher Columbus. I would also argue that the North American public’s understanding of the Norse culture can be summed up in everything that is meant by the word Viking and, as in the advertisement, is epitomized by the phrase ‘fearless warriors out to discover a new world.’

(slide 4: image of Christopher Columbus)

Nobody thinks that Christopher Columbus was the first European in North America. Granted, if we are talking about the knowledge of tourists who have made their way to L’Anse aux Meadows, likely if they have made it that far off the beaten path they probably already have an inkling as to why that site is important. However, it has been my experience amongst my friends, family, general adult education classes and pretty much everyone I talk to, that no one still thinks that Christopher Columbus was the first. But he persists as the poster boy for European exploration and colonization in North America and he is the common reference point for the discussion about European arrival to this continent.

(slide 5: images of the manuscripts that contain the Vinland Sagas)

The presence of Vikings, or Norse, in North America was speculated about long before any of the archaeological evidence at either L’Anse aux Meadows or Skraeling Island (just off of Ellesmere Island) was found. The two Icelandic sagas, Grœnlendinga saga and Eiríks saga rauða, have been dubbed the Vinland sagas because of their descriptions of voyages to Helluland, Markland and finally Vinland by the likes of Leifr Eiríksson and Thorfinnr Karlsefni, amongst others. The presence of a real Vinland is corroborated by other textual references.

The level of descriptors in the sagas has caused scholars to find the places mentioned in the sagas in North American localities since the first translations into Latin, and then Danish in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Much scholarship since the nineteenth century has been characterized by this desire to find the real places of the sagas, to find the ‘true’ discoverers of America. This is done by locating the ‘real’ Vinland. Some of these attempts have been more nationalistic than others.

One way that the Norse have been used is to indigenize Europeans to the North American landscape, by at the very least giving the Europeans a longer history on the continent, and by at the most appropriating native arts, culture, or artefacts, and attributing them to the Norse instead of to Native cultures. For example, in 1883 Rasmus B. Anderson wrote a new prologue to his book America Not Discovered by Columbus, in which he said of the creation of the “runes” on the Dighton Rock that had been found in the Taunton River:

(slide 6)

I think they were iron implements, and that they were in the hands of a skilled mechanic—a Norseman worthy of the name. I do not know that my opinion on this question is of any consequence, still I have seen work undoubtedly performed by an aboriginal American with flint and stone tools, but the characters were not nicely edged, as these are. I cannot believe they were made by the lazy Indian of Schoolcraft.

Starting in 1940, Reider T. Sherwin wrote eight volumes on The Viking and the Red Man; The Old Norse Origin of the Algonquin Language. In them he went through the Algonquin vocabulary and showed how each word had an Old Norse origin.

In the search for the 'true' first Europeans it is typical to view the Vikings and Columbus as foils for each other, and to show that only one can be the real 'first.' Take for example, as an extreme, Mary B. Shipley, who, in 1877, wrote one of the more overtly nationalistic works concerning the Norse landings in North America. Her book was entitled The Icelandic Discoverers of America, or, Honor to Whom Honor is Due. In it she stated that the founding of America was one of the greatest achievements in all of world history, and if North America ceased to acknowledge Columbus, but instead acknowledged the Vikings, all the corruption of Catholicism and its most devout followers, the Spanish, would disappear from American culture. In short everything that was good, including the self-determinism and self-government espoused by the Norse, would again be emphasized. That is an extreme, though looking at Vikings in America by Graeme Davis, published in 2009, Davis also saw the “marginalization” of the knowledge of the Icelanders as a plot by Columbus, the papacy, and the Spanish monarchy, and persisted in construing the Norse voyages in terms of the American ideal. He stated that “in the Vikings, America finds its first European settlers. Most fittingly these first European Settlers in America were people searching for what we know today as the American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

(slide 7: Top left corner; 1840s lecture describing Norsemen as first. Bottom right corner; Mary B. Shipley's book. Centre; Publication accompanying 1992 exhibit at the Canadian museum of Civilization. Bottom left; W.A. Munn. Top right; Helge Ingstad.)

Before the discovery of the archaeological evidence there was a scholarly reaction against taking the sagas as proof of any real place, but that didn’t stop the popular and perhaps amateurish wave of interest in locating the real Vinland. This desire to find the places of the sagas is what lead people like W.A. Munn in 1914, and eventually Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, to the Straits of Belle Isle to look for evidence of the Norse past. By the end of the 1960s it was agreed that the Norse had been to North America, though we will never all agree as to the locations in the sagas, despite the sometimes fine arguments that are made, because while there are many specific details about geography in the sagas there are too many variables and interpretations possible for those details. Halldór Hermansson’s 1909 Vinland bibliography was ninety pages in length and contained 750 entries. By 1997 Robert Bergersen’s Vinland bibliography, Writings Relating to the Norse in Greenland and America, was 400 closely printed pages. And that was thirteen years ago. I think as well the sheer number of treatises and papers written about this subject, and particularly about the geography of Vinland problematizes this division between scholarly and the public, because I think numbers like this indicate that this subject, possibly because of the traditionally nationalistic overtones, has a wide appeal. In the last thirty years many scholars who work on the Vinland Sagas, and even those who work both with the sagas and with the archaeology, have tried to distance themselves from such nationalistic discussions. In fact many scholars don’t care what personage was first, and see the arrival of these individuals as marking larger trends in technology and in European expansion and colonialism movements from different times. However, if one refers to the corpus of recent publications on Vinland it is evident that about as many analyses were published in 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus, as there were in 2000, the supposed 1000th anniversary of Leifr’s settlement. Because scholars approach it from this direction, this nationalistic discourse frames our understanding of the Norse voyages to North America.

And its place in our national mythologies is going to ensure that scholars and the public alike are going to continue to be interested in this particular piece of medieval and North American history.

(slide 8: Leif Eiríksson statue erected in 1887 in Boston)

The knowledge about the Viking arrival, “five centuries before Columbus,” as it states in the advertisement, may have trickled in from scholarly (or less than scholarly) work into the general education. However, this Columbus/Leifr Eiriksson debate has occasionally, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, become very public. With the erection of any new public history site, from the Leifr Eiríksson statue erected in Boston 1887 to the recognition of L’Anse aux Meadows as a Norse site in 1960.

(slide 9: Vinland Map, Yale University)

The Vinland map, discovered in the Yale library in 1965, was unveiled a few days before Columbus day and was viewed by some as unseating Columbus once and for all. The map was supposedly from the year 1470, twenty-two years before Columbus’s first voyage. The last time I delivered some of these ideas, someone told me afterwards that one of the people who was really upset by this was Frank Sinatra, who was among those who viewed this as an attack on Italian/American heritage. The map is know largely regarded as a fake, but regardless the existence of a physical map shouldn’t be that different from the oral map that exists in the sagas, though this is a more modern opinion and perhaps a more scholarly one. Inga Dóra Björnsdóttir talks about how the juxtaposition of Leifr and Columbus is politically charged because of the importance of both to the chronology of the North American founding myth, and also because of the importance of having a symbol of unity representative of the Anglo-Saxon race and not of Catholic origin. Leifr Eiriksson day is October 9th. This date was chosen because the ship the Restauration arrived on October 9th, 1825, bringing the first Scandinavian immigrants to the New York harbour from Stavanger, Norway. What is interesting is that Leifr Eiríksson day pre-empts Columbus Day, on 12 October, by three days. The choice of dates is legitimate but also political.

(slide 10: Top left; Runestone museum in Alexandria. Bottom left; Yarmouth Runestone, Nova Scotia. Bottom right; Recreation group at Norstead in L'Anse aux Meadows. Top right; L'Anse aux Meadows.)

So the public understands this Columbus/Viking dichotomy. We can look then at the way that heritage/tourism industries appeal to this sense of ‘who was first.’
There are several locations in North America that celebrate North America’s Norse heritage. L’Anse aux Meadows has the most legitimacy because of the presence of the archaeological site. The arctic sites are important to heritage, but the lack of the tourist gaze in that area of the world has resulted in very little commemoration. Therefore, in that area no one is concerned about marketing the area’s medieval heritage in terms of the public’s interests and understanding. Some heritage/tourism sites gain a form of legitimacy by claiming to be an interpretation of what could have been or are museums to the culture as opposed to any specific events, like Norstead, the living history museum across from the official site at L’Anse aux Meadows. Some institutions house artefacts that could be Norse, and might not be, like the runestone at the Yarmouth museum, and allow visitors to make up their own mind. What is really interesting is that the meagre set of evidence has resulted in the proliferation of interpretation sites all the way from Minnesota and Ohio to the edge of Newfoundland. This helps to represent the place that this history holds in the minds of the public, in that there is an audience for this wide range of sites.

(slide 11: sign erected by tourism association on road into St. Anthony/ L'Anse aux Meadows)

One interesting thing I came across during my time at L’Anse aux Meadows was this sign, which has been placed by the Northern Peninsula tourism association along the road into St. Anthony and L’Anse aux Meadows. The interesting story that I heard, as it was told to me, is that the consultant had suggested putting a sign there that said ‘Is this Vinland?’ Instead, the tourism association were the ones who decided that now was no longer the time to question. The sixties is when they questioned, now was when they marketed this very real and very tangible connection to the medieval.

(slide 12: signs marking the major route, the Viking trail, through the northern peninsula)

The whole landscape of the Northern Peninsula now reflects this rebranding and this reinterpreting in terms of the connection to the medieval, because this is a part of history that continues to resonate with people.

Whether Norse or Viking is a more appropriate term to describe the culture of culture of 750-1100 CE Scandinavia is an ongoing debate. Viking is a word that conjures up images of brutal raiders and pirates, as well it should as the Old Norse word vikingr and the Anglo Saxon wicingas refers to basically pirates. Viking is a reflection of Victorian imaginations of romantic brutality. This is not to deny the brutal aspect of the culture, but it is only one aspect of this largely agrarian and mercantile society. Here a division between scholars and public is a bit more defined, as scholars like the word Norse better. The public has never heard this word. L’Anse aux Meadows archaeologist Birgitta Wallace has this to say about the continuing debate between the use of the two words.

(slide 13)

Historians have substituted the words “Viking” and “Vikings” with Norse, which is a more comprehensive term, corresponding to the Scandinavian norroen, and referring to all Scandinavians of the Viking and Medieval periods. Historians have tended to insist on this more correct term, but references to “Vikings” and “Viking Age” has [sic] become so successful in the promotion of heritage and tourism that most historians now accept these terms.

Like many nineteenth century romantic medievalisms, the term Viking and all that it evokes has proved so durable a concept, that it is counter productive to disregard this word as a term for that culture. Without it we discard the basic building block for the public’s understanding of this culture. The word Viking carries basic images with it. Likewise, the use of certain symbols in pop culture, for better or worse, can stand in for a description of Vikings. One has only to give a character a horned helmet for the audience to understand that he is meant to be a Viking.

(slide 14: Top; How to Train your Dragon. Bottom left; Hagar the Horrible. Bottom right; Commercial for Capital One. Bottom centre; Commercial for Volkswagen minis.)

I would say that films, like How to Train your Dragon, and popular culture, credit card commercials, continue to use this image not because they are ignorant and because they don’t know any better per se, but because they can skip a lot of exposition about who one is trying to depict by just giving them the helmet. So much is implied by these images because it is assumed that the public understands and has seen these images before. They draw on the public understanding and continue to foster it, misconceptions and all.

(slide 15: images from L'anse aux meadows summer 2010)

Telling visitors that there was no evidence of horned helmets, and that the concept had come instead from Wagnerian opera, was one of the most interesting interpretation tools at the disposal of the L’Anse aux Meadows staff, because in some ways it is challenging the one thing that most of the public believes they know about the Vikings.

(slide 16)

In conclusion, the North American public understands this not as Norse, but as Viking heritage. The culture is known for its violence and its raiding; for being one of ‘fearless warriors.’ And yet, it also gives it a place of primacy in the history of North America. It will continue to be a favourite subject amongst people who write popular histories, because of the emotional and romantic place accorded to these events and to the arrival of these so-called ‘first’ Europeans. Talking with tourists I was able to confirm that the way that the Norse heritage in North America is marketed by institutions like Newfoundland and Labrador tourism both reflects and in turn is further constructing the way the heritage is understood by the North American public.

(slide 17: images from the Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier project)

Many of these ideas are versions of ones that I put forth in my paper “Putting the Vikings on the Canadian Map,” which was published as part of the UWO project and exhibition Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier. A copy of this version of my paper I am going to put up on my blog, but for a more in depth discussion look to this original paper, published by Museum London.

Thank you

(slide 18)

Bibliography

Anderson, J. R. L. Vinland Voyage. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1967.

Anderson, Rasmus B. America not Discovered by Columbus. 3 ed. Chicago: S.C. Griggs and Company, 1883.

Arneborg, Jette. “Greenland, the Starting-Point for the Voyages to North America.” In Viking Voyages to North America, edited by Birthe L. Clausen. Denmark: Kannike Tryk A/S, 1993, 13-21.

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Your Highness and your Lowness: A Medievalist's Review

2011-04-17T14:13:00.000-07:00

Described in the Your Highness trailer blog, the source of this photo, as a "new medieval comedy," Your Highness is a tribute to stoner culture featuring stoner poster boys James Franco and Danny McBride. Being appreciative, but not a participant of the culture, it took me much longer than I would like to admit to get the Your Highness reference. The actors, all extremely talented individuals, manage to have good comedic timing and the acting was overall, surprisingly good considering the content of the movie.

But everybody who has seen the trailers knows exactly what they are going to see, written at least in part by Danny McBride, the movie has the stupidest, most obvious jokes anyone has ever written, including the 'booby' trap, the sucking of one's 'own venom' and any other crude reference ever concocted. In this context, given the aim of the movie, stupid, obvious, obnoxious, crude and rude are not exactly bad things. One of the stupidest, weirdest, grossest things was that (spoiler alert) after defeating the minotaur Danny McBride's character wears the Minotaur's penis around his neck for the rest of the show as a trophy. It is the kind of running gag that starts off kind of funny, becomes less funny, and is really funny by the end of the movie.

It was a movie by men, for men. Natalie Portman and Zooey DesChannels, talented actresses, hold their own, but they kick butt and are dim damsels respectively, and don't have as much character as the male leads.

I enjoy stupid humour, and was glad to see the movie, but it wasn't good enough to watch a second time. What was really well done, however, were the set designs and the art direction. The world of Your Highness was more stunning than the content of the movie warranted. Castles, caves, huts, vast valleys, trees and woodlands, dungeons, labyrinths, cliffs and a climactic scene in a tower made this movie worth watching. Specifically, what was really breathtaking was the fantasy world, based on quasi medieval worlds, that the director and art supervisor created.

What was really interesting, however, is that the 'medieval' world created by the film had a distinctly eighties feel to it. To understand the appeal of Your Highness, look back to fantasy and medieval worlds of the 1980s and early nineties to see director David Gordon Green and Danny McBride's influences. Watching Your Highness I felt nostalgia for the tolkie-esque and medieval-esque films from that period. The influence was also really seen in the aspects of medieval culture that were highlighted. The movie made jokes about chastity belts, like Robin Hood Men in Tights. They also used puppets as opposed to CGI for their wise pervert who started them on their quest, reminding us of films like Labyrinth or the Dark Crystal. The costumes and the settings reminded us of the Princess Bride or other fantasy films like Legend. The final scene before the denouement reminded us of a similar scene in Prince of Thieves, where Robin must rescue Marian before the Sheriff of Nottingham assaults her. The bad guys hair kind of reminded me of flock of seagulls, but that is in a slightly different vein. The use of evil wizards and witches, however, reminds us of so many different things, particularly the early video games from that age. There is clearly a debt here to the medievalism of the eighties, and the movie has gone through that filter and acknowledged its debt to those sources in its 'medievalism.'

It was a beautiful film though. It made me wish for a film that used those kinds of, what I might call 'medieval faire', aesthetics to tell a perhaps slightly more serious fairy tale story. Medievalists should watch it, and be nostalgic for the eighties, and for the movies that we watched that led many of us to medieval studies even though they were a far cry from most things medieval. Just, don't expect the film to be more than it is.

PhD in Viking/Norse Studies in North America

2011-03-30T05:29:00.000-07:00

A little while back the blog Old Norse News had a discussion about the different places where one might be able to study Viking/Norse Studies in North America. It was a good start, and the real value to that was in the comments, because people commented on what their schools had to offer.

I don't know everywhere in the States or Canada that offers Old Norse at the undergraduate and graduate level, but I can share my experience of applying to different schools and the PhD programs that I have encountered here in NA. I feel it is pretty thorough, but maybe because I just feel like I have been looking at this subject for awhile.

University of Toronto:

I will continue to apply to this school, though my chances continue to be slim. I was at the International Congress of Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo at the University of Toronto reception and told some of the students that I was interested in going to the UofT Centre for Medieval Studies to study a Norse subject. One of the students looked at me and said 'really?' Apparently, though it is synonymous with medieval studies it is not necessarily with Norse Studies. This is not because there is not quailty people, because there is. However David and Ian McDougall don't really supervise PhD candidates, because they are mostly involved with the Dictionary of Old English program. This leaves Andy Orchard as the only person who could supervise a thesis on a Norse subject, which is a big burden for a large institute. In addition, so far he has been a bit more difficult to get a hold of to consult with. However, it is still one of the best institutions in North America and I will continue to apply also because it would be the most convenient for me.

Cornell University:

This is a more obvious choice. Both Oren Falk, who does not just philology and language but society as well, and Thomas D. Hill are both Norse supervisors at this Medieval Institute. The ideal thing about this school and U of T are that they are both Medieval Institutes. This means that interdisciplinarian approaches and backgrounds are appropriate.

University of Saskatchewan:

Richard Harris in the English department is very active in the North American Norse scholarly community. However, the PhD is in English, so if you have an interdisciplinarian background you are unlikely to be considered.

University of Wisconsin-Madison:

The Scandinavian Studies program does have a PhD program here. There are quite a few good people working here that could supervise a PhD on a Norse/Viking subject. However, you will need to speak a modern Scandinavian, preferably mainland, language. Background in Old Norse is not sufficient.

University of California - Berkeley:

The Department of Scandinavian Studies takes PhD students in Norse/Viking subjects. A modern mainland Scandinavian language helps. John Lindow is one of the primary supervisors and definitely the one to talk to.

Fordham University:

Again, only apply here if you have a solid background in English, as it is not really about interdisciplinary programs. But Martin Chase is a scholar here.

University of Western Michigan:

As the home of the International Congress of Medieval Studies it hosts a good number of people, including Jana Schulman. International Students have to apply through the international studies department first. And their is no PhD in Medieval Studies so the degree has to be in either English or Comparative Religion, so prepare for requirements and distributions that are unrelated to what you would like to do. But they do accept people with un-traditional backgrounds.

Indiana University:

Prof. Fulk is in the English department and Prof. Gade is in the Germanic Studies department. If your PhD is focused more on Old Norse than English or Germanic Studies, then there is not really a place here for you. However, both of those departments do have people who work in Old Norse and PhD programs.

University of Washington and University of Minnesota:

Both have Scandinavian Studies programs, but do not seem to have the resources to host PhD students doing an Norse/Viking topic. This may change.

University of Western Ontario:

Dr. Poole was, up until recently, a member of the English Faculty here. He will no longer be shortly, and will not be able to supervise any theses. This was, but is no longer an option for a PhD.

Harvard University:

Yes, Prof. Mitchell is here. And there is room for interdiscipline studies. But it is also Harvard, so all the difficulties implied for getting accepted stand.

I am welcome to more suggestions of other places to apply. I realize I have picked a subject that not many people in North America are working on or can supervise, but I am interested in continuing my studies in North America since I would like to be a scholar in North America. Don't get me wrong, wouldn't trade my MA in Norse and Viking Studies from the University of Nottingham (see photo above) for anything. But how will I be known if I can't do the conference circuit here instead of there. I hope these tips and this experience can help others as well as generate some help for me.

Crossroads

2011-02-07T11:36:00.000-08:00

It is not a plight reserved only for Public Historians, though I was attempted to make that statement in the title. Most of us ambitious come to this point, at the intersection of rejection, anticipation and triumph, where so much is happening so very quickly that you are missing all the action while you are busy waiting for your life to start.

For this Public Historian/Medievalist, confident in her own abilities yet no stranger to rejection, I find myself poised on the edge of such a moment.

I graduated from the Public History program at Western in October. Technically the program finished in August, but I was able to prolong my internship at L'Anse aux Meadows into October. Now, like many trained professionals I want a job in the field I am trained for, though my main criteria for employment is that it is challenging and that I enjoy it.

When we met for graduation in October not one of us from the graduating class yet had a job. Not surprising. Nor is it surprising that some of us have found work in the field, some of us have found other kinds of work, some of us are still looking and some are now doing more school.

This week I am expecting to hear back from three jobs. One I interviewed for in November. They said the decision would take them a few weeks. Ha! Fair enough, as long as you judge weeks in 'government time.' One I interviewed for last week seems really interesting and would also be in my field. One is Blockbuster, where I have worked before. And I do love movies, so I would be happy there, but it rather pales in comparison.

I have also applied to PhD programs. Like employment, the waiting is what kills you as they leave you in a state of limbo. I have had one rejection letter so far, which is not all that disheartening, because that is wont to happen. But it rather adds to the sense of sitting around and waiting for your life to start.

A sensation that is mitigated by the many triumphs I have had this year. My article 'Putting the Vikings on the Canadian Map' was published in the special project Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier due to the tireless efforts of Dr. Kathryn Brush of the Visual Arts Department at the University of Western Ontario. One of my life goals of seeing my name in print for something I wrote is accomplished. I am also going to be delivering a version of the paper in a lecture for the Society for the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages panel at the 2011 International Congress of Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo Michigan. Look for me, 8:30 am Sunday morning. It is an international forum for my work, so that I can start trying to build a reputation.

As I say, my life is at a crossroads, and many things that may happen this week are going to start pointing me down different paths. It is a place most people are going to end up on their road. I just hope to be strong enough to be able to wait for the rejections that will point me to my eventual triumphs.

Asgard the shiny: The Thor trailer and how I'm excited

2011-01-04T16:14:00.000-08:00

The medievalism in the film Thor has taken a long road from the medieval period to end up on the screen. By this I mean that, like most fantasy, this film will employ a version of the 'medieval.' Unlike most fantasy, however, it will not be a medieval-esque world that is invoked. Instead, it is reference to a very specific piece of 'medieval' mythology. The Norse legends were the inspiration for the comic book that would be the inspiration for the film. And so its reference to the medieval is more specific than most fantasy. And yet the world that is portrayed (or what I can tell from the trailer) is less trying to create an impression of something medieval than most fantasy. Instead Asgard looks futuristic, as does the wardrobe choices, with just a touch of the fantasy medieval being visible. Compare it to something, say, like Eragon or something aimed for children, where the feeling and atmosphere make use of a medievalism though nothing specifically medieval is referenced. For instance, there are dragons, but no mention of say Beowulf and his fight with the dragon.

I am interested to see how this will play out. I stand by what I said earlier, that I think that the film has no obligations to be true to the original myth, only to the comic book, and yet it will be interesting to see how mythological 'medieval' they decide to go.

New Evidence about Native American ancestry in Iceland

2010-12-16T09:56:00.001-08:00

Discovery News had an article about the possibility of their being Native American blood in the Icelandic line from around the year 1000. Their study was genetic. At first when I read it, I thought how are they going to argue that, when it could be introduced at a much later time, but they dealt with this issue. So by the time I was done reading the article I was convinced.

However, on further reflection, I have to admit that they seem to have gone for the most romantic explanation. Yes, Greenland can sometimes be thought to be more Americas than Europe, but wouldn't a more likely explanation be that the mingling happened in Greenland and that Greenland settlers brought it back? Because the Norse were in Greenland a lot longer than they were in North America. And that colony disappeared, but we know that settlers came back from there to Iceland. Hey, even the ones who went to North America were mostly from Greenland, and some of them ended up back in Iceland.

I approve the tendency to reach for the romantic. It is what I would have done. But it seems there is a much more likely scenario than the one that they propose.

Museums and childhood television: "If you grew up to be a bat, what would the neighbours say about that?"

2010-11-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

I was at the ROM recently for the TerraCotta Warriors exhibit. Actually, I saw the same exhibit while I was at the British Museum. It compared well, lots of good information, and I think I retained a bit more of it this time, probably due to repetition. But it is nice to see things at 'home.'

For me the ROM does feel a little bit like home. When I worked at Huronia Historical Parks or the Ontario Travel Center in Barrie I used to get free or discounted admission to several of Ontario's attractions, or at least the ones that were part of the reciprocal program. Some people didn't always take advantage but I did. I have never had trouble being a tourist in my own backyard. But it meant that I got to go to the ROM for free for basically six years. And I did take advantage of this. I have seen the armour exhibit a good twenty times, since it is right next to the late medieval art that they have.

But my love for the ROM goes back further. Back to the field trips of grade school, the several times I went with my parents and to one very special television show that I had on tape when I was a kid.

I, like most kids, watched things over and over again. This meant that I saw Homeward Bound, Lady and the Tramp and The Cat from Outer Space more times than my dad would care to remember. But I also watched this tape that we had of Sharon, Lois and Bram where they spent the day at the ROM.

This was my first exposure to the song Good Morning from Singing in the Rain, to My Ship sailed from China, and to many aspects of the ROM. I am not sure that this wasn't my first exposure to this museum, since we taped it when I was really little. If I had been to the ROM before I saw this I don't remember it. But because of the frequency with which I watched it I feel it has actually had a lot to do with my development. I certainly think of it when I hear the song Good Morning, or anytime I see a bat (part 2, around minute 5) and certainly, pretty much without fail, every time I go to the ROM.

I found the episode recently on the internet. So here, without further ado, is a big piece of my childhood.

Medievalist decorations: Bayeux tapestry, Spadina style

2010-11-15T22:02:00.000-08:00

There are many ways you can use 'medieval' themes about your house for decoration. It doesn't even necessarily have to be using something that comes directly from, or is influenced directly by something from, the Middle Ages. Medievalist decorations could range from fairies scattered about your house, derivatives of Tolkien-esque decor, to the example that you see below. Both have distinct claims on being influenced by what is medieval and have claims to different kinds of 'medievalism.'

But I have to admit I did a double take as I was walking along Spadina in Toronto. Here was a very noticeable tribute to the Bayeux Tapestry, located not far from the Bloor-Spadina intersection.

If we think about this as a decoration for a house it is very clearly of medieval influence. Of course here, instead of subtle medieval-esque themes we definitely have a very direct tribute to the Bayeux Tapestry. It would be a stand alone item, for someone who is an enthusiast, though if I had to guess I would have to say that I expect that there is probably a lot more 'tributes' inside the house.

I think this is a very interesting and bold statement of the inhabitants interests. I don't think that it is going to go over well with many decorators, or maybe even with a home-owners association. And as much as I like these kinds of tributes, I have to say that I know medievalists who would not like this kind of deliberate advertising of interests either. Embedded in this outdoor display lies the dispute between 'academics' and 'recreationists/re-enactors' and the fine line that does, or doesn't, often make the distinction. Not all scholars will make this kind of distinction, especially not as much anymore, but this kind of display certainly does walk that supposed line.

Even more so since it is obviously the Bayeux Tapestry, and yet it is not any specific part of the Bayeux Tapestry per se, but sort of a mash up, or representation of it.

For instance here is the one side of the picture.

The Latin phrase Harold mare navigavit (Harold sailed the sea) occurs near the beginning of the tapestry, but this is not quite the picture that goes with it. Here is that part of the real tapestry, as provided by the Reading Museum that houses the Bayeux Tapestry.

And the scene where people build boats is from the part of the tapestry where William is getting his men ready to invade England.

The picture on the house on Spadina street has two sides. This is probably one of the reasons they put it outside. On the second side it shows a battle and says Harold rex interfectus est (Harold the king is dead).

Yet this is the image that does with that phrase from the tapestry. The tapestry is much more explicit about how Harold dies.

So in this tribute the words are from the real tapestry, and the images are clearly tapestry style and taken from the examples in the tapestry itself, but yet are not any of the images specifically from that work.

This pushes this work even further out of the realm of the scholarly and into the realm of the enthusiast. But I have to say that this piece of art brightened my walk, and I didn't know it wasn't actually a copy of actual images until I specifically checked it out, so in getting me to make the association with the correct piece of art this work succeeded. And despite its unscholarly nature we must remember that scholars too are enthusiastic, they just don't always show it.

The Toronto Medieval Latin Exam

2010-10-18T09:50:00.001-07:00

Love or hate it, it is a bench mark that not just the Centre for Medieval Studies in Toronto uses, but other North American universities who have 'Medieval Studies' departments. For instance Cornell asks that you pass the MA level Medieval Latin exam to be accepted into their Medieval Studies program.

So I didn't pass this time, but I came up about seven marks short. Here were some of my frustrations. First, it is hard to study vocabulary when the lists encompasses all of the words. When studying for exams in the past you read through the passages you have done in class and study vocabulary you have already seen because that is what you are expected to know. Also, for this year and in previous years there are some straight forward passages but there are also several passages from philosophical treatises. Sometimes those are hard to understand in English. I might argue that if people should be allowed a dictionary into the exams, only because in real life if you were reading a document there is no way that you would not have access to a dictionary. If the candidate knows nothing of the grammar there is no way he will figure it out during the time allotted for the exam. I feel I was well prepared, having studied quite a bit before I went in, but it is hard to remember all the principle parts of a word. But, fair and square, I missed this years test by seven marks so I will take it again in April and hope that I have studied the right vocabulary. And the more you practice the easier it is to internalize all the different parts of verbs.

I was in Newfoundland at the time that I wrote this, working at L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site. I took a week off and drove into St. John's for the test. It was my first visit to St. John's. I didnt get too lost around the university, but I will say that it was good that I left myself some extra time for figuring it out. I started the test at 1pm Newfoundland time, so I did start before those who were writing in Toronto. I have to say I felt pretty good coming out of it. I followed the suggestions that I had heard, to think of what is logical if you don't know and to not leave blank spaces. One thing I stupidly forgot to study was numbers, but my logic won out on that point. Despite the fact that I didn't pass, I was pleased with the result, as all the passages did turn into something readable, if not always right.

I understand the point of the test though, since Latin is the language of Western European documents, some places right up into the twentieth century. It is good to be able to just read it, and for all my complaints about the range of vocabulary, vocabulary is part of being able to read Latin at a glance. In the Middle Ages Latin is ubiquitous so best brush up.

And yet I can also see why some object to the Medieval Latin Exam amongst medievalists. It is clinging to an older model of 'Middle Ages,' in that it is privileging the Latin language over others that are out there at that time. Arguably Islam plays a poignant and remarkable role in the development of the Western World, particularly during the Middle Ages. It makes no sense to keep an Arabic specialist out of the prestigious Centre for Medieval Studies because they don't read Latin. And yet, even the Arabic specialist would agree that some sort of ancient/medieval language is required. The other problem is that the standard is in some ways a bit arbitrary. And having a specialized test is a bit elitist, in that the standard is imposed from an old sort of tradition about the nature of Medieval Studies. (Not that the institution is not slightly elitist. Of course another word for elitist is prestigious, which is why everybody wants to go there. We know having the name of the school on our pieces of paper is worth it because they made us jump through hoops to get there and not everyone did.)

I would not propose taking away the test, just pointing out some of the problems with all. Overall its effect is more positive than negative. The school, despite some of the real problems it has had of late in the area of adaptation (something I have learned from people who go there) maintains its reputation through the maintenance of standards and continues to be a benchmark for Medieval Studies in the rest of North America. It also ensures that future medievalists are prepared to deal directly with original documents as opposed to relying on looking at the documents through the lens of someone else's translation. There are valid objections to the whole process, but I have been convinced of the Latin Exam's utility.

This September's Medieval Latin MA level Exam:

The first passage was from the Memorial Book of Vadstena Abbey, Diarium Vadstense, on the arrival of a mysterious stranger from Rome
This was the easiest passage to translate as it recounted the story of a priest named Robert who arrived at the Pope's behest from Rome on a secret mission.

The second passage was from Smaragdus on penitence.
I started to have trouble since this one was much more philosophical.

The third passage was William of Conches on the ambiguous stature of Boethius's Lady Philosophy.
This one was only easier because I have already read Boethius. In fact in fourth year I joined a Latin reading group where we read parts of that text in Latin.

The final passage was titled: How great, how wonderful is the vision of heaven in peter Abelard's hymn for Saturday Vespers.
They gave us hints to the content of this one in the title. At the same time there were certain parts of this I definitely had trouble with.

Website for Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier

2010-09-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

The project, Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier, that I have been a part of this year with the Western Visual Arts Department has a new website. The Exhibits begin to open on September 30th and the Symposium is on the 22nd and 23rd. For more events see the website.

So speaks the Universe ...

2010-08-31T16:16:00.000-07:00

... and as it turns out the universe loves me. As I was doing my usual trawl through the Medievalists.net blog I came across an article about the newly formed Society for the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages. Oh my gosh if this wasn't for me. And heck if I am not going to use this as leverage to get me into a PhD program this year. It seems to suggest that I have taken all the right things, BAH Medieval Studies, MA Norse and Viking Studies, MA Public History, at all the right times, and also that though Public History is a field that has been around for more than twenty years, it is now coming en vogue in many different areas, academic and otherwise. Not only en vogue but this society is also using terms that we used in public history, beyond just the words 'medievalisms', so as to suggest that what I have been studying this year is in the same discourse as what is currently being produced. I can't say that I felt out of place as a medievalist doing a Public History degree, but I was aware that I had an odd background for someone who was contemplating a Public History career. I now have an overwhelming sense of validation. Not only might I have students who want to take classes with me, I might have department heads who see the value in the path that I have taken. Alright, this is a lot to put on the shoulders of one society and one website, but I am very excited nonetheless.

New Blog on Active History

2010-08-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

Heads up on my recent article for Active History.

Historic Northern Peninsula - Grenfell Centre

2010-07-24T15:30:00.001-07:00

Someone recently told me that the tourism industry has replaced the fishing industry as the main economic staple in the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. I can see this, as there is really only one set of roads to take you to all pertinent locations, but there are a million signs warning you when you get closer to the attraction that you were bound to pass anyway. Of course, by the time you pass by the advertising has convinced you that you want to go in.

I decided, being an avid history nerd, what other tourist, history based attractions I could take in while up in the Northern Peninsula. I came across a fairly unexplored gem. For all history nerds I highly recommend the Grenfell centre. Its interpretation centre was highly informative and well set up. Clearly whoever designed the exhibit was well versed in museum theory, as most of the exhibits they had were text and information, so they tried to intersperse it with models, audio and other things not necessarily used by Grenfell or in the work of the Grenfell mission, but that had cultural relevance nonetheless. The house, part two of the exhibit, was just as interesting, though less well interpreted and hardly mentioned in the early exhibit. The walk up behind the house was also interesting, vigorous and informative, with plaques useful to tourists unfamiliar with the local landscape.

Of course I was the only one in there. On a Saturday. Of an open house. So..., despite the massive funding that clearly went into the establishing of the museum and the exhibits, they should probably invest a bit more in advertising. Like so many museums they have probably hit that catch twenty-two of getting funding once they get visitors and needing funding to get those visitors. Perhaps as well it is just because the subject matter has not been well linked to the other historical based tourist attractions, or because the house itself, despite signage, is hard to find tucked up behind the hospital. Or maybe it is only really interesting to people who are history nerds.

However, between all three parts of the historical interpretation this was not just a museum about the Grenfell mission, but I believe it is the only museum in the area which talks about local history. It is here that I learned about the American airbase, what Partridge berries look like, when roads came to the area, about local crafts, how the fishing operations worked at the turn of the century and what demographics made up the early population of Northern Newfoundland and Labrador. I think the museum would do well to emphasize some of this in their advertising. Maybe then they might get a few more visitors.

P.S. For fellow London Ontario-ers/Public History students, Grenfell has been inducted into the Canadian Medicine Hall of Fame in London, and in the interpretive centre one of the only artefact exhibits contained turn of the century medical equipment, something we got to investigate this year.

Parks Day at L'Anse aux Meadows

2010-07-18T15:34:00.000-07:00

July 17th was Parks Day across Canada. In addition this year Parks Canada is celebrating its 125th anniversary, and so this past Parks Day was special for many people who have grown up enjoying our National Parks.

At L'Anse aux Meadows, despite the construction that is still going on in the Visitor Centre, and despite the incessant downpour that occurred yesterday, we were still able to enjoy Parks Day. For visitors we offered our regular tours of the archeological site. Despite the rain and the icy winds many brave souls came out while our interpreters gave them a background on the mounds that they saw in front of them. In fact, yesterday I, who started about a week ago, delivered my first tour of the archeological remains. We deliver tours in both English and French, though our French language tours are largely by request.

L'Anse aux Meadows, along with a newly renovated Visitor Centre, also has a newly groomed interpretive walking trail this year. The trail is 2.2 kms, and takes visitors right along Epaves Bay. At the moment it is also the only means of getting to the archeological site from the main parking lot. Yesterday the site previewed the new tour, From Fog to Bog, that it will be conducting and while no one, because of the wind and the rain, partook of the 11:00 tour there were two hardy souls from Germany that joined Kevin, one of the interpreters, on the 3:00. The new tour is an hour and a half and should prove to be a popular addition once it is added to the site's programming.

A highlight of the day was the Sagas and Shadows encore presentation that was held in the reconstructed longhouse. Michael Sexton, a.k.a Bjorn the Beautiful, enraptured a record 36 attendees with his renditions of several of the Icelandic Sagas. Shadows and Sagas is typically held on Tuesday nights, around 8pm, and usually there is a fee of $22 for the performance, but as it was Parks Day all our events were free. Partridgeberry jam and drink from local manufacturers at the Dark Tickle was provided for the onlookers.

Robin Hood Article

2010-06-21T13:32:00.001-07:00

Here is a really interesting article from this month's BBC History Magazine which has a medieval theme. It compares three Robin Hood films for content and accuracy.

Iceland’s Fury: Vikings, Volcanoes and the Canadian Coastline

2010-06-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

Here is a finished article with corrections mad based on suggestions from Canada's History's editorial team.

From the fury of the volcano protect us.

On Wednesday April 14 2010 the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) glacier began to send up an ash plume that would ground the air traffic in Northwestern Europe for six days. Volcanic ash has fine particles of rock and glass that could circulate in the air for months and do serious damage to jet engines or harm to anyone close enough to breathe it. Airports did not open again until late the following Tuesday or Wednesday, despite the fact that the majority of the ash was expelled within the first two days.
On Wednesday, April the 21st, the Toronto Star reported that 102, 000 flights had been grounded across Europe, the loss to airlines had been in the range of 2 billion dollars, and the loss to industries through the disruption in the supply chain was not yet calculable.
. . .

Canada’s coastline is connected to the Scandinavian countries by an ocean, by currents and by other geographical anomalies. Such currents bring much to our shores from Iceland besides ash clouds and economic fallout. They have also brought people. Scandinavian populations have played a great role in the settlement of the Canadian landscape, particularly in the prairie provinces. But to get there they had to breach the Canadian coastline, and so they have played a role in the history of this area. There is one group, originating in Iceland, who landed on Canada’s shores and who hold a special place in the North American imagination.
The ancient Norse site at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland was discovered in 1961 Helge Ingsted and Anne Stine Ingsted, with the use of literary evidence, the work of a handful of previous like-minded amateur and professional archaeologists, and some local help. Archaeological evidence found here helped support the claims that the Vinland Sagas depicted places in North America.
The saga tradition originated in Iceland. One genre of sagas, commonly called the Sagas of Icelanders, or Family Sagas, are about the early inhabitants of Iceland. The Vinland Sagas were written in this tradition. There are two sagas about Vinland, the Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Eirik the Red. The texts tell the same story, but tell it in very different ways. Both sagas can be tracked to an earlier oral tradition.
While these two versions disagree about a great many things they do agree that sometime around the year 1000 A.D. Leif the Lucky, son of Eirik the Red, set sail for a new land to the west. First he came to Helluland – the land of caves, then to Markland – the land of Forests, and then to Vinland – the land of vines and grapes. He established a settlement on the shores of Vinland and then returned to Greenland. The two sagas disagree about how many of Leif’s relatives made subsequent voyages to Vinland, but they agree that Thorfinn Karlsefni and his wife Guthrid came to Vinland to explore. Their son Snorri was the first person to be born in the new land. When they returned home Karlsefni and Guthrid became the progenitors of a long-line of noble Icelanders. So the story goes.
The veracity of the sagas has been a subject of debate for at least two hundred years. The sagas contain a lot of geographical details. So many, in fact, that it has been a preferred pastime of scholars and amateurs since the nineteenth century to try to ground the saga in the reality of the North American landscape. In the 1960s we proved that the Norse came to Newfoundland. In the 1970s and 80s Peter Schledermann and his team also proved that the Norse were in the Canadian arctic, as artefacts (though no signs of settlement) have been found around Ellesmere Island. For most people this has been enough proof that we have found the Vinland of the sagas.
For others, like Magnus Magnusson, the connection is not necessarily concrete. At the international conference held at L’Anse aux Meadows in 2000, the thousand year anniversary of Leif’s arrival in Vinland, Magnusson pointed out that “the Vinland that we are celebrating so rapturously this year may not have existed at all in the strictly physical, geographical sense – … it was essentially an intellectual concept, not a place on the map.”
But for many, including long time L’Anse aux Meadows archaeologist Birgitta Linderoth Wallace, the Vinland Sagas cannot but detail a small part of Canada’s early history. At the same conference Wallace, in her paper ‘Vinland and the death of Þorvaldr’ says “my view is that the archaeological evidence at LAM [L’Anse aux Meadows] combined with recent archaeological, anthropological, and demographic research on eleventh-century and medieval Iceland and Greenland can help to define the actual events behind the sagas.”
The popular image of the Norse, or Vikings, is of brutal plunderers whose legacy upon a landscape is violence. In fact the word Viking has this meaning worked right into it. It is derived from the word vikingr, which translates to pirate or raider. This picture of destruction is not necessarily wrong, but it is not the whole picture. There is a preconceived notion of the ‘fury’ of the Norse, just as when the word ‘volcano’ is mentioned our imaginations provide us with certain images of destruction.
Our understanding of the Norse culture is based on the nineteenth century construction of ‘the Vikings.’ And these nineteenth century scholars based their conclusions on the monastic construction of the Norse cultures. The first documented Viking raid was on Lindisfarne Abbey in England in 793 A.D.. The raid was described in horrific and brutal terms. We have no reason to doubt the brutality of the raids, but it should be kept in mind that the accounts were written by monks. Raiding was common among enemies, but for many (English) monasteries it was somewhat unusual. Monks would remember the Norse attacks because, as pagans, the early Norse would not hesitate to raid a Church. Icelanders did not convert until the year 1000 A.D., around the same time as the Vinland voyages.
The raids may have been often, and they may have been horrific, however the violence and ‘the fury of the northmen’ was built up and exaggerated to the point of exclusion of other aspects of the Norse culture. In fact the prayer, ‘normannorum libera nos domine - from the fury of the northmen deliver us oh lord,’ is a perfect example. Supposedly this is a prayer said by ninth century English monks who were fearful of the continuous raids of the northmen, or Norse. The problem is that the original of this prayer has never been found. Most scholars, including contributors to the official website of Lindisfarne Abbey (the site of the first recorded Viking attack), doubt it ever existed. This prayer is probably a late adaptation of a general prayer said for protection against raids by an enemy – any enemy.

…

On Monday April 19th, 2010 at St. John, Newfoundland’s airport many passengers were likely praying that their flights wouldn’t be cancelled. Several outgoing flights were cancelled when Transport Canada and Nav Canada reported a 30 percent chance of ash over the St John’s airspace. Air Canada, one of the airlines to cancel flights out of St John’s, stated that flights to and from Gander and Deer Lake, Newfoundland could experience delays or cancellations. Newfoundland was the only province whose flights were shut down because of a direct threat from Iceland’s volcanic ash. The rest of Canada was affected only indirectly. Air Canada reported on that same Monday that they had cancelled all flights to London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Geneva, Rome and Tel Aviv until further notice. The airlines were hit financially, and Canadians at home and abroad found themselves stranded.

…

In 1000 A.D. Leif, Karlsefni and their followers were not out raiding. However they did crash upon the Canadian shore with all the fury we have come to associate with the Norse, making our conception of ‘the Viking’ relevant. It has been difficult to evaluate the impact that the Norse had on the landscape because when they came they did not stay. Their arrival did not initiate waves of settlement like the fifteenth century explorers’ arrival, and proving continuity of knowledge about North America from the time of the Norse voyages has been extremely problematic.
It is the indigenous populations who felt the impact of the Norse. The sagas call them Skraelings. In 2008 Canadian archaeologists Max Friesen and Charles Arnold determined that the Skraelings were definitely not the Thule Inuits, as the Thule settlement patterns indicated that they were nowhere near the Newfoundland area in the year 1000 A.D. Nations that are still candidates, assuming that we associate Vinland with Newfoundland, include the ancestors of the Beothuks and the Innu.
The two sagas give very different accounts of the Norse interactions with the Skraelings, though the tales overlap in several places. According to the Saga of Eirik the Red the Skraelings “were short in height with threatening features and tangled hair on their heads. Their eyes were large and their cheeks broad.” There is no such description of them in the Saga of the Greenlanders. This is due in part to the fact that the Eirik is a fuller tale, with more details supplied by the author to complete the story.
In Greenlanders the Norse are always the aggressors. In this saga when the Norse first come upon the Skraelings, they discover nine men who are sleeping. They capture and kill eight of these men. The one lucky Skraeling returns with his compatriots and attacks the Norse in their fortress, killing one and wounding several others. In Eirik there is a similar incident, except it happens at the end of their journey instead of the beginning. In addition, the saga writer tried to give the Norse some moral justification for their actions; “sailing north along the shore, they discovered five Skraelings sleeping in skin sacks near the shore. Beside them they had vessels filled with deer marrow blended with blood. They assumed these men to be outlaws and killed them.”
In the Saga of Eirik the Red their first encounter with the Skraelings is while trading. This scene is repeated in the Saga of the Greenlanders. The Skraelings approach the Norse camp with trade items, so the Norse, partly because of the number of their opponents, agree to trade. In both sagas they refuse to trade weapons with the Skraelings. In Eirik the Skraelings are content to trade their furs for some red cloth that the Norse brought with them. “This went on for some time, until there was little cloth left. They then cut the cloth into smaller pieces, each no wider than a finger’s width, but the Skraelings gave just as much for it or more.” Likewise, in Greenlanders the Skraelings trade their furs for milk products. This saga also seems to think that the Norse got the better end of the deal; “trading with the Skraelings resulted in them bearing off their purchases in their stomachs, leaving their packs and skins with Karlsefni and his companions.”
In both tales, there is an incident while trading that brings the two groups into open conflict. Once again in Greenlanders it is because of an act of aggression on the part of the Norse. While trading one of the Norse killed a Skraeling because the Skraeling had tried to take the weapon from him. The Skraelings run away, but come back in greater numbers to fight with the Norse at the settlement. In Eirik the battle is caused by the Skraelings, who, frightened by the bull at Karlsefni’s camp, return the next day armed to attack the Norse. During the course of this attack the Norse find themselves overpowered and begin to flee to the woods. There is a great incident that occurs at that point, which turns the tide in favour of the Norse. Freydis, the illegitimate daughter of Eirik the Red, had decided to accompany Karlsefni and Guthrid on this voyage. When the Skraelings attack the camp she is slow to retreat, as she is, at this time, pregnant:

She called, ‘Why do you flee such miserable opponents, men like you who look to me to be capable of killing them off like sheep? Had I a weapon I’m sure I would fight better than any of you.’ They paid no attention to what she said. Freydis wanted to go with them, but moved somewhat slowly, as she was with child. She followed them into the forest but the Skraelings reached her. She came across a slain man, Thorbrand Snorrason, who had been struck in the head by a slab of stone. His sword lay beside him, and this she snatched up and prepared to defend herself with it as the Skraelings approached her. Freeing one of her breasts from her shift, she smacked the sword with it. This frightened the Skraelings, who turned and ran back to their boats and rowed away.

In both stories the Norse triumph over the Skraelings, but at the end of the tale the Norse leave. In Eirik it is obviously because of the threat posed by the Skraelings; “the party then realized that, despite everything the land had to offer there, they would be under constant threat of attack from its prior inhabitants.” Throughout both sagas the supposed ‘fury’ of the northmen is manifested in their actions towards the other - towards the Skraelings. When they came to Canada, just as when they raided the British Isles and the coast of the European continent, the Norse, or Vikings, brought with them a tradition of honour, intrepid spirit and violence. To say that they were not destructive would be to deny much of what has been put down in the saga. Yet, while in Greenlanders the Norse are certainly the victors, and the stronger people, it should be noted that in Eirik the Skraelings seem to give as good as they get.

…

Just like the magma that began to be visible on April 19, 2010, it is Eyjafjallajokull that brings this history back to the surface.
There are remarkable similarities between the volcano and the Vikings, not the least of which is the perceived level of destruction. Both terms, with reason, conjure up images of an unstoppable destructive force. For the Vikings their impact on Europe was monumental. For the volcano the economic toll could be staggering and there is no way to measure the rising level of passenger frustration across the globe. And yet, both Vikings and the volcano have their destructive powers exaggerated. Eyjafjallajokull is linked ideologically to previous eruptions, so any damage that has been caused by volcanic eruption in the past is conjured up again by this new source. In addition the Toronto Star reported on Wednesday April 21 that some sources were saying that the physical destruction caused by the volcano had been overemphasized, unduly causing the economic and passenger frustrations. With the Vikings too, the threat was real, but not necessarily as deadly as has been imagined. The Norse were as much farmers as they were marauding pirates, and on the shores of Canada they were trying to make a settlement. It was punctuated with violence, but that is not all that the settlement was about.
For Canadians, the impact from these separate Icelandic furies has been similar. In the end the impact was fleeting, with no lasting direct effects, but with an important legacy.
The wrath of the volcano resulted in several thousands of stranded people and several billion dollars worth of damages. However, for Canadians, our airspace has been touched only slightly, and alternative methods for travel are possible, if inconvenient. The damage does not approach that of other natural disasters, or even other famous volcanic eruptions.
The Norse left their mark on the Canadian landscape. They were here, they settled, and they traded and fought with the indigenous populations. But the effects were not lasting and the destruction they wrought does not compare to the destruction, or settlement, that later European explorers would bring.
The comparison between the reach of the volcano and the reach of the Vikings shows us how much geography influences our history. The volcanic ash and the Vikings directly touched the same province because it is at this location that Canada is most accessible to Iceland. The same winds were employed to blow the ash and the ship across the ocean, so we are not surprised that they end up in the same place. And while they - the volcano and the Vikings - may have touched other parts of the Canadian coasts it is in the province of Newfoundland that we feel the effects most profoundly.

Megan Arnott

The Medieval Kingdom of Ozark ...Arkansas

2010-06-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

The project was begun by Michel Guyot, a frenchman who had worked to restore castles in France. One year he received a letter from someone who had visited one of his
castles, and who had told them that the Ozark forest, their home, bore a remarkable resemblance to parts of the French countryside, and suggested that it would be a great place for a castle.

Michel Guyot agreed, and after raising 1.5 million in investments the Ozark Medieval Fortress was begun. The land was chosen not only for its resemblance to the French countryside, but because of its proximity to a quarry.

The project will be going on for about 30 years but the site is already open. The construction methods and equipment are also all authentic, save for some updates to satisfy modern safety regulations.

The project has been taken up largely by locals, who hope to be involved with this for quite a few years.

It is interesting that this is taking place in the American Heartland. In many ways 'outside of Europe' may be an ideal way to undertake this project. If you were building it in France there is the question of where would you put it. You couldn't build on ruins and if you build it over top of where a castle used to stand you interfere with future archaeological projects, and you would have to worry about maintaining authenticity, i.e. you would have to build a replica of the castle that was there before. By contrast the one in Arkansas is being built to an ideal, or a standard and can include many different aspects of a medieval French castle, aspects which were prevalent in many castles, but which would necessarily have been built altogether in any one place. If you chose to build a castle in France nowhere near any historical locations you would be asked what part of history that does represent, as it is not representative of anybody. It would also give a false sense of strategic locations and important waterways/passages. In Arkansas you don't have to justify its location, save for finding the resources that are appropriate. In Arkansas it won't confuse the pre-existing medieval landscape, as North America's medieval period left very different physical remains.

That being said, a project is being undertaken in Burgundy, France called Guedelon. Very interesting.

I see many a historical picture being filmed there in the future.

So if you are in the vicinity of Ozark, in Arkansas, check out some medieval castle construction.

Also check out what medievalists.net has to say about the project.

The Great Northern Medieval Fayre?

2010-06-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time. I know that I say that a lot. But I don't know that anyone else knew what they were getting into. I have been to some Ontario Medieval Fairs before, so I knew almost exactly what to expect from the Great Northern Medieval Fayre.

We arrived at the Fairgrounds just outside of Collingwood at about 1:30 in the afternoon on Friday. We realized as soon as we got there that we were joining the ranks of the school children, particularly Grade 4s whose curriculum includes medieval history.

It had rained all Thursday, so the field was largely muddy. I am sure it was not as bad as it would be on Saturday and Sunday, when it rained the whole time. The problem with the fairgrounds outside of Collingwood is that they don't feel very woodsy, they feel very agricultural. Though the Medieval Fair in Kitchener/Waterloo that is held in September is by and large the same thing, the surrounding woods gives the park more of the fairy tale feel.

The prices for entering the fair was $20 each. As I say, I had a great time. I got my french fries, wandered over to the Merlin the Magician show, where I saw that he was doing the trick with the rope of several different lengths. Since I already knew how this was done I moved on. I went over and spoke to the vendors about what they were selling, and why they liked medieval crafts so much. I saw the vendors from whom I had bought my purse several years previously at the Kitchener medieval Fair, and then went over to watch the joust, which was interesting. My dad then bought a wooden sword, so that he too could join in the ranks of the other fourth grade boys.

But I got the impression that the teachers that had brought their children for the day were disappointed that one of the biggest things to do was shop. They hadn't told all of the children to bring money. By the time that 2:00 had come it is clear that most had tried the archery and putting on the chainmail. From what it looked like it was largely a long recess. I think the teachers weren't thrilled.

The best part of the fair were the jousters. That is something that is missing from the Kitchener Fair, which also has shows, though they are usually scripted by one of the organizers, and are all kinds of cheesy.

The jousting was definitely worth something, though I wasn't sure it was worth twenty dollars. Even while I sat there a family was trying their best to cheer up their mother, who was feeling disappointed and ripped off. They spent most of the joust comparing the price to Medieval Times in Toronto, and the convenience of having that right in your backyard as opposed to having to go all the way down to the city.

I was watching the joust, but I have to admit I was distracted by the kids who were sitting in front of me. They were having their own mini joust, and I cringed every time their swords whacked together. It didn't help that I couldn't really hear the announcer.

In the end you did sort of have the impression that you were paying $20 to shop. I wasn't sure how they were going to attract large enough crowds on Saturday or Sunday with that kind of a deal. At the same time, it wasn't that large a fair, so it would probably fill up nicely without that many people. And you would always have people like me, who were going to come to the Medieval Fair no matter what.

All in all, it wasn't bad for their first time out, though I would have some suggestions for them. If possible I would choose a different venue, one with more trees, because Medieval Fairs are only very cursorily about medieval history or society. They are about the fantasy and romance which draws many of us, even academics at first, to the medieval period. It would be good to play this up more. If at all possible, reduce the price, perhaps by charging the vendors more to be there. The medieval fair that they used to have in southwestern Ontario that was a summer long, every weekend event, charged something like $20 (granted, without inflation) and was such an experience that by necessity all Medieval/Renaissance Fairs are compared to it. These two things are crucial. The adding of more vendors and activities will come, no doubt, as the Medieval Fair matures. But that is less important than giving people the impression that this is something that they want to come back to.

This is the interview conducted at the beginning of the Fair by Medievalists.net.

The Mongoliad and the Future of E-books

2010-05-31T11:10:00.000-07:00

This is an article by Annalee Newitz that I came across recently. In it they discuss the future of publishing and the power of the e-book to be an entirely different format from the print book.

What was really interesting is the capacity that the book will have to be collaborative, especially when it comes to subjects that people are experts in, particularly things like sword fighting or martial arts. People who are experts on such things often find themselves disappointed by what they read or what they see in films. The author of the article talked about the ability to make the contributions of outsiders canon, so that people who really have something to contribute really can improve the quality of the piece.

What really interests me, and what really wasn't touched on in the article, was the suitability of the medieval period as a subject for these new formats. The project is being let by Neal Stephenson, among others. He is a science fiction author, but the title of this first work is going to be The Mongoliad. It is all going to be set in the Medieval period. At the end of the Annalee Newitz article it says:

Ready to download The Mongoliad and get medieval? Subutai plans to launch before the end of the year. Sign up for updates on the project via their official website.

It makes sense to have this project be an historical one because more people will have an expertise on the subject. And why not the medieval period, due to its inherent romanticism, and the plethora of people who are experts on medieval warfare. It really is a good subject for this project and I think as medievalists we should keep thinking about why.

Be sure to check it out.

Robin Hood Movie Review

2010-05-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

As medievalists this year we have been treated to several films that build on a medieval theme, like How to Train your Dragon. Of course when we heard that Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe were teaming up to do a Robin Hood movie we all waited with baited breath. Even the more cynical amongst us admitted we would probably watch it, even if we were determined not to like it.

Having seen it, I will freely admit that I loved it. Most who know me are not surprised by that statement. Even as a Public Historian, I loved it because if there is one thing you can say about the film is that it was committed to conveying a sense of history. The characters were likable, the plot I found to be engaging, and I came away entirely satisfied.

This does not mean that the film was without its problems. In fact most critics have panned it. If we look at it from the point of view of a medievalist there are several things that it does quite well, and there are several things that I am not sure added to the plot.

*spoiler alert*

In terms of inaccuracies, I am sure others picked up on more than I did. The hardest thing I found to digest was the pyre funeral for Walter of Locksley. With Churchmen standing by. Part of the belief in the Middle Ages was that your body would be resurrected along with your soul, so it was not within church practices to burn bodies. This is not to say that it would have been uniform everywhere, or that this couldn't have happened, but it seemed to me to be unlikely, and not to add to the plot which elsewhere was being so careful with details.

The other part that I found myself somewhat incredulous about was Marian joining the charge. Not that I think it would be inaccurate for some women to be involved in the assault on the beach, but I hadn't really understood this to be part of the character they created for Marian, and so it felt a bit forced. I was entirely with them when she picked up a sword to defend her village, but I think a lot of people were taken out of the film by this addition. Again, not because it was necessarily inaccurate but seemed a bit of a stretch based on the rest of the film.

One of my favourite parts of the history that was in the film was the portrayal of King Richard and King John. Here they were truer to the history than to the conventions of the Robin Hood story, and I really liked that. Richard was brutal and John was pretty nasty, though his real fault was not having the same carriage or demeanour as his brother. As well, he was not pure evil, which I liked.

Perhaps the biggest fault of the movie was that the message was not elegantly placed within the plot, but instead the audience was hit over the head with it. Robin is part of the movement that would lead to the signing of the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta is certainly a big deal, and I could be corrected, but the Magna Carta at the time was mostly for the nobles who objected to John coming back and trying to take back some of the local power that Richard had lost because of his absenteeism. It was certainly about taxes, but part of that was John was a better administrator on the home front than his brother, and was dealing with the tremendous debt left by Richard. The movement was not really about the rights of the people, at least not all the people, though later politicians would understand it that way. What they were saying in the film seemed to be phrased, not so that it would be historically inaccurate, but so that audiences would recognize the ideals they were espousing as democracy, even though that's not really really what it was. In some ways Robin's espousal of these ideals seems forced, and it means that we lack some of the bravado and cockiness which was an appeal for earlier incarnations of Robin Hood.

But what it does do is place the whole story in a wider historical context, and it really does explain in many ways the momentum of the Magna Carta movement, though they never actually say the words 'Magna Carta.'

This Robin Hood, like Robin Hoods before it, tried to be relevant to today by exploiting elements of the history to show ongoing trends of injustice and resistance. As I say, I loved the film, but in its devotion to its message it lacked a bit of the fun that is to be found in other incarnations. And while Russell Crowe is excellent, his Robin Hood lacks the personality of others, and so he is by no means my favourite Robin.

In some ways, the final scenes of the films, with the camp and the greenwood, you come away with the sense that you would really liked to have seen more of that, that classic Robin Hood aesthetic. Though, in the end that is what we have seen before. It is just that I never tire of it.

Final note: Because I am a fan of Great Big Sea I enjoyed Alan Doyle as Alan-a-Dale. It didn't take me out of the movie too much, and as not that many are big fans like myself, I think it was an excellent choice.

Complexity in Simplicity

2010-05-05T21:37:00.000-07:00

I like to work to deadline. I like to be figuring it out right up until the last second. For some this only causes panic and anxiety. Some procrastinate to the point where it becomes so overwhelming they can't even contemplate doing it any more.

I hope that I don't make myself into one of their number.

But as I reach the end of the year, and most projects are finished, save for some loose ends, I have somehow made things that are perhaps simple a little complicated. Not to the point of un-doable, but to the point that if most people had left it to this point they would be panicking.

For instance, as there has been no deadline for Interactive Exhibit Design I am still working on the electronic portion and the write-up. I have outlined on my website all the aspects of the project I intend to write about, but it is alarmingly blank at the moment.

And since I am still working on this I will have to make sure that I make at least one more trip to London this summer to return all of the electronics (and book) that I am still working with.

I will finish, or get as far as I can before I get stuck, since I think this may be one of the more useful things in my portfolio whichever direction my future career takes, and because I would really love to see this work.

For my internship I am working with the Simcoe County Museum this year. This may be not all I am doing, but I will keep people posted about this (maybe something with the R.O.M - not internship-y really, or with L'Anse aux Meadows) but I have been waiting to solidify this internship for several months. I have come to the conclusion that the Simcoe County Museum has never had an intern before, at least not under the current administration, and so they just did not have the ability to confirm this. It is feeling a little more solid now, though I do get the impression that I am forging new territory.

In addition, adding a little more complexity, I went over today to make appointments to talk to people at the museum and it looks like they would like to do some oral histories. That is really exciting, but a lot of work. When I told my dad that oral histories were going to involve a lot of paperwork that made him laugh.

So, a few things I am working on at the last possible minute. Some of this is by design, like completing my IED write-up while I work on the project, and some is by accident as there was no way to speed up my work at the Simcoe County Museum. While it seems to all be very complex, I am happy to report that things seem to be sorting themselves out in a rather simple sort of way.

P.S. Thanks to Devon for pointing out that IED also means Improvised Explosive Device, I had completely forgotten that acronym ... I mean, yay news!

Public History Everywhere

2010-04-18T22:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I was indulging in a little bit of SNL.

Do you know how once you learn a name, or a trend, you start seeing it everywhere. I have determined that I got to that point with my Public History classes, and I couldn't help but notice the relevance that SNL episode had to my classes.

The first, most obvious thing was during Weekend Update Seth Meyers talked about the Cockroach Hall of Fame and Museum in Plano Texas: "A man in Texas has opened the cockroach hall of fame museum that features collections of the dead bugs in tutus and sunglasses, though just because you call it a museum inside your head doesn't mean you're not just a crazy son of a bitch with a gluegun."

I couldn't help but go back in my head to our discussions in class about what constitutes a museum. I actually came to the conclusion that yes, I would consider this a museum in my mind. Here is some of the information about that museum:

The second reference was to something that I came across in interactive exhibit design, about interactive physical computing. We looked at the 40 top arduino projects on the web, and the top one was this interactive laser harp. The musical guest, Kesha, actually used this harp in her first number. I probably felt cooler than I should have at that. Check out the video. The harp is used at the 3 minute mark.

Here is the video of the original laser harp:

It's official. I will now look for Public History in everything.

For all the people in my mapping medievalism seminar ...

2010-04-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

... the BBC and the British Library have been taking a look at the history of maps. Incredibly relevant to our undertaking, particularly to Trista's paper.

For those who are not in that seminar, it is still interesting, and relevant to the work I have been undertaking with this seminar.

Further equally true, yet mutually exclusive truths

2010-04-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

This week in Public History we looked at the issue of Repatriation in Canada and the United States. I am very much pro repatriation. The whole concept of a museum, and the preservation of historical material culture as it supposedly was in the time period, is, of course, a construct, and not the only way to celebrate heritage and culture.

Last week our speaker was James Cullingham, a documentary filmmaker who specializes in issues of social justice. The subjects he has covered in his films include Native rights in Manitoba as compared to the rights allotted to Blacks during Apartheid in South Africa, as well as how Jews and Palestinians interpret the conflict in their education systems. In class he said something along the lines of he believes that cultures should absolutely represent the culture of others, and to set up boundaries in art is ludicrous. And I wholeheartedly agree with this.

But of course, that is part of the problem that led to the need for repatriation, one culture imposing their epistemology upon that of another, and deciding how culture is to be represented.

However, James Cullingham, and the speaker that we had this week after our discussion about Repatriation, Neal Ferris, are both people who use tools that are arguably from the White Middle Class epistemology, namely documentary film and archaeology, in a culturally sensitive way. Neal Ferris holds the Lawson Chair of Archaeology, and is cross appointed to the Museum of Ontario Archaeology and the University of Western Ontario.

In an earlier post I was talking about how Public History is full of irresolvable equally true, and mutually exclusive truths. This is another one of those.

I fully support the rights of nations and cultures to define themselves, and that certainly means control over how their culture gets disseminated. This is particularly true for those cultures who have not always had that right, though really it should be true for all cultures. But the trouble is, if a culture has ultimate control over their own cultural legacies then that means that each country or nation will only be allowed to investigate cultural artefacts specific to their own history. Which in part means that there will be nothing left in the British Museum, and also will mean that somewhat arbitrary definitions based on modern culture will have to be made on the past. To whom would the history of the Norse landings in Canada belong? Canadians, though the Vikings probably did not respect the Canadian border when they were sailing about? Natives, whose ancestors may have had contact with those people, and are the only peoples who now live in those traditional locations? Scandinavians exclusively? Anyone whose country may have had contact with the Medieval Norse culture? My inclination is that it is now so old that perhaps it doesn't matter, but that is not a valid argument when discussing the heritage of several cultures, and so it becomes dangerous to apply that haphazardly to the ones that are not as linked to current politics.

An extreme, one that practically is unlikely to come to fruition, but should be considered nonetheless, is the danger of cultural segregation. Another extreme would be where people are expected to have cultural sensitivity without having any exterior cultural understanding, as a true knowledge of a culture is limited to the confines of that culture.

This issue is also related to what was said in earlier classes about the accuracy of living history. Who gets to play a settler, if the ethnicity of the modern employee does not match the ethnicity of the original historical persona. This is very much related to who gets to decide how the culture is represented. And it is interesting, because while I fall on the side of repatriation I think, with some cultural sensitivity attached to the interpretation, that living history should make an effort to be accurate in their portrayals, but that ultimately the employees should be more representative of the modern culture that they are serving, rather than the historical culture they are representing.

And I guess that is what guides my views on repatriation, that I think history should serve our current communities rather than the other way around. Still, that does not mean that it should be manipulated any way one wants. And representation of a culture through art is not the same as the preservation of heritage through material culture, though they are very closely linked. And so, it is another issue that is unresolvable, but is made better by an awareness of the inherent problems. Who ultimately gets to represent a culture, and are the representations from outside of that culture invalid, or do they also bring something to the discussion?

(Wholly overuse of the word culture Batman).

How to Train your Historically Minded Movie Goer

2010-03-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate going to the movies with those people who pick at the movie until it is dead? There are the people who read the book and then saw the movie, and then complain about how much the movie is unlike the book, even if it was a really good movie. Then, of course, there is taking an historian to any movie. It is there mission to find the flaws in the history, and even if the story is really good and really moving dismiss the whole thing as a-historical.

I am one of these people. Well, not really. Actually sometimes I am alarmed as an historian how many historical inaccuracies I miss. But I think it sort of depends how you approach your criticisms. If you are out to be disappointed, you might be. If you are willing to dismiss the whole because of some details, then the movie probably wasn't going to appeal to you anyway. But sometimes its fun. It's like the people who sit down to their favourite films to find all the continuity errors. It's fun to know things. For many historians, it can be fun to find the historical flaws. My colleague Catherine Caughell has recently put up several blog posts about historical fiction novels. I take much the same approach to historically minded films; they were always some of my favourites, and by getting me interested, they prompted me to learn more. I grew up on Westerns, period pieces, and war movies, and always watched any version of Robin Hood I could get my hands on.

So, as a student of the Medieval Norse and Public History I turn now to the recent Dreamworks picture How to Train your Dragon, not because I expected it to be historical, nor because I would have wanted it to be, but because it is interesting to think about the reasons the filmmakers chose to utilize certain aspects of the history. Don't worry, I know it has dragons in it, I know it is fantasy for children. Still ...

Also, slight spoiler alert for people who read on.

It is easy to see why all the Vikings in the village wear horned hats. That is the clearest identifier of Viking. I mean, even Hagar the Horrible wears a horned hat. In the film Hiccup's father gives him a horned helmet, which essentially means he has achieved 'Vikingness.' The trouble is, despite its clear identification with Vikings, there is no evidence that 'Vikings' ever wore anything like it. That being said, we would no doubt be disappointed if the Vikings did not have horned helmets. The filmmakers chose that symbol because it conveys a lot of information about who we imagine these people are, tapping into a popular conception we already have, without the film having to explain it.

The use of runes was a nice touch. And because the characters were speaking English you could actually sort of see the characters making the correct English sounds. Look at 'Night Fury' especially when it is written down. The thing about runes though is that they are characters that have a lot of straight lines for the specific reason that that makes them easier to carve. There is not much evidence of writing in books the way we understand it. There are a few codexes written in runes, though the concept of writing in this way really comes after the introduction of Christianity, not during the time of Thor or Odin, which it is suggested is the time of this movie. The sagas are written down using Latin letters, and not until Christianity has been established in Scandinavia for a century or two. But you can see why the filmmakers chose to do it this way. The idea of a secret and personal knowledge that Hiccup discovers for himself would be conveyed through a book. We understand the nature of a manual, or textbook, and that is easy to relate to, especially for children who are supposed to learn things this way. It is understandable that the students who are trying to learn about dragons would learn in this way. The use of runes makes the book other, and kind of exciting, communicating again that idea of 'Vikingness.'

The whole movie is peppered with some Scandinavian-isms. When Hiccup brings his dragon some fish he mentions that amongst them there is some Icelandic cod. Why not, as they way that they speak is modern, so their frame of reference for fish names may as well be modern. Stoick, Hiccups father, routinely uses THor and Odin as an expletive, just like one would say oh God. This certainly adds to the character, though the film shies away from any statement about religion, as you would expect of a children's film. The village itself is composed of a combination of individual houses, and great halls, representing many Scandinavian villages and none at the same time. But a house is understandable to a modern audience, a place to come home after school. And a great hall can be rather magnificent looking, and might as well be used as a gathering place, so even if it is not a place that after spending the day they fold up the tables and chairs at night and sleep, it is an important part of this larger concept of village.

But of course, there are dragons ... and an arena, and a great number of other monsters. So don't worry, I don't take myself overly seriously. But what we do have here is a selective use of poplar conceptions of an historical period that have been used strategically to create a foreign yet familiar aesthetic in which this fantastic story can take place. I feel that the filmmakers have done this well. It also really helps that it is a really good story with very interesting characters and a very visually pleasing movie.

All in all, I really liked it. And of course, any excuse I can get to 'geek out' and annoy people with my knowledge in a movie theatre, all the better.

And of course, the movie is based on a book.

I'm not very good at math ... that's why I like history

2010-03-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

My colleague Jordan Goldstein wrote a blog post earlier this year about how Canadians often define themselves in terms of how they are different from their American colleagues. How groups view themselves is a common theme in Public History, because if historians want to know what kind of image of history we can present to the public, and what kind of images the public will except, we should understand first how a culture sees itself. There are the positive identifiers, the thing that a group is and does, but there are also the negative identifiers, what the group is not or doesn't do that others might. In the case of Canadians, that seems to be Americans more so than any other group that we have decided we are not (mostly because the case is not always that obvious).

My colleague Braden Murray made the observation much earlier in the year that many of the conversations had by Grad students in the History department eventually turn into a discussion of Canadian identity. Partly that is because most of us are Canadian historians, and even more so because we all come from different areas of both Canada and the United States. This was especially true at the beginning when we were first meeting each other, and when we were first trying to explain how we were a cohesive group to our American colleague (sorry Sara). But maybe that is one of the positive identifiers of the group known as History grad students, a desire to define our shared cultural heritage.

What also makes us a group, however, is our negative identifiers. Mostly, I find that for Grad students in history, and probably in many other Arts programs as well, the group that we define ourselves against is Math. It is a suitable excuse, when you get a simple math problem wrong, to say that I am a history major. Marking especially is always described in relation to the math department. The argument is that in Math you can get 100% because it is either right or wrong, but in History it is more subjective. You can't get 100%, but the likelihood of getting less than 60% is also greatly minimized. It seems everything that we are is best understood in relationship to Math. In many ways this is a fallacy, particularly for the economic historians, but it is an easy means of self-identification. I my personal experience I wasn't bad at math, but it was the only class that made me physically squirm in my chair. And my path through University has been chosen in a way where I can take the least amount of math possible ... since I am, after all, a history major.

Thrilling, yet disturbing, discoveries in the library.

2010-03-20T18:01:00.000-07:00

If you have seen other entries from my blog, you will have seen this image before:

I am using it in my paper that I am writing for the Mapping Medievalism Seminar in the Visual Arts Department. Also, because it represents early American scholarship on the topic of the Norse in America, I thought it should be included in the exhibit that the seminar is putting on in September.

It is a lecture that was given in the late 1830s, almost corresponding with the World Fair in Chicago. It was written and delivered by Asahel Davies. This version is actually the 16th edition, and was published in 1846.

When looking through the libraries catalogue I came upon this title, though I didn't actually see the date. I thought it would be perfect. When I came to realize that it was actually a copy from the first half of the nineteenth century, and that I was going to be allowed to take it out of the library, I was surprised, excited, and a little disturbed.

When I brought it up to circulation the librarian gave me a sideways glance. I don't think anyone has checked this out in at least ten years, and he was clearly not quite certain it should go out. He couldn't really say no. I said to him 'I can't believe I can take this.' He said 'yeah ...' in a trail-y sort of a way, and furrowed his brow.

Don't worry, I took very good care of it. At least I tried to, I very carefully took a picture of the front of the pamphlet, which may have crossed the line librarian-wise, but I think that was okay.

Of course, amongst people who have worked with artifacts, or who are budding librarians, historians or archivists, I have got a very consistent reaction of 'they let you take that out of the library,' to which I usually respond, 'I know, right!' It is now in the hands of Prof. Brush of the Visual Arts department. The thing was, I didn't want to actually return it because I wanted it for our exhibit. I was pretty sure that once it gets back into the hands of librarians it may become locked into the vaults of the archives; accessible, but not available to take home, or handled without the proper supervision. Not at all convenient for my purposes.

In the end, this is the paradox that most librarians, museum experts, and historians find themselves in: we want the artifacts to be properly cared for, and protected ... but not until we have had a go at them.

My First Attempts at Label Writing

2010-03-06T14:50:00.000-08:00

For the Seminar 'Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier' I have been looking at several texts which I think should be included in the Exhibit at the end of the Seminar. I have included here the images I took of the four texts I chose, and the four labels that I wrote. As you may have been able to deduce from my short writing for the public piece I am not very good at condensing my ideas. I found the label writing to be particularly hard. Here is the first draft of these four labels, I welcome any feedback.

Asahel Davis

Antiquities of America, The First Inhabitants of Central America, and the Discovery of New England, By the Northmen, Five Hundred Years Before Columbus, with Important Additions, 1846

And is it not a laudable curiosity that leads one to ascertain what white men first trod regions in which the modest wild flower wasted its sweetness on the desert air?

This is the sixteenth edition of this lecture to be printed, showing the work’s immense popularity. The first printings were in 1838-39. At the time that this lecture was circulating the tales of the Norse voyages were only starting to be brought to the attention of the scholarly community in America.

Davis relies on the work of The Royal Society of Antiquarians, who produced the Antiquitates Americanae in Danish in 1837. That was the first time the Vinland sagas, the sagas about Norse landings in Greenland and North America, had been translated and printed for the public. Davis argues, based on the content of the sagas, that the history of the Norsemen in this continent should be made a part of the larger scholarly understanding of the Antiquities of America.

Megan Arnott MA Public History 2010

Collection of the D.B. Weldon Library
The University of Western Ontario

Farley Mowat

Westviking: The Ancient Norse in Greenland and North America, 1965

Farley Mowat is among the great literary nation builders of Canada. His focus is the Canadian North, and the relationship of Canadians to the land, and with each other within the context of the land. His use of the medieval European connection in reconstructing the Canadian North is given weight because of the clout Mowat has as a Canadian author.

The Norse voyages to Canada is a theme that is repeated in many of his works, including The Curse of the Viking Grave (1966), ‘The Iron Men’ in The Snow Walker (1975), and in The Farfarers: Before the Norse (1998). The latter and this work are both scholarly texts that discuss European arrival in Canada in the context of evidence and anthropology.

There is a conflict that occurs when Mowat tries to reconstruct the Norse landings in the context of Canadian history. The existence of an ancient, almost mythical European presence helps to naturalize the existence of Europeans in Canada. However, the Norse were not themselves native to the land, so their arrival can be seen as part of the trend of later European imperialism. This is a conflict that is not resolved.

Megan Arnott MA Public History 2010

Collection of the D.B. Weldon Library
The University of Western Ontario

Marie A. Brown Shipley

The Icelandic Discoverers of America or Honor to Whom Honor is Due, 1887

In the nineteenth century, and before the discovery of the Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, there were many texts written defending the idea that the Norse were here before Christopher Columbus. Some were very scholarly examinations of the sagas and the science of sailing. Some were also emotional pleas to include the Norsemen in the national myth. This is strictly the latter.

Marie Shipley’s work relies heavily on the scholarship of others to establish the truth of the sagas. Most of the text is allotted to how the Catholic Church and Spain are the root of all evil in modern American life, and how if we accept Christopher Columbus as the discoverer of America we are accepting the overlordship and tyranny of the Catholic Church through Spain.

On the front cover, the quote from Bayard Taylor,
From shores where Thorfinn set thy banner/ Their latest children seek thee now,
accompanied by an image of a banner with an eagle on it, is supposed to both show how Americans are directly the inheritors of the Norse and provoke them to restore the Norse to their place of glory. This will in turn restore glory and freedom to the American people.

Megan Arnott MA Public History 2010

Collection of the D.B. Weldon Library
The University of Western Ontario

Robert McGhee

Canada Rediscovered, 1991

Robert McGhee plays on the word ‘discovery,’ because the Europeans, of course, did not ‘discover’ Canada. This is why Canada is ‘rediscovered.’

McGhee places the arrival of different waves of migration to North America into a global context of settlement. He also discusses our own perceptions of Canada’s ‘discovery.’ It is significant that this work was published in 1991, one year before the five hundredth anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of Christopher Columbus.

The helmet, though not an artefact found on Canadian soil, was chosen for the cover because it represents the Old Norse culture. The Norse are the first Europeans archaeologists can prove were here, completing McGhee’s circle of the globe by man. The Norsemen challenge the position of Columbus in the public’s imagination as the first European to arrive in North America. Therefore, in the year when the public expects to see Columbus, the Norsemen have been represented on purpose to make audiences re-evaluate their perception of the ‘discovery’ of Canada.

Megan Arnott MA Public History 2010

Collection of the D.B. Weldon Library
The University of Western Ontario

The Vinland Loop

2010-03-06T14:29:00.000-08:00

I am stuck in something I like to call the Vinland Loop.

I have noticed in our history program that many people's particular historical interests have emerged. I think I can safely give myself the nickname of Viking Girl. It does seem a little ingenuous to give yourself your own nickname, but I am going to go for it.

Vinland is a fascinating topic. Sagas and literature give you just enough to tantalize you with the prospect of locating it in North America, but stop short of allowing you to ever prove that you have found the location. Not only that, Vikings and the Norse are a very exciting, somewhat romantic topic.

It gives us so many things to talk about, discuss and debate, that so much has been written about it. It continues to pose academic problems, not least of which is when we realize we are clearly so interested in who were the first Europeans to arrive here, and what that means for us as a people.

As I have said before, Vinland and the Viking presence in, well, Canada really, is one of the reasons I decided to specialize in Vikings; they covered so much that I was interested in, including Medieval History and Canadian History.

But I find myself in a Vinland loop. I am interested in Vikings in part because of Vinland (the decision to study certain aspects of history is usually some sort of personal connection) so I write about it or do projects about it. It is easy to see how so much nationalistic and romantic literature is written about it. And then when I try to think about what I know that will be relevant for Canadians, I am drawn back to Vinland. While I study generally, as a subject, Vikings, I keep writing about Vinland and doing projects about Vinland because it is what will be interesting to the public I am hoping to represent. They too are most likely to be drawn in by showing them their personal connection.

It's not a problem really. The very obvious solution would be, don't. I certainly don't find it to be a problem. But it does appear that I am working very hard to pigeon hole myself into one particular subject, though I do have wide interests.

So in summary, look out for more about Vinland from me in the future. I am sure it is forthcoming.

IED: Updates

2010-03-06T14:11:00.000-08:00

Many things have evolved about the project that I am working on for Interactive Exhibit Design. I am still on the map idea, and because I am caught in 'the Vinland loop' (more on that later) I am still looking at mapping perceived Medieval Norse landings in what we now consider to be North America.

However, the project has morphed into two separate projects. The first is still the website, where my intention is to be ever-adding, so as to be as comprehensive as possible. I have actually progressed to the main page, and have a model that I am now adding the information to in HTML. To make it more professional I may have to look more at Java and XML, though I have to admit to being most comfortable in HTML.

The second part of my project has stemmed from the first. I wanted a group to be able to interact with my design. To do this, I at first thought I would just provide a touch platform for the website. This is still possible, as I am still working on the website. However, I am beginning to design a separate project, which will use a combination of Processing and an Arduino, which will also be a map of North America, and the Northern Atlantic Regions.

At first I was wondering if there was anyway that I could design a surface, where moving an item across that surface would result in a cursor moving in a corresponding way across the computer screen. Unlike a mouse, the top left corner of the board would also be the top left corner of the screen. The idea would be that I could have a physical map, and as you moved an object (I was imagining a Viking Ship) across the map it would also move across the map online. While this is in many ways theoretically possible, I have abandoned it because it is certainly outside of my capabilities.

My next idea was to build a mouse in the shape of a Viking Ship, and then use that to interact with the website. Again, while it is possible, and has not been entirely abandoned as a possibility, this in many ways is not challenging enough, because the most likely methodology would involve my buying wireless mouse parts and then superimposing artistic elements on the top to make it look like a Viking Ship. There are more complex ways to do this, of course, and I may yet look into this.

Where I have settled is to create a project which will convey rather simple information. On the computer I will design a program which can show you some basic locations on a map related to Norse landings in North America. Then I will create a map out of something like foam board, and possibly using the large size sign printer. In that map I will embed a series of switches in certain locations, so that when you press the switch, or in some way complete the circuit, the program will show you information about the place which you have just located.

This will be separate from the website that I am working on, because the website can have a lot more information about not only significant sites, but also about the sites that historians have interpreted as having significance for one reason or another. I hope, by Apr. 7th, to have something substantial to show in both these projects.

Funny or Die.com does Drunk History

2010-03-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

Funny or Die is a website that is affiliated with HBO. They do sketch comedy and collect funny videos. They are similar in nature to other websites like College Humor, but they use rather big name comedy stars. While browsing I came across something called Drunk History, which has, at the moment, 6 short sketches in total. They were created by Derek Waters, and they deal with early American history. The premise is that someone, I presume Derek Waters, gets his friends drunk and then has them discuss an historical event. Then he takes that tape and has actors act out the historical event as narrated by the drunk friend.

Is it inaccurate? I'm sure it is, though I have to admit I am not as familiar with American History. Are people going to think that these are accurate portrayals of these events? Lets face it, probably. But at the same time, these are supposedly famous historical events, at least according to the website. They certainly involve the most famous figures,including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and other 'founding fathers.' It is implied that many people will know something, correct or incorrect, about this subject already.

Regardless of the perceived accuracy of the sketches, the videos discuss history in a way that is appealing to people who have absolutely no interest in history, and they are not devoid of historical relevance.

I think they are hilarious, though I am sure not everyone agrees. From a Public History perspective I think it is rather an ingenious way to make history appealing to a different audience. From a comedic perspective, I think it is hilarious because you make something mundane ridiculous, and you draw on the shared experience of trying to explain something important when you are drunk. In this way it is funnier to use history, than say, to have your drunk friends rehash their favourite books or movies.

This one is my favourite, though the Benjamin Franklin ones are also hilarious, if also probably the most off-based historically.

Drunk History: Douglass & Lincoln (Starring Will Ferrell & Don Cheadle) from FODPresents

A bit of Ontario's Winter Sport History

2010-02-22T08:58:00.001-08:00

This is a picture of the very first ski lift in Ontario. It is called the 'South Chair' and it was built in 1956, I believe, on Collingwood's Blue Mountain. Don't worry, it's not still running, but it was still in operation in 2000.

This is an important part of Ontario's skiing history, as well as the history of Winter Sport in Ontario. I am impressed that this section of it was preserved and memorialized. Of course, I think its preservation also says a lot about the make-up of the community in Collingwood. It also says a lot about me as a tourist that I saw a plaque and had to stop to read it. Needless to say the rest of my family left me at the top of the hill.

Martin Knelman: Audio-Visual Heritage of the Nation at Risk

2010-02-16T00:42:00.000-08:00

Today I was looking through the Toronto Star and I came upon this article by Martin Knelman: Audio-Visual Heritage of the Nation at Risk.

In the article he discusses the loss of archival footage in the fire at the CTV office in Ottawa last week and laments Canada's lack of progress in both acquiring proper storage and archiving our audio-visual material. According to Knelman there are not enough facilities in place to preserve this particular aspect of the Canadian Culture. He proposes that there will not be a proper solution for this, or for the National Portrait collection of Canada which is in the same boat, until proper facilities can be constructed. He even suggests that the problem could be solved if there were a central agency, like the U.S. Library of Congress where broadcasters could deposit their materials. Otherwise important archival footage is being lost all the time due to cutbacks and mishaps like last weeks fires.

There are a lot of ties with what is covered in the Public History Class. We have been discussing why people feel the need to preserve what is relevant to their community, and it is interesting that, compared with Knelman's Australian and French examples, Canada has not felt the same need to preserve the Canadian broadcasting heritage. What does this mean for the status of Canadian broadcasting as part of the national identity? Do we care less about our own broadcasting tradition, or is it just coincidence? With our need for an emphasis on Canadian content, and the competition with American and sometimes British broadcasting, perhaps a case can be made that our lack of preservation is due to a lack of national interest, though coincidence is probably a much more likely answer.

A curated facility for national audio-visual material seems like an excellent idea. I think Knelman makes some excellent points, and that is something that I hope to see in the future, and even more something that I would like to be involved with.

Projects for IED

2010-02-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

The Interactive Exhibit Design Class is really off and rolling now. My colleagues are all doing very interesting things. Make sure that you check them out.

Interactive Exhibit Design
Dana Johnson
Tim O'Grady
Braden Murray
Sara Sirianni
Rebecca Rahey
Jordan Goldstein

Review: Vikings in America by Graeme Davis

2010-02-04T12:16:00.000-08:00

"The Vikings have left an enduring legacy on both sides of the Atlantic. Without the Vikings' discovery and settlement of North America the world would be a different place."

Vikings in America, published in August 2009, is a fascinating work by Graeme Davis that deals with the extent of the Viking settlements in North America. Interestingly, it argues that the Viking presence on this continent left a lasting impact in Europe and in North America. In addition to the traditional textual sources, and the verified and accepted archaeology, Davis's work makes use of recent finds as well as DNA evidence and North American oral histories to try and create a complete picture of the Viking involvement on this continent.

This is a work that is aimed at a general audience, Davis states this close to the beginning. Therefore the text is accessible. It is, however, very in tune with current scholarly trends and debates as well. Davis starts on the European side of the Atlantic, and establishes the relevant elements of culture, and the stepping stones the Vikings needed to take to get to North America, before proceeding to list the arguments for Viking involvement on the continent, including the High Arctic and in Hudson's Bay. From there the book goes on to discuss the evidence for continuous societal memory of North America and the legacy, or impact, the Viking landing and settlements had on the existing American settlements and future European settlements in North America.

The book is very well done in its treatment of evidence. All evidence is treated equally, and while usually if there is significant scholarly debate Davis will include that the evidence may be dubious, practically no evidence is left out. While this is not always academically sound, it certainly helps to show that whatever evidence we may in the future deem to be authentic, regardless it is clear that the Vikings had a larger impact than is currently verifiable with the more authoritative evidence. In particular this is a good approach to take when writing for a popular audience. Significant attention is also paid to Inuit, and pre-Inuit cultures and their contact with Europeans, and the recent archaeology from Ellis Island. These are areas which have not been as thoroughly explored, and are dealt with well in this book.

The weakest chapter is the one on the Hudson Bay, and the theory that the Vikings have gone in there, and this is arguably because it is based on the weakest evidence. Again, inclusion is interesting, because it does add to this image of widespread settlement and exploration, but it is mostly conjecture, although this entryway into the continent is linked to passages in the texts and to the dubious artifacts found in Minnesota.

While it may help the popularity of the book, the scholarship is in part undermined by the tone of the book. Davis is tapping into the nationalist sentiment that has fueled a lot of the writing about Vikings in America. Many argue that the discovery of Viking history is important, and it is to the telling of an accurate history. To argue that continuous knowledge of the Viking landings is important becomes more dubious, because people can not really explain why it is important. In the end it plays into the myth of national identity, as the North America we know today is seen to have been 'founded' by settlers. Essentially, statements like "in the Vikings, America finds its first European settlers. Most fittingly these first European settlers in America were people searching for what we know today as the American dream: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," colour the way we interpret Davis's attempt to give credence to all evidence. It gives the illusion of reaching, and compromises some of the excellent scholarship in the book. Especially when you view the so called Hispanic 'discovery' as some sort of conspiracy, and don't talk about other possible European landings as being as probable as the Viking landings.

This book very actively taps into the emotional drive behind trying to locate the Vikings in North America. Therefore, perhaps sometimes it accepts evidence too readily, though this does accomplish the task of creating a complete picture. Overall I would recommend this book due to the breadth of its coverage, and the sensitivity with which it treats scholarly current debates.

A motor is not a potentiometer… the more you know.

2010-02-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

In IED we have been experimenting with Arduinos and physical computers. For one exercise my colleague Jordan Goldstein and I attempted to work a motor with a potentiometer and pulse width modulation. After some confusion between what was a motor, what was a servo, and what was a potentiometer we eventually were able to get a servo responding to the potentiometer.

Controlling a servo with the Arduino (sweep)

Since we first had difficulty with the potentiometer, labouring under the assumption that the motor was actually the potentiometer, we first experimented with controlling the Servo directly with a programming language.

We had : a Servo
Arduino
Arduino software
Breadboard
several jumper wires

Taking the servo, we connected the red wire (positive wire) to the 5V Analog pin on the Arduino, the white (input) wire to the 9 pwm pin, the black to the GND Analog pin. Then we uploaded this code to the Arduino:

// Sweep
// by BARRAGAN

#include

Servo myservo; // create servo object to control a servo
// a maximum of eight servo objects can be created

int pos = 0; // variable to store the servo position

void setup()
{
myservo.attach(9); // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object
}

void loop()
{
for(pos = 0; pos < 180; pos += 1) // goes from 0 degrees to 180 degrees
{ // in steps of 1 degree
myservo.write(pos); // tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos'
delay(15); // waits 15ms for the servo to reach the position
}
for(pos = 180; pos>=1; pos-=1) // goes from 180 degrees to 0 degrees
{
myservo.write(pos); // tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos'
delay(15); // waits 15ms for the servo to reach the position
}
}

This code can be found in the Arduino Program, under Examples, then under Servo. It is called Sweep. If you do this then the Servo begins to rotate back and forth from one position to another.

Controlling the Servo with the Arduino (Knob)

Having figured this out we played with the length of the delay by changing the value of delay(15). We also experimented by changing the value of pos, and pos+ and played with the speed of the servo.

Once we understood this, and had found an appropriate potentiometer, we attached the potentiometer and servo to the breadboard, and used the potentiometer to control the movement of the servo.

First we attached the potentiometer to the breadboard, then ran one wire to the Analog 0 pin on the Arduino. Then we attached the positive wire to the positive input on the breadboard, and the negative to the negative output on the same breadboard.

Then we attached the servo to the breadboard. The white (input wire) from the servo was connected to 9 PWM pin on the Arduino. Then the positive was connected to the positive input on the breadboard, and the negative to the negative. Then we connected the breadboard to the Arduino, running a wire from the positive input to the 5v Analog pin on the Arduino, and the negative output to the GND Analog pin.

Then we uploaded this code:

// Controlling a servo position using a potentiometer (variable resistor)
// by Michal Rinott

#include

Servo myservo; // create servo object to control a servo

int potpin = 0; // analog pin used to connect the potentiometer
int val; // variable to read the value from the analog pin

void setup()
{
myservo.attach(9); // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object
}

void loop()
{
val = analogRead(potpin); // reads the value of the potentiometer (value between 0 and 1023)
val = map(val, 0, 1023, 0, 179); // scale it to use it with the servo (value between 0 and 180)
myservo.write(val); // sets the servo position according to the scaled value
delay(15); // waits for the servo to get there
}

This code is found again in the examples, under servo, as Knob. This allowed us to turn the servo by turning the potentiometer.

In the end this is what the set up looked like.

This is another step in our understanding of the importance of physical computing as a potential tool for interactive and active history.

Thanks to Lucky Larry for a very useful tutorial.

IED (Interactive Exhibit Design): Starting point - HTML and CSS

2010-01-27T08:37:00.000-08:00

So, I think I have made conceptual progress on my project.

I am still pursuing the idea of an interactive map. However, what I believe I would like to do is try and spatially locate in Canada aspects of medievalism, like Gothic architecture, and historians and artisans who work with medieval themes. As well, I will try and map as many different interpretations as possible for the location of Vinland.

I am going to approach it from the perspective of HTML, XML and CSS, and design a website where one can call up different parts of the information at will. That will be the basis of the project, which, if it were part of an exhibit, would be best used in conjunction with a Smart Board, so that visitors can call up the information by touch.

This will allow me to start with something basic, and to continuously add to it. It also gives me the opportunity, once I get some of the basics together, to expand and learn other technologies, like GIS, and other forms of interactive and digital mapping.

The next step is to gather the building blocks, a.k.a. the information and documents that I want to situate on the map, and the basic maps that will be the basis for the site. Because I will be gathering documents and information from different sources that may be tangled up with copyright I won't publish so much what I have found, as describe it here on my blog.

But I am going to start with some of the resources found at the Great Canadian Mysteries Website we investigated in Public History class, and try to get some basic representational map of Canada to start.

Robin Hood for a New Generation (revised from writing for the public workshop in Public History)

2010-01-25T20:50:00.001-08:00

On January 21st the Public History MA class had a writing history for the Public Workshop where we all submitted a short piece (500 words) and had it critiqued by established author, Professor Jonathan Vance. I have made the suggested changes to my piece, except for making it the right length. While I realize this means that by not adhering to the length guidelines a publication like a newspaper or a magazine would have to discard my article, I decided that too long was okay for my blog. Here is the revised version.

Robin Hood for a New Generation

In 2007 I met the Sherriff of Nottingham. She was friendly, soft-spoken and very well mannered. We were attending a talk being delivered about the historical Robin Hood at the University of Nottingham. Before the talk began she got up to speak herself about how good Robin Hood had been for the city. The Sherriff talked about how each new media incarnation of Robin Hood represented each new generation finding some way to make him their own, and how that was good for tourism. This was the first time I heard about the new movie directed by Ridley Scott, which at that time was called ‘Nottingham.’

It has been almost twenty years since Kevin Costner played the title role in Prince of Thieves, and the Robin Hood of 1991 is no longer appropriate for modern audiences. Each time a new movie is made we expect something new of our Robin Hood. For instance, we did not expect Sean Connery in Robin and Marian (1976) to be the swashbuckling adventurer that Errol Flynn was in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Instead we wanted a more mature Robin Hood. In 1991 the filmmakers made it clear that the world of Robin Hood extended beyond the forests of England. The addition of Morgan Freeman’s character Azeem, both a Muslim and black, satisfied our expectations that Robin Hood’s goodness included tolerance for other cultures. Some might think it is making Robin Hood more accurate, but really it is making the tale fit our own values.

This is not new to the twentieth century. The process of adapting Robin Hood to fit the needs of a community has gone on since the first Robin Hood tales. In some of the earliest stories Robin is not a dispossessed noble but a yeoman and a forester. Maid Marian was not coupled with Robin Hood until a few centuries later. The tale of Robin Hood changed over the centuries through his inclusion in Mayday games, folk plays, ballads and other ‘media.’ The nineteenth century in particular loved tales of Robin Hood, and it is their overly romanticized version of the character that was passed on to early twentieth-century filmmakers.

The upcoming movie, due to be released to North American audiences May 14th 2010, is bound to be an interesting incarnation of the story of Robin Hood. Originally entitled ‘Nottingham’, the movie was supposed to focus on the Sherriff of Nottingham and his bouts with the outlaw Robin Hood. It is easy to see why the filmmakers’ decided to follow the more traditional route and focus on Robin Hood. There is a problem when an American production uses such a traditional, beloved tale of outlawry to praise authority. That is not the incarnation of Robin Hood that we want to reflect our times. It will be interesting to see how this version of the tale does reflect our expectations. The tagline in the trailer totes “the story behind the legend, the hero behind the outlaw,” implying that what we are looking for in this Robin Hood is realism, or at least Ridley Scott’s version of realism. In any case, it looks to be the most epic Robin Hood ever, but we would expect nothing less from Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe.

Interactive Mapping Medievalism Exhibit Design at the Canadian Frontier?

2010-01-12T21:01:00.000-08:00

From my last post you will see that I am involved in two projects (among many) this year that have special significance. Just for clarification these are initial thoughts about the Interactive Exhibit Design project, not my project for Mapping Medievalism, however the title will become clearer as my thoughts unfold (or unravel, one of the two).

Self doubt is about as attractive in academia as it is in dating. The rule is fake a little self confidence until you actually become self confident, then pretend you were sure of yourself all the way along. If you believe in you, then others will too. Of course, looking back through my previous blogs one can tell that I have not always followed this rule. In fact I am not very good at it. See.. there. I often feel that the only way to have control over my insecurities is to admit to them ... frequently, perhaps somewhat annoyingly.

For instance, all through the Christmas Break I was trying to come up with an appropriate project to start in Interactive Design. The thoughts kind of went like this ... "well maybe if I make a map of where ... " "maybe I could map out where..." "maybe people could press a button and have it show up on a map where ...", and so on and so forth. I kept coming back to map, but it occurred to me that I am still missing something key to this project.

The problem is I am still thinking in terms of an 'analog' exhibit, and imposing digital and technological elements on to it. We talked about this a great deal in Digital History, where many scholars, when it comes to the internet, are not exploring what the internet can do when they publish works there; instead they are imposing the conventions of the printed book or magazine on the internet. Stephen Robertson has an article about this phenomenon as he observed it in one of his classes. This is what I found myself stuck on in this project.

Not that the technology should necessarily dictate the ideas, but that the technologies should help you change the way you think about presenting history to the public. For instance, at the fairly new Lincoln Library, BRC Imagination Arts is doing amazing things with what they have termed Holavision to make the history interact with the public, including an 'hologram' of Abraham Lincoln. I was particularly intrigued by Prof. Turkel's vision (and Prof. Robert MacDougall's revisionist version) of the History appliance. This is when the possibilities of what it means for technology to interact with the public started to come across.

While technology should free, not limit the ideas, at the same time I will be limited by it because I am not skilled enough (yet) to make it do all the things I would like it to; so I shall ask not what the technology can do for me, but instead what I can do with the technology. At the same time that is quite a bit. I have been toying with the idea of projecting something, like historic apparel, that people could walk into and pretend that they are wearing. Or maybe I could make a 3D model of a Viking Ship (though my gut tells me someone may have beat me to the punch), or maybe one of a local historic building. I may yet do one of these things, we shall see how things go. Or maybe I could make a map.

I was definitely stuck. It was my colleague, Catherine Caughell, who suggested, hey, you re helping set up an exhibit, why not make something for that. And that, of course, brings me back to map, as the title of that seminar, as has been stated, is Mapping Medievalism. Therefore, if it is possible, I am going to be trying to create something appropriate for that exhibit. That will give me a few extra incentives, including trying to take into account what would be appropriate for the exhibit, and designing it to suit a specific audience. Not that it will necessarily be put in the exhibit, but perhaps if I am able to fake confidence long enough it might turn into something worthwhile. Also, it gives me license to do a map, which my brain was clearly set on.

Some initial thoughts on that project would include digitizing maps that are going to be part of the exhibition (and ones that aren't, but that are relevant to the topic and are available), making them zoom-able, and then locating the maps on a larger map of Canada, so that someone would select the geographic region to see the smaller maps. It would also include some information from the exhibition represented spatially, in a way that is not obvious in the exhibit. I am not sure if I could accomplish this with a screen that you could touch, so that you touch the map to access the information you want, or whether I would go larger and have someone stand back with something more like a remote or a mouse, and access the information that way.

I do not yet know how I will do this. Something in my mind is saying SMART Board, but I am not sure that is the way to go, or if that would be appropriate for what I am envisioning. Nor am I sure that this is what I will do, or that it is worth doing. The map idea still seems a little ... 2D, I suppose is the word, and not quite pushing the limits of what is possible. Then again, this would not be an ordinary map. Again, to be clear, this is not the project that I am doing for Mapping Medievalism, this is what I could be doing in Interactive Exhibit Design. It just happens that I might be able to help the former with something I am already doing in the latter, especially if I was going to be doing a map anyway. If I find it is not useful to mesh these two then I won't, likewise if my professors or colleagues find some of my other ideas more interesting, but for now I like the idea of trying to design with a purpose and an audience, even if the audience is not guaranteed.

So here we go.

Also, I apologize for that horrendous 'ask not what your country ..' joke a few paragraphs back. Had to be said (though many may disagree), and if you can't be cheesy in your blog when can you (implied, never)?

Academic projects: future and ongoing ... and going, and going and going.

2010-01-12T13:08:00.000-08:00

I would like to echo my colleagues in Public History's sentiments about coming back to school for another semester. This semester has a lot to live up to; but where last semester we lay a lot of foundations for an understanding of public history, this semester my colleagues and I are setting out to be a part of it. In our core course we will be undertaking some cataloging of the University of Western Ontario's sports collection and learning how to write history for the public, in addition to preparing our heritage district (the Talbot/Ridout area of London Ontario) information for exhibition and finishing our lesson plans for EcoKids. This is just the basics, projects that are common to all of us, but since we are not all that common we are also doing different classes/projects in addition to the Public History Core.

In particular, I, like many of my colleagues, am undertaking the Interactive Exhibit Design class with Bill Turkel, where I will be attempting to build something. Like many academics I don't have much experience with my hands unless you count typing, so it is going to be an adventure. Another adventure that I am undertaking is with the Visual Arts department. I have joined a special seminar entitled 'Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier'run by Prof. Katherine Brush. This project will also involve an exhibition, as well as a publication and a symposium.

These last two projects in particular are going to be large and ongoing. While I will try and mention my other projects, I am going to keep track of my progress on my interactive exhibit and my project for Mapping Medievalism through my blog, and also, if I have anything that is too large or inappropriate for my blog I will post a link to the information which I will post on my website. I am looking for feedback and ideas, in addition to trying to keep track of my progress.

All in all, this is going to be a fascinating semester.

Rune ...ish Art at Western.

2009-12-15T20:16:00.000-08:00

There is a piece of art outside the McIntosh Gallery on the University of Western Ontario Campus that catches my eye every time I go by.

I wanted to explain at least to my colleagues why I made them stand outside in the cold while I asked the curator Catherine Shaw about it. She told me that the artist had meant to represent pathways, and ancient peoples, and that, probably, runestones had been part of the inspiration.

So this is the piece outside of the gallery:

That real runestones are the inspiration for this art makes sense. They are most abundant in Sweden, though they can be found elsewhere, and they are typically along the pathways, and at cross roads. They often commemorate someone, though they are not grave markers per se. Many of them have a serpentine pattern in which the runes are written. Here are a couple of examples that are now located in University Park around the University Museum in Uppsala, so that you can see the similarities.

This stone says 'Holmfast had the stone erected in memory of Igulger, his father, and Torbjörn.' It is from the 11th century and was found in 1910 in a corner of present-day Gamla Torget. You can see the serpentine pattern, and the resemblance to the other piece.

This stone is also from the 11th century and says 'Tägn and Gunnar had the stones erected in memory of Väder, their brother.' In Fanbo parish east of Uppsala are three more rune stones erected in memory of members of the same family.

This third stone was also from the 11th century, and is unusual because it commemorates a woman; 'Gillög had the bridge made for her daughter Gillög’s soul, the wife of Ulf. Öpir cut (the runes).'

My information has come from Jack Ammerman's site on the Hartford Seminary Library webpage.

Honourable Mentions

2009-12-15T19:22:00.000-08:00

In a move of complete narcissism, I would like to encourage people to read the recently published Becoming Byzantine: Children and Childhood in Byzantium, published by Dumbarton Oaks this year. In particular, there is an essay entitled 'Children in Byzantine Monasteries: Innocent Hearts or Vessels in the Harbor of the Devil?' by Professor Richard Greenfield. It argues, that while children were not supposed to be part of monasteries, for their own benefit but mostly because they are temptations sent by the devil, they were more common than the authorities on the matter would have you believe.

I helped Prof. Greenfield with some of his research in 2005, which is why it is entirely narcissistic of me to mention it. But I had some interesting experiences during my first try as a research assistant.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I read through about six saints' lives, combing them for instances of children. The texts were all translated from the original Greek into either English or French. It took me about a month to a month and a half to get through them on top of my school work.

The less enjoyable bit, as it is for most researchers, is the eternal search for funding. Having been turned down for work study because I didn't have enough debt, I went out looking for ways to increase my debt. Once I did I went back to the work study guy to show him my new found debt, he said that he didn't really mean that kind of debt. I may or may not have broke down in tears in front of him I was so angry. I finally went to the professor and said 'well, I can't get work study, but mostly I really want to do this, so if you'll let me, I'll do it for free.' Nice man that he was, he found a different way to pay me. And even nicer, the publication has my name in a footnote. This is the first time my name has appeared in a proper book. I am rather hoping it won't be the last.

Sitting on my fence post, chewing my bubblegum..

2009-12-15T17:17:00.000-08:00

In Grade 12 I was asked to write a paper for my Early Modern History Class. The topic was the French Revolution, and you could choose to write either on how ideology was the cause of the French Revolution, or how the conditions in which the working class/rural peasantry lived caused it. I passed in a paper that said that the two were both equally necessary, and equally dependent on each other as causes of the French Revolution. My teacher wrote on it 'I guess that is an opinion, but it's not really what I asked.'

I am a notorious fence sitter. Turns out a program in public history is just what I needed. Everywhere we turn we are surrounded by equally true, yet usually mutually exclusive truths. That has been my experience during my first foray into Digital History, and my experience throughout the Public History program.

One of the fundamental contradictory truths we must deal with are the two ways of knowing that we must now contend with. The internet has not only revolutionized the way that we are given information, but it has also changed the way that we receive information. How then do we join the tradition of historical interpretation up to this point. We now train ourselves in the traditional ... tradition of history, so that we can be well-versed in the historiography that has come before. But we must also train ourselves in this new way of presenting information, otherwise we run the risk of becoming irrelevant to future generations. We agree that the book is not going anywhere, but we are also convinced that the internet is here to stay. Therefore we must now walk the line between the two, and to be good in both kinds of epistemology we not only have to be versed in both, but the nature of academia and historical scholarship will have to change.

Going back to an earlier blog, the theme of both scarcity and abundance have come up time and time again. It is true that the majority of the things on the internet are ephemeral and transitional in some way; they can be added to all the time, or changed, like on Wikipedia. It is easily changed and it is also easily erased. People still recommend that you should print out something that is important to you, because you could lose it. This is all true, but it is also true that if there is something that you would actually like to erase it is very difficult to eradicate all traces of it. Just take the personal information that was gathered and posted by AOL; though it was eventually taken down it is almost impossible to get rid of. Even now there are still mirror sites linking you to the information. And many things have been saved to the Internet Archive. Not only that, since now everything can be posted to the internet, even if some of the individual things are transitional or temporary, the information that is conveyed by those documents persists and there is now so much good information on so may subject that now historians will have to be extremely specialized, or very broad to do justice to their sources, which was not the case before. That is another interesting case of two equally true yet mutually exclusive truths.

A case of two competing ideologies, both with some validity, is seen in the debate between open source and closed source theories behind the web. For us as modern historians we must both operate in the closed source environment which has already been established, and it is through those already established channels we have to operate to be taken seriously. Yet, we must also be on the forefront of the open source movement, again so that we can be most relevant to the public (possibly more of a concern to public historians than to academic historians) and so that in the future the powers that be will be more motivated to choose open source over closed source options. (Yes I have a bias, and yes it may be a direct result of my digital history class).

Another case of two equally true yet mutually exclusive truths is that collective intelligence is both smarter and more stupid than the individuals who make up that collective. When you make things not only open source, but interactive, like wikipedia, you run into the problem that anyone can contribute to it. But of course, by the same token, anyone can contribute to it, making it so that people can build upon the foundations of everyone else's thought. A lot of interesting work, like with the I Like Bees experiment, has been done on getting the collective intelligence to work. They prove that a lot can be accomplished, but they also seem to involve heavy guidance by a few key intelligent individuals/architects. Therefore both that the collective is smarter and that it is more stupid than the individual is true, but there is no solution to that dichotomy.

It is not just digital history, as I say I come across this as well in my other Public history classes. When the historians dictate to the public which history they should be interested, and how inclusive it should be, and what high brow culture is, this is very clearly elitist. However, to do the 'old, dead, white man's history' is also a problem, though it may be what people are interested in, and can also be considered to be 'elitist.'

Museums are considered to be shying away from their mandate if they spend a lot of money to put on high profile shows, especially ones that are corporate sponsors. Some have even questioned whether or not a corporate museum should be counted as a 'museum,' but museums too must deal with the question of relevance, and by putting on high profile shows and accepting corporate sponsorship they are often better able to serve the audience that they are aiming at, the 'masses' (which is a loaded word in itself) and all aspects of the community. If it appeals to only other historians than it is not that useful. Therefore it is true that museums should stick to their mandate, but it is also true that their mandate is also to serve their community (and their community often wants contradictory things).

For those of you who were not familiar with it (I don't know, maybe it is a song only sung by people in Southern Ontario, and only when they are part of Girl Guides; a part of my history, but anyway) the reference in the title is to a song called Herman the Worm. The premise of the song is that you spend your time sitting pleasantly on your fence post, and wait for your friend Herman the Worm to come and tell you that the reason he is so much larger than the last time you saw him is because he has yet again eaten another member of his family. This continues until finally he comes to you as a very skinny worm. Turns out he exploded. And if you were wondering I write differently in my blog than I would for any other audiences, yes I do. When reflecting on this year so far, I couldn't help but think of fence-sitting, and when I think of fence sitting I always associate it with this song. If Herman were in fact history, which continues to encompass related disciplines and expand the tools that we use as historians, we will have to take an active role in making sure it doesn't blow up on us. And on that very strained metaphor,

Have a Merry Christmas Everyone.

(Some of the links are to particular sites or articles, but most are to the relevant week/readings that caused the discussion that caused me to come to the conclusions I come to)

Data Mining in Snorri's Prose Edda

2009-12-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

Written by Snorri Sturluson in the last half of the 13th century, this text, the Poetic Edda, and our collection of Norse poetry comprise the bulk of our knowledge about the 'mythology' of the Old Norse. Snorri wrote his text, not only so that some of the old stories could be preserved, but so that this type of poetry and storytelling would be better understood and also preserved for posterity.

The fact that the bulk of the text is about gods and goddesses is not news, nor does one have to be an expert in Norse literature or the Prose Edda to know that. However, I do think that once a lot of the medieval documents, both manuscripts and the many different textual editions that have appeared over the years, data mining will be a useful tool, not only to those of us who are trying to become experts, but to those who already are. It will be particularly useful when comparing different editions of the same text, as it will be very easy to see how many authors/translators have differently interpreted one section, and what language they have chosen to use in the translation. I did not think to undertake anything so ambitious. I thought I would just see what a newbie could find out about the place of gods and goddesses in the text, and what a very simple kind of analysis might yield.

In this case, I used a text that was available on Project Gutenberg. It was much easier to read the HTML version, though the other versions which show what the actual physical book looked like could be used to look at the placement of words on the pages, and so could be used to take the analysis a step further than anything I had attempted.

I chose to look at one of these texts, not only out of personal interest, but also because taking something that was originally in another language, I felt perhaps the use of certain vocabulary in the text could not only tell you something about the original work, but might also tell you the differences in thought pattern between English translators and translators in other ancient or modern languages. I decided that I would see what I could find out if I looked at the instances of the word 'god' in the Snorri's Prose Edda, as translated in 1897 by Rasmus B. Anderson. In that way I can see what the text is telling me, keeping in mind that there will be an overlay of 19th century scholarship. This can be seen especially in the extracts that have been chosen from the text, they are heavy on the mythology and if things are left out it is more of the instruction about how to write the poetry.

And, despite the rudimentary nature of my data mining I still found out things that were interesting about at least Rasmus's version of this text. I used the Concordance tool on Project TaPor. The first thing I found out is that the there are only 57 instances of the word 'god' in the text, but there are 155 instances of the word 'gods'. This makes sense, as you use the vocabulary to describe them as a whole, and that if they are talked about individually you might use their name. In face most of the instances of just 'god' are in the glossary at the end of the text. Likewise, there are 15 instances of the word 'goddesses,' but there are only 11 instances of the word 'goddess,' and mostly that is in the glossary. It comes as no surprise that there are more instances of the word god than goddess, but it is interesting that goddesses is usually part of the phrase 'the gods and goddesses,' and that they are not always part of the generic 'gods' when Snorri is describing the actions of the whole group. And the fact that they are used mostly at the beginning fits with the nature of the text, as that is more heavy on mythology and less about textual construction.

If I were doing a broad project about mythology this would be incredibly useful, because then I would know where to start reading, and that the first section of the text is the most useful. However, for anyone who knows anything about the text this is not really new, and reading the text straight through would lead you to the same conclusion. What is the best selling point for me is that, once you have read the text and made a conclusion or a thesis, you would not have to re-read the whole thing to pick out all the instances or evidence. Instead you use this tool to lead you to the location of the evidence, and then you mine it out, and use it in your essay.

The picture above is from the Penguin Edition, much newer than the one found on Project Gutenberg.

'What good is it ...

2009-12-15T16:01:00.000-08:00

... if no one ever sees it,' is what I asked myself. So for followers of ... well ... me, this is the website that I have been working on ... about me. Took me longer than my colleagues to get it up on my blog, but it made it here eventually.

It's beginning to look a lot like shopping

2009-11-17T20:40:00.000-08:00

The year is 1913, and Christmas is rolling around once again, and I, an avid reader, am flipping through the Eaton's Catalogue, as I am wont to do, looking at the books section and compiling my wish list. Wishing to be well read in the upcoming year I think I will ask Santa for a book from several of the different categories. Why not, I am worth it.

I have actually been known to do this, though typically it is with the Sears Catalogue in our modern times, not because I actually expected to get anything off that list, but because it was fun. On a slightly related note, here is an interesting website I found archiving old Sears Catalogues.

This time, instead of waiting for Santa to bring me the books that might have interested me in 1913 and 1914 I have decided to take matters into my own hands, and see which I might get for free as digitized copies off of the internet. Take that commercialism of Christmas.

The catalogue itself can be found on the Internet Archive, which proved to be an interesting and reliable source for many of these early books. The first section of books was entitled "A Page of Big Values in Bibles, Prayers and Hymn Books," but since my 1913 family (who inexplicably has access to the internet) already has a great deal of those I didn't investigate too much further. In fact, for interests sake, in this exercise I mostly stuck to titles that I did not already know, and did not think would be ubiquitous, first because those with really popular or general titles will no doubt give you an edition of the text, but it may not be the edition that was offered in the 1913 Eaton's Catalogue. That is not to say that they might not be the same, or that all of what I found were the actual editions as listed in the catalogue, but I did want to try for titles that were unfamiliar to me.

In the section "A Page of Books at Money-Saving Prices" there was a collection of medical books. I was unable to find a copy of Dr. Gunns Family Physician and Home Book of Health, though there are many antique booksellers that do possess a copy. There seem to be both earlier and later editions of this text. Nor was I able to find The Horse's Friend and Veterinary Advisor by Jas. Law, mostly because 'the horse's friend' is too broadly used a term. However, I was able to find Maternity without Suffering by Emma F. Angell Drake. This book was published in 1902, and it is listed in the catalogue for 60 cents.

In the section "The Best Cookbooks: Endorsed by High Authorities," I was not able to find Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book, mostly because she wrote other books which were apparently on a similar subject and took precedence over this book. I was, however able to find The Whitehouse Cookbook, written in 1887 by F.L. Gillette and Hugo Zieman. This book talks about cooking, toilet and household, recipes, menus etc. and is listed in the catalogue for 75 cents. The full text can be found on Project Gutenberg.

For "Good Books on Manners and Letter Writing" I actually had a lot of trouble finding a text, mostly, as with The Horse's Friend, this seemed to be because the terms for searching were just too broad. Manners and Rules of Good Society could be found on the Internet Archive , but only in incarnations that were published after the date of this catalogue.

In the "Mechanical Books for Home Study" section I searched for the Train Rules Catechism and could not find it, I expect once again because of the very general title. Instead I was able to find Light and Heavy Timber Framing made easy which was published in 1909, and is currently hosted by the Internet Archive. It was written by Frederick Thomas Hodgson, and the catalogue indicated it is one of Hodgson's better works, though they are trying to make a sale. It happens to be going for $1.75.

In the section " A List of Miscellaneous Books and Dictionaries" I was not able to find one of those titles, including Robinson's Book of Conundrums, Hands: How to Read Them, Mystic Dream Book (though I did find a 1937 version of this), Maple Leaf Reciter or Toasts (which was much too broad to be a valid search term).

Instead I found a series of books from the "A Page of Popular Books" section. On Wikipedia they have an excellent list of the Elsie Books, which are mentioned in the Catalogue, and also show you which of the books are freely available online. These books were published between 1867 and 1905. Most of the copies are hosted by Project Gutenberg. Each Elsie book is listed in the catalogue for 17 cents.

I was unable to locate the two titles I did not know from the section "Books for Young People," that is Animal Stories for Little People (again because the search terms were broad) and Wood's Natural History (which was for sale, but I could not find a digitized copy). Most titles in this section I was quite familiar with, so I stayed away from them.

In the "High Class Recent Fiction" section I came across The Money Moon by Jeffrey Farnol from 1911. The Catalogue prices it at 50 cents. I was able to find the text in Google books.

From the "Well Known Novels Very Low Prices" section of the Catalogue I was able to find The Missing Bride by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth on Project Gutenberg. I was able to find it on Project Gutenberg and it is priced in the Catalogue at 25 cents.

Finally, from the "Big Value in Annuals and Children's Picture Books" section I was not able to find the Roosevelt Bear Books. However, I was able to find a copy of Little Lord Fauntelroy, though it is a modern reproduction of the text. I was able to find it on Google Books. The story was written by Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1886. In the catalogue it was 75 cents.

For this experiment my texts were all found on Google Books, the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg. However, the most interesting thing I found out was how effective the search engine of Google is at finding books online. One thing that the search engines were not good at however was getting a title that was similar in any way to everyday phrases, common websites, or was used in many different kinds of books. All my finds had very specific titles, which could only signify themselves and nothing else. Therefore, this is a lesson for future book and internet writing. be specific in your title.

Overall I was impressed with how many I could actually find, and in such a breadth of categories. So, Santa, looks like I am going to have to make you a new list, maybe with toys or from the extensive underwear collection in the catalogue, because so far Google has been doing your work for you.

Canadian Conceptions of the Viking/Native Conflict: Imposing Canada on the Narrative

2009-11-17T00:17:00.000-08:00

This paper was presented at the Trent-Carleton Graduate Student Conference in Canadian Studies, (Dis)Arming Canada: Protest, Conflict and (Un)Steady States, at Trent University in Peterborough Ontario on November 14, 2009. I chose to focus on the conflict between the Vikings and the Skraelings (natives) in the texts, and what tools historians have used to interpret this conflict. The issue of the historical content in the Vinland Sagas is one of the most discussed historiographical issues amongst North American scholars of the Viking Age. Many of these ideas will be further flushed out and expanded upon next semester for "Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier", the UWO Visual Arts Graduate seminar with Prof. Kathy Brush.

. . .

The two texts, Grœnlendinga saga or The Saga of the Greenlanders, and Eiriks saga rauða, or Eirik the Red’s Saga are among the Sagas of Icelanders, a collection of texts about the history of the Icelanders. <1> They are meant as legendary histories for the early settlers of Iceland. They are preserved in written form around the last half of the thirteenth century. These two texts are known as the Vinland Sagas because they detail the history of Eirik the Red and his family, who discover and name the lands known as Helluland, Markland, and Vinland among others around the year 1000 C.E. These events occurred at least 250 years before the sagas were written. There is evidence that suggests they were based in traditional oral histories. It is unlikely I will have to tell a room of Canadian historians et al. about some of the difficulties, despite the necessity, of using oral stories as history. However, the result of this tradition is a tale of several Viking expeditions that land in what we like to identify now as Canada. In the texts, when they arrive in Vinland they trade with, and ultimately come into conflict with the indigenous population. This is in fact the first conflict of which there is a written record that we can claim as a Canadian conflict. But historians have traditionally had difficulty with this source, because so many aspects of the documents call into question the truth of the tale. However, many who have believed these to be historical events have defended the texts passionately. One of the best tools to prove that these sagas are historical documents has been to take things that we know about Canada, or more broadly North America, and make that fit the text to show how it could have actually happened. This includes, most typically, imposing our geography on the geography described in the text. It also includes comparing the encounters, or conflicts, between the Skraelings (the Old Norse word for the indigenous people) and the Vikings with other encounters or conflicts recorded by the early 16th and 17th century European explorers. Unlike most of the conflicts that will be discussed here today, the actual conflict that occurred had little to no impact on the way that Canada or its people developed as a nation. Instead it is our conceptions of early Canadian conflicts, and of the geography of Canada which influences our understanding of this conflict.

Eirik the Red’s Saga and The Saga of the Greenlanders both tell us the story of the Vinland expeditions. Both tales involve many of the same characters, and they are about the same events, the same expeditions to Vinland, but there are some radical differences in the narrative, including different events and discrepancies in the number of trips made. The Saga of the Greenlanders is shorter, but it breaks the voyages into four distinct trips, while Eirik the Red’s Saga is longer and is more stylized, combining the same four voyages into two. <2> There is a lot that has been written about why this might be, and how that affects the history as it is represented in the text. However, for the purposes of this paper we are going to focus specifically on how each of them represents the interactions between the Skraelings and the Vikings, though much more could be said about the voyages at large as well as the historiography. <3>

Because it is less stylized, and includes fewer of the fantastic elements much, though not all, of the recent scholarship has seen The Saga of the Greenlanders as being more ‘historical.’ <4> In this particular text the first encounter with the Skraelings is during the second voyage which landed in Vinland. It is headed by Thorvald Eiriksson, Leif’s brother. To the west of Leif’s camp, which was established during the previous voyage, “they did find a wooden grain cover, but discovered no other work by human hands.” <5> Then they head east of Leif’s camp

[Thorvald] then spoke: ‘This is an attractive spot, and here I would like to build my farm.’ As they headed back to the ship they saw three hillocks on the beach inland from the cape. Upon coming closer they saw they were three hide-covered boats, with three men under each of them. They divided their forces and managed to capture all of them except one, who escaped with his boat. They killed the other eight and went back to the cape.

<6>
They then see that there are more settlements further up in that particular fjord. A voice warns Thorvald and his companions of an impending attack, so they prepare themselves. In the ensuing battle Thorvald is the only killed. The other members of the expedition go home. <7> Then Thorfinn Karlsefni, who is connected to the family by his marriage to Guðrid, who is under the protection of Eirik, makes the fourth voyage to Vinland. They too ran into the Skraelings;

after the first winter passed and summer came, they became aware of the Skraelings. A large group of men came out of the woods close to where the cattle were pastured. The bull began bellowing and snorting very loudly. This frightened the Skraelings, who ran off with their burdens, which included fur pelts and sable and all kinds of skins. … Neither group understood the language of the other. The natives then set down their packs and opened them, offering their goods, preferably in exchange for weapons, but Karlsefni forbade the men to trade weapons. He sought a solution by having the women bring milk products. Once they saw those products the Skraelings wished to purchase them and nothing else. The trading with the Skraelings resulted in them bearing off their purchases in their stomachs, leaving their packs and skins with Karlsefni and his companions. This done, they departed.

<8>
The second winter the Skraelings visit again but in greater numbers. During this time Guðrid is visited by a supernatural mimic, with pale skin and large eyes. When Guðrid is distracted by a noise the mimic disappears with a crack. “At that moment one of the Skraelings had been killed by one of Karlsefni’s servants for trying to take weapons from them, and they quickly ran off, leaving their clothes and trade goods lying behind. No one but Gudrid had seen the woman.” <9> They then make plans to ward off a Skraeling attack, using their bull as a scare tactic. During the course of the battle, one of the Skraelings picks up an axe, and uses it on one of his compatriots, killing him. The leader of the Skraelings takes it and throws it into the sea. It is then that the natives flee. After that winter the Vikings decide to go home.
Many of the episodes in Eirik the Red’s Saga are similar, however, the four expeditions are conflated into two, and it is Leif who merely investigates and Karlsefni that does all the exploring and naming of the new lands. When Karlsefni is at Hop, one of the bases they establish in Vinland, “early one morning they noticed nine hide covered boats, and the people in them waved wooden poles that made a swishing sound as they turned them around sunwise.” <10> They discuss what this means and decide that it means peace. The Vikings row to shore. The Skraelings “were short in height with threatening features and tangled hair on their heads. Their eyes were large and their cheeks broad.” <11> The next day they go back and there are many Skraelings waiting for them. There is a trading scenario nearly identical to that in The Saga of the Greenlanders, except that they trade increasingly small amounts of red cloth instead of milk. In this text also they forbid the trading of weapons with the Skraelings. Karlsefni’s bull then frightens the Skraelings away. The next day the natives come back, their paddles waving counter sunwise. This is a prelude to the battle, similar to the one in the Saga of the Greenlanders between Karlsefni’s men and the Skraelings. The Skraelings are much more menacing in Eirik the Red’s Saga; they “saw the Skraelings lift up on poles a large round object, about the size of a sheep’s gut and black in colour, which came flying up on the land and made a threatening noise when it landed. It struck great fear into Karlsefni and his men.” <12> An interesting part of this battle is the character of Freydis, who had her own voyage in the Saga of the Greenlanders. She follows the fleeing Vikings, but is slower since she is pregnant.

She followed them into the forest, but the Skraelings reached her. She came across a slain man, Thorbrand Snorrason, who had been struck in the head by a slab of stone. His sword lay beside him, and this she snatched up and prepared to defend herself with it as the Skraelings approached her. Freeing one of her breasts from her shift, she smacked the sword with it. This frightened the Skraelings, who turned and ran back to their boats and rowed away.

<13>
Many of the Skraelings were slain, though only two of Karlsefni’s men perished. The text says the multitude of Skraelings had been an illusion. There is then a similar episode to the axe episode in the previous text, however the Skraelings take turns trying to axe on wood, and instead they throw it away when one of them tries it on stone and the axe breaks. In this saga the text points out how the Vikings would always be under attack from this party, and it is for this reason that they decide to depart for home. There are a few interesting interludes on the way home however, including stopping to kill five Skraelings whom they find sleeping, because they guessed that they were outlaws. They also, as they sail along the shore, come across a one legged man, who darts down to the ship and kills one of the Vikings. Then “they soon left to head northwards where they thought they sighted the Land of the One-legged, but did not want to put their lives in further danger,” so decide not to land. <14> The very last interaction between the Skraelings and the Vikings, in Markland, one of the lands named by Karlsefni, they come across five Skraelings, and manage to kidnap two boys. The Skraelings are able to tell them a bit about the region, including the presence of a pale faced people who lived across from their own land. The two boys are brought to Greenland, and spend the winter with Eirik the Red. <15>

The similarities in the text are actually more striking than the differences between the two, and have more to do with the oral traditions of the texts. <16> It has been suggested that it could be two competing oral traditions stemming from the same source, or one could be based off the other but trying to accomplish a different aim. <17>

Some problems with using this text as an historical document are obvious. The history is compromised by the distance between the events and the writing down of the story. The texts themselves seem also to have a moral goal in mind, for instance the Saga of the Greenlanders, it has been argued, is a Christian exemplum for the descendants of Guðrid and Karlsefni. <18> This compromises the history in the text, because the events are slanted towards the moral goal. But there are more obvious problems, like the fantastic elements in the tales. In The Saga of the Greenlanders, Guðrid’s supernatural other is not real. Likewise in Eirik the Red’s saga the encounter with the uniped detracts from the other interactions portrayed in the text. In addition, when Freydis bears her breast to the attackers, this is clearly contrived. At the same time, they are less literary than other well known Sagas of Icelanders, like Njal’s Saga or Egil’s Saga, and so by comparison they seem more ‘historical.’ Because of this people have often tried to overcome the historical flaws in the Vinland sagas and to ground them in the Canadian, or more broadly the North American, historical tradition as well as the Medieval European historical tradition.

There are two major periods to the historiography of Vikings in North America. Really they have been as influenced by general trends in historical thought as any other subject, but there is a divide between pre and post discovery of the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows by Helge and Anne Ingsted. Before that there were a lot of false Viking discoveries in North America, but that is largely the only one that has been academically accepted as a true discovery. Therefore the scholarship is divided between that with and that without concrete proof, or the very early scholarship. Now we have a point of reference in the saga for the history that it purports to represent. However, the ways in which we use the evidence to prove that there were interactions with our native populations has not changed all that much since the discovery.

In fact it further complicates our interpretation of the historical grounding of these particular conflicts. As Birgitta Wallace points out, at L’Anse aux Meadows there is no evidence of there ever having been domesticated animals, which is a large part of this element of the story, particularly in The Saga of Greenlanders, where they trade milk with the natives. <19>

There are several ways in which our conception of Canada, or North America is used to interpret this as an Early European/Native conflict. Before L’Anse aux Meadows was discovered historians used the presence of indigenous populations in Canada and North America to point out that the tale is likely true. There was definitely someone here, so if you accept that the sagas are describing landings in North America the Skraelings are not an invention of some saga writer. The geography described in the Vinland Sagas is extensive, therefore it has been the most discussed point of historicity as people try to identify the places described with actual locations. Likewise for these conflicts historians use the surrounding description to try and identify the locations in which these conflicts took place. They then try and extrapolate what the actual nation, or which nation’s ancestors, the Skraelings might be. Even with the point of reference in Newfoundland there is a lot of debate about locations, so it is hard to define the people as well. The word Skraeling was used indiscriminately for different Native nations; it is mentioned in at least one other text, where it refers to the Inuit. <20> In this case, Richard Perkins argues that the Vikings may have not gotten further south than Labrador, which means that the nation they may have come into contact with would have been the Beothuk; but if the Vikings got as far south as the Gulf of Saint Lawrence then they may have run into the Mi'kmaq. <21>

Points in the story which seem similar to texts of early exploration are also used to justify the historicity of having met the native population here. The early accounts of Beothuk said they had a predilection for red cloth. Also, the story of the two boys who were kidnapped, parallels accounts like that of Jacques Cartier, who after his second voyage returned to France with Native captives. <22> It is also noteworthy that the people inferred in this way have no domesticated animals like the ones that the Vikings are said to have brought which scared the indigenous populations. In addition, their fascination with the axes is similar to later accounts of Native fascination with metal objects and European weaponry. This sort of reasoning is used before and after the discovery at L’Anse aux Meadows.

It is interesting because the location of Vinland in the scholarship often depends on the nationality of the scholar, determining whether it falls in modern Canadian borders or dips down behind the American border. I said before that the conflict had no direct impact on the future development of Canada. This was not entirely true when you think of the impact the landing made on the debate about the meaning and breadth of our own history, and its impact on our sense of self. It is easy for the pursuit of the history of this conflict to be driven by our impulse for nation building through the identification and exoneration of heroes, especially in the early historiography. For instance, from 1890, Marie Shipley tries to define the importance of the Norse accomplishments; “following out this conclusion, if it is indeed a matter of no importance whether the Norseman discovered America or not, it becomes equally unimportant whether Columbus discovered America or not, and the discovery of the western continent ceases to be one of the greatest of events.” <23> It may be that we use these interpretive tools too loosely as we try very hard to ground the saga, and the story of these early Skraeling/Viking interactions, in the Canadian historical tradition. Richard Perkins says “the fact that the perceived importance of Norse landings in America for the history of the continent has been enormously exaggerated, and the fact that it was argued that the Norseman (rather than, say, Christopher Columbus) discovered America, have led to unseemly dispute fuelled more by nineteenth- and twentieth-century-style nationalism than by scholarly debate based on any mature, long-term view.” <24> He does point out, however, that without this drive and notion of personal history not as much of the scholarship and varying debate and opinions would be left for us. <25> Historians would not want to discount the evidence of the sagas, especially in light of the archaeology at L’Anse aux Meadows and any other true archaeological finds in North America. Therefore, the closest we will come to understanding this conflict is by using these tools, this conception of other aspects of Canada including our history and our geography, which will if nothing else, tell us in what ways the tale could be true.

Endnotes

<1> Because of the intended audience for this paper I have chosen to use the anglicized versions of the names and titles in the sagas.
<2>Erik Wahlgren. ‘Fact and Fancy in the Vinland Sagas.’ Old Norse Literature and Mythology. ed. by Edgar C. Polomé. Texas: University of Texas Press (1969), p. 28. These are the four voyages that actually land in Vinland. There are more voyages that never make it to those shores.
<3>In this paper I use the Vinland Sagas edited by Halldór Hermannson, and the translation of Keneva Kunz. However, because translating Skraeling as Native is in itself an interpretation, I changed all the mention of ‘natives’ in the text back to Skraeling, so that there is a further distinction between the literary people and the actual nations that lived in Canada at that time.
<4>Wahlgren, p. 28.
<5>Keneva Kunz ‘The Vinland Sagas: The Saga of the Greenlanders; Eirik the Red’s Saga’, in The Sagas of Icelanders Toronto: Penguin Books (2001), p. 642. “fundu þeir kornhjálm af tré. Eigi fundu þeir fleiri mannaverk” Halldór Hermannson ed.. The Vinland Sagas. Islandica Vol. 30 New York: Cornell University Press (1944), p. 53.
<6>Kunz, p. 642. “hann mælti þá: ‘Hér er fagrt, ok hér vilda ek bœ minn reisa.’ Ganga síðan til skips ok sjá á sandinum inn frá hǫfðanum þrjár hæðir ok fóru til þangat ok sjá þar húðkeipa þrjá ok þrjá menn undir hverjum. Þá skiptu þeir liði sínu ok hǫfðu hendr á þeim ǫllum, nema einn komsk í braut með keip sinn. Þeir drepa hina átta ok ganga síðan aptr á hǫfðann” Hermannson, p. 53.
<7>Kunz, p. 643.
<8>Kunz, p. 647. “Eptir þann vetr inn fyrsta kom sumar. Þá urðu þeir varir við Skrælinga, ok fór þar ór skógi fram mikill flokkr manna. Þar var nær nautfé þeira, en graðungr tók t belja ok gjalla ákafliga hátt; en þat hræddusk Skrælingar ok lǫgðu undan með byrðar sínar, en þat var grávara ok safali ok alls konar skinnavara … Hvárigir skilðu annars mál. Þá tóku Skrælingar ofan bagga sína ok leystu ok buðu þeim ok vildu vápn helzt fyrir; en Karlsefni bannaði þeim at selja vápnin. Ok nú leitar hann ráðs með þeim hætti, at hann bað konur bera út búnyt at þeim; ok þegar er þeir sá búnyt, þá vildu þeir kaupa þat en ekki annat. Nú var sú kaupfǫr Skrælinga, at þeir báru sinn varning í brott í mǫgum sínum, en Karlsefni ok fǫrunautar hans hǫfðu eptir bagga þeira ok skinnavǫru. Fóru þeir við svá búit í burt.” Hermansson, p. 57.
<9>Kunz, p. 647. “ok í því var ok veginn einn Skrælinga af einum húskarli Karlsefnis, því at hann hafði vilijað taka vápn þeira. Ok fóru nú í brott sem tiðast, en klæði þeira lágu þar eptir ok varningr. Engi maðr hafði konu þessa sét utan Guðriðr ein” Hermansson, p. 57.
<10>Kunz, p. 669. “Ok einn morgin snemma, er þeir lituðusk um, sá þeir mikinn fjǫlða húðkeipa, ok var veift trjám á skipunum, ok lét því líkast sem í hálmþúst, ok var veift sólarsinnis” Hermnasson, p. 24.
<11>Kunz, p. 670. “váru svartir menn ok illilegrir ok hǫfðu illt hár á hǫfði. Þeir váru mjǫk eygðir ok breiðir í kinnum” Hermansson, pg. 25.
<12>Kunz, p. 670. “[Þat sá þeir Karlsefni,] at Skrælingar fœrðu upp á stǫng knǫtt stundar mikinn því nær til at jafna sem sauðarvǫmb ok helzt blán at lit ok fleygðu af stǫnginni upp á landit yfir lið þeira Karlsefnis ok lét illilega viðr þar sem niðr kom. Við þetta sló ótta miklum á Karlsefni ok allt lið hans” Hermansson, p. 26.
<13>Kunz, p. 671. “gekk hon þó eptir þeim í skóginn. En Skrælngar sœkja at henni. Hon fann fyrir sér mann dauðan; þar var Þorbradr Snorrason, ok stóð hellustein í hǫfði honum. Sverðit lá bert í hjá honum. Tók hon þat upp ok býsk at verja sik. Þá koma Skrælingar at henni. Hon dró þá út brjóstit undan klæðunum ok slettir á beru sverðinu. Við þetta óttask Skrælingar ok hlupu undan áskip ok reru í brott” Hermansson, p. 26.
<14>Kunz, p. 672. “þeir fóru þá í brott ok norðr aptre ok þóttusk sjá Einfœtinaland. Vildu þeir þá eigi hætta liði sínu lengr” Hermansson, p. 28.
<15>Kunz, p. 673.
<16>Kunz, p. 631.
<17>Wahlgren, p. 28.
<18>Geraldine Barnes. Viking America: The First Millenium. Cambridge: D.S Brewer (2001), p. 32.
<19>Birgitta Linderoth Wallace. ‘L’Anse aux Meadows and Vinland: An abandoned Experiment’. Contact, Continuity, and Collapse; The Norse Colonization of the North Atlantic. ed. by James H. Barrett, Studies in the Early Middle Ages; Centre for Medieval Studies University of York, V. Belgium: Brepols Publishers (2003), p. 222.
<19>Richard Perkins. ‘Medieval Norse visits to America: millennial stocktaking’. Saga Book: Viking society for Northern Research, 28 (2004), p. 60. The other text is by Ari Thorgilsson, and it describes the discovery of Skraeling artifacts in Greenland. Perkins suggests they are the Dorset Inuit.
<20>Perkins, p. 60.
<21>Perkins, p. 61.
<22>Perkins, pp. 60-61.
<23>Marie Shipley. The Icelandic Discoverers of America or Honor to Whom Honor is Due. New York: John B. Alden (1890), p. 2.
<24>Perkins, p. 30.
<25>Perkins, pp. 29-66.

Bibliography

Baitsholts, Kenneth. ‘Humour, Irony, and Insight: the first European accounts of Native North Americans’. Vinland Revisited: The Norse at the Turn of the First Millenium: Selected Papers from the Viking Millenium International Symposium, 15-24 September 2000, Newfoundland and Labrador. ed. by Shannon Lewis-Simpson. St John’s: Historic Sites Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, Inc. (2000), pp. 365-376

Barnes, Geraldine. Viking America: The First Millenium. Cambridge: D.S Brewer(2001)

Hermannson, Halldór ed.. The Vinland Sagas. Islandica Vol. 30. New York: Cornell University Press (1944)

Kunz, Keneva. ‘The Vinland Sagas: The Saga of the Greenlanders; Eirik the Red’s Saga’. Örnólfur Thorsson ed.The Sagas of Icelanders. Toronto: Penguin Books (2001), pp. 626-674

Larsson, Mats G.. ‘The Vinland sagas and the actual characteristics of Eastern Canada: some comparisons with special attention to the accounts of the later explorers’. Vinland Revisited: The Norse at the Turn of the First Millenium: Selected Papers from the Viking Millenium International Symposium, 15-24 September 2000, Newfoundland and Labrador. ed. by Shannon Lewis-Simpson. St John’s: Historic Sites Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, Inc. (2000), pp. 391-398

Perkins, Richard. ‘Medieval Norse visits to America: millennial stocktaking’. Saga Book: Viking society for Northern Research, 28 (2004) 29-69

Rowe, Elizabeth Ashman. The development of Flateyjarbók : Iceland and the Norwegian dynastic crisis of 1389. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark (2005)

Shipley, Marie. The Icelandic Discoverers of America or Honor to Whom Honor is Due. New York: John B. Alden (1890)

Wahlgren, Erik. ‘Fact and Fancy in the Vinland Sagas’. Old Norse Literature and Mythology. ed. by Edgar C. Polomé. Texas: University of Texas Press (1969), pp. 19-80

Wallace, Birgitta Linderoth. ‘L’Anse aux Meadows and Vinland: An abandoned Experiment’. Contact, Continuity, and Collapse; The Norse Colonization of the North Atlantic. ed. by James H. Barrett, Studies in the Early Middle Ages; Centre for Medieval Studies University of York, V. Belgium: Brepols Publishers (2003), pp. 207-238

Robin Hood: A man of many media .... and a merry one at that

2009-11-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

The figure of Robin Hood has been adapted to so many different medias it makes sense that his presence on the internet is as ubiquitous as in any other format. Something about this 'historical' outlaw has captured the imagination of so many individuals, including myself, as is evident from the unhindered glee apparent on my face in the above picture. The passion that he invokes really comes through in some of the websites dedicated to Robin Hood Studies; very few will present an objective enumeration of the facts. Most gush, but consequently have a great deal of information to offer. I am going to try not to gush, but I would be lying if I claimed that I had no emotional connection to this particular topic.

This is meant as an introduction to Robin Hood Studies on the web, therefore the information provided will be rudimentary, but with many options on how one can find out more.

The Historical Robin Hood

More trouble to track down than the Merry Men's secret hideout, such a figure probably did not exist. There are however, many theories to the contrary. Outlaws, however, were very prevalent. In fact England in particular prided itself on its outlawry. Terry Jones has a series on the BBC, and consequently a book, that talks about different medieval stereotypes. One of these stereotypes is that of the outlaw. This is an excellent series, and an excellent book. According to Terry Jones the outlaw was a popular figure in England partly because it was a great deal more appealing than standing trial in many cases, and also because the unique style of justice imposed by Henry II meant that there may have been too many laws. Here the contact between ruling Normans and conquered Anglo-Saxons does come into play, though it should be taken with a grain of salt. The story that is passed down to us moderns incorporates the romancing of an ancient past, and the overly heroic struggle of an oppressed people.
The stories of Robin Hood as we know it all involve the triumphant return of the good King Richard, who takes the throne back from the evil Prince John. This plays on the history of the time, but it is romanticized, like the Norman/Anglo-Saxon conflict. It should be noted that King Richard spent almost all of his rule on crusade, using taxes to finance his campaigns and spending almost nothing on rule or public works. John, on the other hand, tried to re-centralize the kingdom, taking back some of the power from the lords who had been allowed to rule at their leisure while Richard was away. I would not call one evil or one good, but the history states that Prince John, who eventually became King John though the Robin Hood tale always ends before that happens, was more involved in local politics than King Richard ever was. There is a book by Frank McLynn called Richard and John: Kings at War. A good portion of this is on Google Books. However, it should be noted that the earliest references to Robin Hood put him closer to the end of the 13th century, where as Richard and John ruled at the end of the 12th. Here is a link to the British Library's copy of the Magna Carta, the document, and 'accomplishment' that King John is most known for.

The Tales of Robin Hood

So Robin Hood know doubt grew from an amalgamation of stories that could be attributed to several medieval outlaws. Eventually the story would be influenced in turn by each generation that it passes through, creating the legend that we are more familiar with.
There are several good websites containing some of the original Robin Hood tales, including; http://www.boldoutlaw.com/ and http://benturner.com/robinhood/
It should be noted that many places claim Robin Hood, because early traditions put Robin Hood as often in the Barnsdale Forest as they do in Sherwood Forest. There are claims in Nottinghamshire and many in Yorkshire. Wikipedia has an excellent summary of where early references can be found.
The earliest references call Robin Hood a Yeoman, and more particularly he appears to be one of the King's foresters who perhaps did take his share from the King's Foresters. At this point the forest just means land that has been set aside for the King's hunts, a situation that developed with the arrival of the Normans. It is not until romantic ideals of chivalry take hold that we see Robin Hood becoming a noble, the Earl of Huntingdon. It is closer to this time that the stories begin to incorporate references to Maid Marian and Friar Tuck. It eventually became tradition that on May Day you would have a Robin Hood and a Maid Marian preside over the frivolities.
On the Index of Sacred Texts website there is a collection of 15th century Robin Hood ballads, starting with The Geste of Robyn Hode.
As was stated above, he is adapted for every generation, and represents what it is he needs to represent for each. He continues to show up in Literature; for instance is a character in Sir Walter Scott's novels, including Ivanhoe. The link here takes you to an edition of Scott's book. Books continue to be written that have Robin Hood as the main character, such as Robin Hood, by Antonia Fraser, which is the one I grew up with.

Film and Television

And so we adapt to him too, picking up where our literary predecessors left off. He first appears on screen in Robin Hood and his Merry Men, directed by Percy Stowe, in a silent film in 1908 (there is not much on the internet about this film yet). In film he goes on to have many incarnations, some of the most notable including Errol Flynn's role in The Adventures of Robin Hood, the Fox in Disney's Robin Hood (they have a live action version, The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men from the fifties as well which is thoroughly entertaining, but not of as much note), Kevin Costner in Prince of Thieves, Carey Elwes in Robin Hood:Men in Tights, and most recently Russell Crowe is set to play the part in the upcoming film directed by Ridley Scott.

In the upcoming film Robin will once again be re-interpreted based on our expectations. When I attended the International Congress on Medieval Studies at the University of Western Michigan this past summer I attended a panel on the upcoming film. Originally the title was going to be Nottingham, and it was going to make the Sherriff the good guy and Robin Hood the evil outlaw. However, this was scrapped because it put too much emphasis on authority, and it was felt to be inappropriate given that is was a representation coming out of the United States.

This is a clip someone has taken of them filming the new movie off the coast of Wales. It truly speaks of Ridley Scott's style. I thought that the addition of the 'Living Daylights' theme song was a nice touch.

The most recent television incarnation has been the BBC's Robin Hood. They are currently on their third, and I believe final series. That Robin Hood they reinterpreted for the modern age. First of all, they look cool, and have rather obviously modern hairstyles. But more importantly added to Robin's gang was Jack, the Muslim woman, and much of the focus was on whether or not Robin thought the crusades were really the right thing.
But there have been others. My father used to always tell me about watching The Adventures of Robin Hood on tv, and how right in the middle of the show they would cut away to an arrow flying through the air. It would hit a tree, and an announcer would say 'brought to you by Johnson's and Johnson's baby powder.' For some reason my father thought this was hysterical. It kind of is. This one says Wildroot Cream Oil, which is less funny I think. This was the series from the fifties.
There have been quite a few incarnations, mostly in England. In the eighties in Robin of Sherwood they had a Robin Hood who was more mystical, having been given a sacred charge by religious forces that predated Christianity.
And of course, my personal favourite, Rocket Robin Hood.

Wikipedia has a good list of Robin Hood, as he appears in film and television. It is quite a long list, as he still seems to be able to capture our imaginations in a rather singular way.

Robin Hood Studies

But as he is ubiquitous he is more than easily the subject of whole units of study. In fact what prompted this study was this blog post on medievalists.net, about the conference that happened two weeks ago at the University of Rochester. At the University of Rochester is Professor Thomas Hahn, the scholar who founded the International Association for Robin Hood Studies in 1997, and on the Rochester Website there are excellent resources, including a digital archive, and a link to other Robin Hood resources on the web.
In addition, the University of Nottingham offers a one year MA in Robin Hood Studies. You could, therefore, be fully trained as a follower of Robin Hood, a Merry man if you will.

Other sources for Robin Hood

As you can see when you look at the list of Robin Hood references in movie and television that is on Wikipedia, they have a separate list for places where Robin Hood is mentioned in another show. Likewise, because he is everywhere, there are many ways to study Robin Hood by looking at things where Robin Hood is not the focus, just a part of the interpretation. For instance, in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire there are many places that trade off of the Nottingham legend, though there main focus is something else. Sherwood forest, for instance, has many different parks and preservation projects, but draws on the local legend for support. If you go looking he is everywhere.

I will leave you with this., the least scholarly of my observations about the use of Robin Hood in modern culture. This one is fairly removed from Robin Hood. This is the song written by Roger Miller for Disney's animated Robin Hood. During the opening credits, listen to the Rooster's song.

This is the hamster dance song. Now imagine the first song sped up, and add some dance beats behind it.It is the same song!

See, if you look for Robin Hood, you are sure to find him.

Tags; Robin Hood, Medieval Ballads, Outlaws, English Literature, English History, University of Rochester

Scholasticism, Cynicism and the Optimist: I like Christmas!

2009-10-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Everybody relax, I know it is not that time yet. But I did feel the time has come, and I have a confession to make. This is very hard for me to say. I like Christmas. Yes, yes I do. I love the lights, and the food and the baking and the shopping and the wrapping and the festival spirit around it. I particularly love the Rankin and Bass clay-mation specials that come on every year.

But I am not (very) naive, or stupid. I am aware that the holidays are a hard time for most, because it is a lot of pressure put on people, and they feel their losses more keenly, or they are disgusted by the commercialism, or they simply hate the politics of gift giving. Not only that, the great hullabaloo made over Christmas often seems threatening to those who don't celebrate it.

So I feel guilty about loving it. And I do, I love the whole season. Apparently I was supposed to grow out of it. Apparently I shouldn't want to send my friends christmas cards, first because it is hokey, and second because it will only make those receiving them feel more undue pressure.

I would call myself a silver-lining person. I am always happy with a plan b, and I can always see the good, or joy in the things I am doing. This is very annoying to some of my more cynical friends.

I am so silver-lining that I see the absolute need for a cynical approach. The need for direct criticism is important for pointing out injustices, for fighting to make things better, and for questioning the intentions of authority. And the cynical approach is the norm in academia, as it should be, because you question motivations in texts and analyze biases. This is all very important.

However, today in museology we talked about Blockbuster exhibits. Throughout the class we talked about the compromises a museum has to make to put on a Blockbuster and the oftentimes minimal reward that the museum gets out of it. I wanted so badly to defend the Blockbuster but found myself mostly without a proper argument. Some of the critics of the Blockbuster exhibit said one of the problems was that it conveyed an improper sense of history and culture, and that it appealed to the lowest common denominator (which is a whole other set of issues). I also have to admit that some of my favourite exhibitions have been about movie artifacts, because I am a movie buff. I remember going to the Lord of the Rings Exhibition in Toronto and going through twice with my friend because there were not that many people there that day.

And I think this is some of the problem that I find in the scholastic community. As a proper discerning, intelligent adult and historian I am not supposed to like the Blockbuster; nor am I supposed to like big budget hollywood films, cheesy pop music, anything made by Disney, historical films that are blatantly flawed, any movie that was based on a book, gangster rap, Dan Brown, Harry Potter, any type of consumerism, or really anything that has become popular. The problem is I like all these things.

Perhaps because of who I associate with and my connection to universities I often feel I am drowning in cynicism. However they keep making these things that I like (though it helps when you like most things). Somehow my likes and dislikes are connected in part to the popular zeitgeist; all new products are directed at me as the typical consumer.

I am not trying to say that people should like all those things, or that counter culture is a bad thing. The problem instead that I have is trying to define for myself some intellectual space; being okay with herd mentality, and trying to tease out the good that people derive from these popular movements, as opposed to just seeing the pitfalls and the bad. What need is it in them, and in me, that these popular trends satisfy? How can I be intelligent and like these things. Can my like for them be more than just my guilty pleasures? Why can't I have fun at, and maybe even look forward to, Christmas?

(Photo Above, my sister and I enjoying Christmas last year)

The Short Blog

2009-10-17T00:44:00.000-07:00

Despite the best of intentions, and all that I have read about an ever diminishing public attention span, and my own predilection for reading shorter blogs, I have a very hard time writing a short blog in which I say anything meaningful.
Case and point.

Marvel Comics and their Responsibility to History

2009-10-16T23:23:00.000-07:00

I am not well-versed in the Marvel Comic Universe. I am not un-versed per se, but I do not follow the story arcs, nor do I actually read the comics. Well, many of the comics; I get frustrated when they don't give me a conclusion so I don't start. But my father and I do bond over superheroes, as there is nothing I like better than a good superhero movie.

I, for what may be obvious reasons (see my profile), have a particular interest in Thor. At the moment they are trying to make a movie for nearly every Marvel hero. Even I know that they have to make a Thor movie before they can make the Avengers movie, because you can't have the Avengers without Thor.

What I find particularly interesting is that the movie has absolutely no obligation to the original Norse legends. Nope, instead it has obligations to the ever evolving comic strip and character as it was created by Stan Lee. I found this quote on Wikipedia: "[H]ow do you make someone stronger than the strongest person? It finally came to me: Don't make him human — make him a god. I decided readers were already pretty familiar with the Greek and Roman gods. It might be fun to delve into the old Norse legends.... Besides, I pictured Norse gods looking like Vikings of old, with the flowing beards, horned helmets, and battle clubs." [1] The television shows Hercules and Xena Warrior Princess almost had more obligations to the original history/literature because they were (very) loosely based on an original source. This is based on an even looser intermediary.

Nor would I really want the producers to get bogged down in the original mythology. None of the other Marvel heroes have this particular problem (that I can think of), and you are more likely to make historians and literary theorists upset if you try for original Thor and miss. Hard core comic book fans are going to be a tough enough audience to appease.

But a couple of interesting things about the original Stan Lee Thor (I don't know about his later incarnations); he does look a bit like a star in a Wagnerian opera, so kudos there, but that is really far from anything actually Old Norse. They do hit on some key points, like Heimdal, Odin, the Bifrost bridge and certainly Loki, but beyond that it is entirely the imagination of the prolific and thoroughly entertaining forces of Marvel.

However, some points about original Thor which make us all too willing to accept any of his incarnations in popular culture, save for a few places, like the portrait painted in the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson, the image of Thor is fluid and seems to have been different depending on the region. For instance, some areas seem to have had Thor as the primary deity, and others Odin, but our sources for this are flimsy. And because our sources are flimsy no historian/literary theorist would attempt a definitive Thor.

But because I am also engaged lately in trying to understand how the public perceives our history, most of me knows that the general populace is entirely aware that The Mighty Thor is another Stan Lee creation, loosely based on an Ancient Myth. The other part of me knows that for a great portion of that populace this will be their only exposure to that particular myth.

So I don't really know if the Marvel franchise should consider reviewing its responsibility to history as they make this movie; I've sort of landed on no, as it is not necessarily better for the myth, and because in the end it is faithfulness to the comic that counts. But that will have consequences.

And, since I do read a wee bit, what prompted this was I came across this comic. It is in the Marvel Comics Essential Thor, Vol. 1. When I came across it, trying to think about this instance in regards to the movie that they are making, and in reference to the original Norse history and mythology, was making my head hurt. Needless to say it is slightly veiled in irony.
Sorry for the poor quality, and the need for excessive zooming.

[1]Excelsior!: The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (Fireside, 2002; ISBN 0-684-87305-2), by Lee and George Mair}