This course is not currently offered, please contact the school or faculty of your program.

Course description

Vikings - bloodthirsty barbarians or skilled travellers and traders? This intensive course will explore one of history's most popular and controversial groups, the Vikings in Scandinavia, and their expansion in Europe and as far as the New World and the Middle East. Students will learn about Viking society, exploring themes such as paganism and conversion, Viking women, conflict and violence, and the causes of the Viking expansion. Students will also consider the representation of the Vikings throughout the ages and analyse how and why they have become so popular in entertainment and in some recent political cultures. Students will analyse the Vikings through a broad range of sources including runic inscriptions, material culture, ship building, and Icelandic sagas to gain an in-depth knowledge of a culture that made a mark on many great civilisations of the age. This course will be taught intensively with 26 hours of contact over 2.5 weeks in the Winter Teaching Period, with a mixture of short lectures and seminars/workshops.