Acknowledgements Publication of this volume was made possible by the generous support of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University, and the Ilex Foundation. The essays in this volume largely derive from presentations at the Aarhus Old Norse Mythology Conference held at Harvard University, 30 October–1 November 2013. The funding for the conference itself was provided by The Royal Gustav Adolf Academy, Uppsala; The Provostial Fund at Harvard University; and… Read more
Preface: Situating Old Norse Mythology in Comparative Contexts Pernille Hermann, Stephen Mitchell, and Jens Peter Schjødt The essays in this volume are centrally concerned with an all-too-apparent reality about the study of pagan religions in Europe, namely, that the study of any mythology, especially archaic and only haphazardly recorded mythologies, requires careful assessment of sources and the attempt to reconstruct the “system” which is understood to… Read more
Foreword Joseph Harris, Harvard University Interest in the individual myths and the mythic systems of the pre-Christian North has traveled a varied way through highs and lows since the seventeenth century. The twenty-first continues a period of intense scholarly interest since, perhaps, the 1960s and in this volume renews and modernizes the comparative (and reconstructive) view that has been one of the main approaches for many… Read more
Series Foreword As he planned his famous study of the living tradition of oral epic singing in the Balkans in the 1930s, the prominent Harvard Classicist, Milman Parry, signaled the significance that the Old Norse field held in his mind when he noted that the results of his investigations would be of importance, not only for the study of Greek and South Slavic epic, but also for… Read more
Bibliography Adamson, Glenn. Thinking through Craft. New York: Berg, 2007. Ashby, Charlotte. “Nation Building and Design: Finnish Textiles and the Work of the Friends of Finnish Handicrafts.” Journal of Design History 23, no. 4 (2010): 351–365. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40958919. Bryan-Wilson, Julia. Fray: Art and Textile Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. Cixous, Hélène. “The Laugh of the… Read more
Appendices Appendix A: Glossary of Weaving Terminology [1] Batten: a mechanism for tightening the weave by pushing the newest line of weft into the fell of the cloth. This can be incorporated into the mechanics of the loom as a moving part containing the reed through which the warp is threaded, or may be a separate, comb like tool. Also known… Read more
Chapter Three Weaving Sisters: Feminism and the Subversive Stitch Within a patriarchal hierarchy of space, form, and voice, craft—and thus women’s art—is equated with amateurism. As curator and theorist Glenn Adamson critiques, there is a “lopsided scheme in which craft, often coded as feminine … is always seen as inferior to the hegemonic category of art.” This “disregard for [crafts] has been convincingly critiqued as one… Read more
Chapter Two The Finnish tradition, specifically, abounds with intersections in text, textile, and the feminine realm. Textile crafts are integral to Finnish culture, both traditionally and in the design-oriented Finland of today. Historically, all “women in all the northern countries knew how to weave cloth,” on looms “of that old-fashioned model, in which the warp is in an upright position.” [1] This… Read more
Chapter One The place of craft within the world of art is a dynamic discussion, a long-running debate that I cannot address in full. The very contentiousness of this debate, however, is testament to the complex nature of craft and how it subverts conventional categorization. Crafts spans a vast field of workmanship, techniques, materials, and traditions, and have been perceived by scholars to contribute to, to defy,… Read more
Introduction This project attempts to apply a poetics of weaving to literary analysis and the theatrical devising process. Taking my inheritance of weaving techniques, of the Finnish language, of family stories, and of the many cultures and experiences that have shaped who I am, I weave a story that is part of many traditions: the Kalevala stories and mythology of my maternal heritage, the rug weaving I… Read more
