Our next Great Courses Lecture Series is The Viking Age: New Perspectives on History and Culture. Join us each week on Wednesdays for a lecture and discussion at 2 pm on Zoom.
The Viking Age: New Perspectives on History and Culture paints a very different picture of the Vikings than we are used to. It shifts the focus from the horned helmets and bloody raids to look at the slaves, farmers, and traders who lived across the Viking world—not only in Scandinavia but also in Kyivan Rus, the Danelaw, Constantinople, and beyond. It focuses on Viking women, interrogating the source material and scholarship that had for decades counted them out. It challenges common assumptions about Viking as an identity, by examining archeological records and bone fragments. And it overturns popular myths about the Viking people, from what they wore to how they buried their dead.
You’ll also explore the Viking world in its political, topographical, economic, cultural, and material complexities. As you learn about the diverse religious practices that structured Viking society, from feasting to sacrifice, you’ll also assess how the rise of Christianity transformed Scandinavia on a macro and micro scale. You’ll investigate violence and honor as ideologies and how they impacted Vikings and their allies and adversaries across Europe. You’ll interrogate how the Viking Age is periodized and studied. And you’ll understand how Britain and continental Europe transformed at the hand of their Viking tormentors, looking closely at the conditions that gave rise to raiding in the first place, while also tracing the political and religious developments that brought Viking dominance to an end.
Registration required. To register, click here.
