25.04.2024

Gastvortrag Prof. Dr. Santiago Barreiro

„Labour in Norse Literature" 7.5.24, 18 Uhr, R.027

Die Abteilung für Skandinavistik hat in diesem Semester Prof.Dr. Santiago Barreiro als DAAD-Gastprofessor zu Gast. Um seine Forschung einem breiteren Publikum vorzustellen, möchten wir Sie gern zu seinem öffentlichen Vortrag zum Thema „Labour in Norse Literature: A Comparative Anthropological Perspective" einladen; das Abstract finden Sie unten. Der Vortrag findet am Dienstag, 7. Mai 2024, um 18 Uhr im Brechtbau, Raum 027 statt.

Abstract:

The role of labourers and labour itself is often emphasised in Old Norse literature. In texts as diverse as Gróttasöngr, Egils saga or Hungrvaka, to name but a few, various aspects of labour, both manual and spiritual, are at the centre of the narrative. While the role of labour in Christian theology (and its influence on the worldviews of the medieval world) is undisputed, secular Norse attitudes have received less attention in specialist scholarship. A fundamental problem, however, is how to categorise such ideas without imposing a teleological approach: that is, one assumes that a contemporary intellectual category (such as ´labour´) created within and for a modern, industrial, Western worldview (and which in turn is closely associated with Christian values) would apply to a pre-modern society that was also only relatively recently converted to Christianity and which hardly fits into the theoretical framework of, for example, most modern economics.

This lecture will attempt to overcome this difficulty by drawing on anthropological theories and ethnographic research that has long been concerned with ways of understanding the world of production in pre-industrial and/or non-Western societies. In particular, three main themes will be discussed: (1) the relationship between labour and appropriation; (2) the cosmological and mythical role of labour; (3) the place and valuation of workers in society.