Prerequisites
The course builds on previous knowledge equivalent to a bachelor's degree with a major within a discipline that covers the Viking period or European Middle Ages (e.g. history, art history, archaeology, Old Norse langugae and literature).
Students with no previous knowledge of medieval art history are obliged to familiarize themselves with the following book:
Stokstad, Margaret. Medieval art (2nd ed.), Westview Press 2004; especially chapters 1,2,4,5,6,7,8 and 9.
Required reading
General surveys
Diebold, William J. : Word and Image. An Introduction to Early Medieval Art, 2000. Westview Press, Boulder Colorado. 150 pp.
Foote, Peter G. and Wilson, D.M.: The viking achievement, 1970. Praeger, New York. Especially chapters 1,4,5,6,9&12. In text compendium..
Theory and methodology
Aavitsland, Kristin B.: Ornament and Iconography. Visual orders in the golden altar from Lisbjerg, Denmark. In: Ornament and Order. Essays on Viking and Northern Medieval Art for Signe Horn Fuglesang (eds. K.B.Aavitsland & M.C. Stang), 2008, Trondheim. Tapis Academic Press. (15 pp).
Kessler, Herbert L.: Seeing Medieval Art, 2004, Peterborough, Ontario. Broadview Press. (200 pp).
Text compendium
Cahn, Walter: Romanesque sculpture and spectator, 2000. In: Studies in Medieval art and interpretation.. 344-368, 24 pp..
Grabar, Oleg: The Mediation of Ornament, 1992, Bollingen series XXXV, 38. Princeton University Press. chapters 1,5 and conclusions: 9-46, 195-237 (notes 239-249, 274-279) (79pp).
Nicols, Stephen G.: Historia and the Poetics of the Passion, In: Romanesque signs. Early Medieval Narrative and Icongraphy., 1983. Yale University Press. ISBN:?95-147 (61pp).
Schmitt, Jean-Claude: Images and the historian. In: History and images. Towards a New Iconology., 2003. Ed. Axel Bolvig and Philip Lindley, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe..
Fuglesang, Signe Horn : Crucifixion iconography in Viking Scandinavia. In: Proceedings of the Eight Viking Congress., 1981. Medieval Scandinavian supplements. Eds. Hans Bekker-Nielsen, Peter Foote, Olaf Olsen (21pp).
Fuglesang, Signe Horn: Christian reliquaries and Pagan Idols. In: Images of cult and devotion: function and reception of Christian images in medieval and post-medieval Europe., 2004, K?benhavn. Ed. S?ren Kaspersen and Ulla Haastrup (26 pp).
Handbooks
Anker, Peter and Andersson, Aron: The Art of Scandinavia 1-2, 1970, London.
Dodwell C.R.: The Pictoral Art of the West 800-1200, 1993. Pelican History of art. New Haven. Yale University Press.
Pulsiano, P. et al. (eds): Medieval Scandinavia: an encyclopedia, 1993. New York: Garland.
Roesdahl, E. and Wilson, D.M.: From viking to crusader. (Exhibition catalogue), 1992, Copenhagen.
Sawyer, P. (ed): The Oxford illustrated history of the Vikings, 1997, Oxford.
Individually selected literature
In addition to the titles listed above, students are to compose an individual list of 200 pages of selected literature related to the specific topic of his/her term paper assignment. A bibliography of relevant titles will be distributed early in the term.