By Ryan Gesme University of Wisconsin–Madison During the Viking Age, the Norsemen traveled from their northern dwellings to trade, plunder, and control much of Northern Europe. While the documentation of the Viking raids in Western Europe, especially in the British Isles, has been well researched for many years, there is still a lack of scholarship …
By Ben Pflughoeft University of Wisconsin–Madison The early sixteenth century heralded transformations to the organization of Sweden’s state formation, which elevated the poor and sparsely populated country to the status of a powerful and influential Scandinavian empire. Imperial Sweden, a dynamic government, proved itself to be an eclectic state of military, centralist, and localist influences …
By Adam Rieder University of Wisconsin–Madison Societies inherently possess many problems. These problems can range from hierarchical issues to problems concerning collective action. In many of his tales, Andersen is critical of these very issues. “The Year’s Story” is no exception. Written in 1852, “The Year’s Story” is a story about the changing of the …
By Ikwe Mennenn University of Wisconsin–Madison The rise of feminism and the concept of women’s rights are thought to be very recent and many believe that women in the past had no power. However, women in medieval Iceland, though not equal to men, enjoyed a surprising amount of freedom. Not everything is known about social …
By Zachary Strom University of Wisconsin–Madison Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the familiar story of emigration was one of a lone individual or a family leaving a homeland that was without promise and searching for renewed prospects in life, boarding a ship to take them to a virgin land to pursue a …
By Nikki Link University of Wisconsin–Madison INTRODUCTION Loving another human being is never an easy task. Yet, imagine if that love had to not only venture from one heart to another, but also remain fossilized on yellowing paper, sent careening across a vast ocean, and over thousands upon thousands of miles of amber waves of …
By Benjamin Pflughoeft University of Wisconsin–Madison A handful of miles north of the Arctic Circle, nestled in the heart of Sweden’s northernmost province of Lappland, lies the small village of Jokkmokk. Normally a quiet and isolated community, every first weekend of February the population explodes as thousands descend upon the village for the annual Jokkmokk …