This semester the course in Current Issues will focus on an itinerary for pilgrims in Norse, the so-called Lei?arvísir. The students will work with aspects of origin, tradition and transmission in oral and written form and the interaction between oral and written traditions. The origin of the text is traditionally placed in the Benedictine milieu of the monastery Munka-?verá on Iceland and attributed to the first abbot of this monastery, Nikulás Bergsson. The extant evidence for the text, however, is found in two manuscripts dated to the late fourteenth century with a transmission in now lost manuscripts over a period of more than two hundred years. The problems concerning this transmission and the function of the text in various contexts will be treated thoroughly in the seminars of the course.
Lei?arvísir is today generally read in critical editions rather than in the extant manuscripts. The course will introduce the manuscript texts to the students and open for a comparative approach to editions and manuscripts. This in order to challenge the edition as a modern re-construction of the medieval tradition and provide new understanding of the material culture of medieval manuscripts.
The course will work as a research seminar where the students are expected to contribute by searching for and establish a bibliography of relevant literature, investigating the manuscript transmission and discuss critically the implications of the source situation. The students are expected to learn how to approach a research material, form research questions, and carry out investigations in order to further their insights. The seminar will further offer training in working in a team to achieve the results of a research project. In order to reach this goal the students will be expected to present their individual research tasks in the seminar throughout the semester. The course will be examinated in the form of a trial lecture. In the preparation of this lecture the students are also required to write a conference abstract presenting their planned lecture as a part of the examination.