VIKINGS: ARCHAEOLOGY AND CULTURE

Catalog description

This course will cover the complexities of Viking culture during the 9th-12th centuries. Topics will include religious beliefs, aesthetic expression, political organization, social structures, expansion, and cultural blending. Readings will include case studies of archaeological and ethnohistoric documents. The course will focus on the lasting historical impacts of Viking culture across the globe as well as on current myths and stereotypes and their role in modern national and ethnic identity construction. Students will be able to make complex comparisons between the truths revealed in the archaeological record and modern erroneous conceptions about Vikings.