Tilfinningar og sjálfið á miðöldum í Norður-Evrópu - verkefni lokið

Fréttatilkynning verkefnisstjóra

15.4.2024

Sviðsetningu tilfinninga í bókmenntum má skilja annars vegar sem staðlaða (félagslega og menningarlega) hegðun og hins vegar sem vitnisburð um sjálfsvitund þar sem slík sviðsetning gefur til kynna meðvitund um sjálf sem er fært um að skynja og upplifa tilfinningar. Hugtakið „sviðsetning tilfinninga“ (e. emotive performativity) felur í sér táknræna, málræna eða myndræna tjáningu tilfinninga og er notað hér sem fræðileg nálgunaraðferð til að rannsaka sjálfsvitund í miðaldabókmenntum og sögu tilfinninga í Norður-Evrópu.Verkefnið byggði á margþættri nálgun í þeim tilgangi að kanna hvernig tilfinningum er miðlað í textum og hvernig sviðsetning þeirra hefur áhrif á skynjun okkar og upplifun á textalegu
sjálfi. Verkefnið hefur í gegnum útgáfur og fyrirlestra lagt fram þvermenningarlega vitnisburði um
tilvist sjálfsvitundar – sem miðlað er í gegnum sviðsetningu tilfinninga – og menningarbundnar og
skáldlegar birtingarmyndir þess. Verkefnið hefur staðið fyrir röð af ráðstefnum sem haldnar hafa verið í Utrecht, Oxford, Feneyjum og lokaviðburði sem haldinn var í Reykjavík 2022. Meðlimir rannsóknarteymisins hafa enn fremur haldið fjölda fyrirlestra og gefið út greinar og bókakafla, þar með talið sérritið Emotion & Self, sem kemur út á vegum Emotions: History, Culture, Society (EHCS), vol. 8.2 (2024), en sérritinu er ritstýrt af rannsóknarteyminu og greinir frá hluta af rannsóknarniðurstöðum verkefnisins.

English:

This project’s hypothesis was that medieval selfhood, or a sense of self, can be located through textual evidence, more particularly through its representation via emotive performativity in medieval literary texts. The performance of emotion is viewed as both a conventionalised (social and cultural) gesture and as evidence of a perception of selfhood, as instances of emotive performance by definition suggest a presumed self that is capable of experiencing and sustaining emotion. The concept of emotive performativity – the gestural, vocal or metaphorical staging of emotions – thus serves as a theoretical bridge to explore questions of selfhood, interiority and the history of emotions across Northern Europe. The project combined a multifaceted approach to enable a more holistic understanding of textual emotions and of how their staging may generate or mediate a sense of self. The project’s deliverables thus establish cross-cultural evidence of a medieval sense of selfhood – represented via the performance of emotions – that is culturally, linguistically or generically contingent. The project has hosted a series of workshops in Utrecht, Oxford, Venice and Reykjavík, with a final conference held in Reykjavík in 2022, along with multiple conference presentations and publications, the latest of which is Emotion & Self, a special issue of Emotions: History, Culture, Society (EHCS), vol. 8.2 (2024), edited by the research team and featuring some of the research results of the project.

A list of the project’s outputs:
BOOK-LENGTH PUBLICATIONS
Massimiliano Bampi and Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, eds. Emotion and Genre in Medieval Literature
(projected publication to be submitted to De Gruyter for OA publication, in progress)

Frank Brandsma, Carolyne Larrington and Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, eds, Emotion and the Medieval Self,
special issue of Emotions: History, Culture, Society (EHCS), vol. 8.2 (2024)

ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, ‘'Emotion as Generic Marker', in Emotion and Genre in Medieval Literature, ed.
Massimiliano Bampi and Sif Ríkharðsdóttir (to be submitted to De Gruyter)

Massimiliano Bampi, ‘Translating Emotions in Old Swedish Courtly Romance’, in Emotion and
Genre in Medieval Literature, ed. Massimiliano Bampi and Sif Ríkharðsdóttir (to be submitted
to De Gruyter)

Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, 'Arthurian Emotion', in The Cambridge History of Arthurian Literature and
Culture, ed. Andrew Lynch and Raluca Radulescu (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, forthcoming
2024)

Frank Brandsma, 'Middle Dutch Arthurian Literature as Speculative Fiction', in The Cambridge
History of Arthurian Literature and Culture, ed. Andrew Lynch and Raluca Radulescu
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, forthcoming 2024)

Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, ‘Secular Love – ást’, in Saga Emotions: A Handbook, ed. Gareth Evans, Carolyne
Larrington and Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir (Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming
2024)

Timothy Bourns, ‘Animal Emotionality in Norse Myth, Saga, and Romance’, in Emotion and the
Medieval Self, special issue of Emotions: History, Culture, Society (EHCS), vol. 8.2 (2024),
ed. Frank Brandsma, Carolyne Larrington and Sif Rikhardsdottir

Meritxell Risco de la Torre, 'De voix femmenine: Jean D'Arras Mélusine and the Prevalence of Self
through Voice and Emotive Display', in Emotion and the Medieval Self, special issue of
Emotions: History, Culture, Society (EHCS), vol. 8.2 (2024), ed. Frank Brandsma, Carolyne
Larrington and Sif Rikhardsdottir

Timothy Bourns, ‘Blood, Rain, and Tears: Eco-Emotive Metaphor in the Medieval North’, Cultural
Models for Emotions in the North Atlantic Vernaculars: 700-1400, ed. Javier Díaz Vera,
Teodoro Manrique Antón, and Edel Porter (Turnout: Brepols, forthcoming 2023/24)

Meritxell Risco de la Torre, 'The (In)Visible Body of Emotion in Partonopeu de Blois and Partalopa
saga', in Emotions on the Fringes, ed. Felix Lummer (Budapest: Trivent, forthcoming 2023)

Timothy Bourns, ‘Trees in the Saga Dreamscape’, Ecocriticism and Old Norse Studies, ed. Reinhard
Hennig, Emily Lethbridge, and Michael Shulte (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming 2023)

Timothy Bourns, ‘Driftwood and the Divine: Ecocritical Readings of trémenn’, Eco-Norse: Essays on
Old Norse Literature and the Environment, ed. Timothy Bourns and Carl Phelpstead (London:
Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London, forthcoming 2023)

Carolyne Larrington, ‘”This was a sodeyn love”: Ladies Fall in Love in Medieval Romance´, Essays
on Medieval Romance and Arthurian Literature Presented to Elizabeth Archibald, ed. A. S. G.
Edwards (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2021), 93-110

Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, ‘Poetic Sensorium and Aesthetic Objectification in the Middle
English Pearl’, Exemplaria 32.4 (2020), 283-303. Eprint link: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/2IWY6ZS2HSDT5PXCBD4G/full?target=10.1080/1
0412573.2020.1846311

THESES:
Meritxell Risco de la Torre, 'Unruly Female Bodies in Medieval Romance: Emotion, Monstrosity,
Selfhood', PhD thesis, University of Iceland (on schedule to be submitted 2023)

Maximillian Jesiolowski, 'Emotional States and Identity in Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar: Conveying
Interiority Through Natural Landscape', MA thesis at University of Iceland 2022

Bridget Catherine Leary, 'The Anachronistic Skald: The Emotionality in Sonatorrek', MA thesis at the
University of Iceland 2023

Heiti verkefnis: Tilfinningar og sjálfið á miðöldum í Norður-Evrópu/Emotion and the Medieval Self in Northern Europe
Verkefnisstjóri: Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, Háskóla Íslands
Tegund styrks: Verkefnisstyrkur
Styrktímabil: 2019-2021
Fjárhæð styrks kr. 56.060.000
Tilvísunarnúmer Rannís: 195752