NSU 2023 – Helena Hildur W.

Last month’s notes from the conference in Åbo/Turku briefly mentioned a new research project launched by Laura Hellsten. Here’s a little more on that…

Laura’s scientific approach is shaped by her dual competence as a dancer and a Doctor in Systematic Theology. While she holds a position at Åbo Akademi University, part of her current research will be conducted within the framework of the Nordic Summer University (aka the NSU). Actually, this project has already begun; in early March 2023, the first gathering of NSU Circle 3 Praxis of Social Imaginaries; Cosmologies, Othering and Liminality took place in Oslo. Lindsey Drury – post-doc and co-facilitator of this study circle – is an early modernist historian, and an educated dancer as well. Their common work evolves around mediaeval accounts from travels into ‘unknown lands’; aiming at transdisciplinarity, the methodology incorporates reading aloud, various modalities of movement, academic lectures and discussions, and…

The Hereford Mappa Mundi – a mediaeval world map,
conceived in the very place where Gerald of Wales spent the last part of his life (although nearly a century later) –
presented in a keynote lecture by historian Line Cecilie Engh; picture made available by Wikimedia Commons

…and more? Future will tell.

In this first Praxis session, a number of scholars and artists from different fields and places processed the tales of Gerald of Wales: a monk travelling uncivilized Ireland by the end of the 12th century – reporting back to his learned colleagues and to the English king; picturing Éire and the Irish through a lens of curiosity, religious zeal and practical political thinking.

Here’s my own recap from our five of days walking, talking, listening, disputing and dancing in wintery Oslo:

Domus Theologica (University of Oslo) hosted the event

Streets of Oslo – a signpost pointing the way to a bomb shelter;
Saint Olav guarding sewages and waters underground; icy footway; a cool cat by night

Saint Olaf, king of Norway, accompanies us, as we walk the streets – occasionally trodding along his old pilgrimage path, leading all the way from here to Olaf’s grave in Nidaros (Trondhjem). In his youth, Olaf sailed the Baltic and the North Sea as a fierce warrior, before being baptized and returning to Norway as a Christian king. His image, cast in iron, can be seen on every lid covering the descents to the city’s system of underground sewage pipes. The waters that have cleaned our bodies – or passed through them – is kept from sight and smell in those sewers. Meanwhile, Aker river running through the city, once heavily polluted, is now restored to be the ‘green lung’ of the urban area…

How can one atone for the wrongdoings of history? As we walk and talk, I think this may be the beginning of a pilgrimage.

Limestone wall of Old Aker Church – the oldest existing building in Oslo,
erected by the mediaeval pilgrim route

For the closing summary, I did an ad hoc mapping on a classroom blackboard – picturing our experiences as a group: reading Gerald’s tales, listening to Viveca Servatius’ lecture on Hildegard of Bingen, seeing lovers in a churchyard, meeting dogs friendly and angry, slipping and sliding in a park, dancing between graves… Other participants helped me fill in the empty spots.