Call for papers - Dossier: Magic and Religion in Scandinavia

Call for papers - Dossier: Magic and Religion in Scandinavia, 

Scandia 2, 2019 (ISSN: 2595-9107). 

Organizers: Prof. Macià Riutort (Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Spain) and Prof. Dr. Johnni Langer (UFPB/NEVE, Brazil).

Religion has always been an important topic in Scandinavian Studies. Investigations involving Viking Age beliefs, gods, rituals and the Christianization process received considerable attention in research centers. The recent publication of The "Pre-Christian Religions of the North" (organized by Margaret Clunies Ross) brings up the complexity of the interpretation and reception that Old Nordic Religions received until nowadays. Concurrently, a lot of studies in Archaeology and material culture have been trying to reconstruct the everyday life of the pre-Christian religion beliefs.

On the other hand, many researches realized that magic practices were intrinsic to the norse belief system and that the magical sphere was not always completely distinguishable from the religious one ("Le Magiciens dan l’Islande ancienne", François-Xavier Dillmann). Others proposed that magic was a type of discourse used to challenge the political and social domains ("Magic and Kingship in Medieval Iceland", Nicolas Meylan).

The different manners of representing the supernatural and the sacred permeated the literary and material space, either in the Icelandic Sagas, in the Eddas or in recently excavated temples. Thereby, we invite researchers to submit studies concerning the following topics:

- Pre-Christian rituals, temples and sacred grounds in Scandinavia.
- Christianization, conversion and the religious hybridity during the Middle Ages in Scandinavia.
- Material culture of rites, magical formulas, enchantments, symbols and curses.
- The representation and discourses on Pre-Christian Norse religion in literature, chronicles and visual arts.
- Nordic magic and magical practices in literary sources, folklore and in the Icelandic Sagas.
- The Icelandic grimoires, runes, divination practices and Scandinavian witchcraft. 
- Magic and Old Norse religion in Neopaganism, heathenism and contemporary religions.

The deadline for submission is June 30 of 2019. 

Scandia accepts contributions in English, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Italian, and authors need to be engaged at least in any Master’s Program. We accept articles that are not related to the special edition theme, which are published in the free session. Proposals should follow the publishing norms available at site.