Vinland to Valinor
Conference · Online

Bridging the North: The 10th Partnership Conference

University of Manitoba – University of Iceland
When
February 25 & 26, 2022
Where
Online, via Zoom
Register
[email protected]
Höga Kusten Bridge

All are welcome to attend this conference, which considers northern topics in history, geology, environmental sciences, linguistics and literature, and in institutions, trade networks, settlements and supply chains. Each panel’s presentations are followed by question time, in which audience members are encouraged to ask or submit questions. Times are Winnipeg time (Iceland time in brackets).

Friday, February 25

10:15 am Opening Remarks — Michael Benarroch, Jón Atli Benediktsson, Jeff Taylor (4:15 pm)
  • Chair Peter John Buchan
  • Michael Benarroch, President, University of Manitoba
  • Jón Atli Benediktsson, Rector, University of Iceland
  • Jeff Taylor, Dean of Arts, University of Manitoba
11:15 am Keynote: Race and the Icelanders in North America — Ryan Eyford (5:15 pm)
  • Chair Christopher Crocker
12:30 pm The Myth of the Linguistically Isolated North — Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir, Kristín M. Jóhannsdóttir, Matthew Whelpton (6:30 pm)
3:00 pm The Myth of the Culturally Isolated North — Gísli Sigurðsson, Katelin Parsons, Birna Bjarnadóttir (9:00 pm)
  • Chair Ryan E. Johnson
  • Gísli Sigurðsson, Icelandic-Canadian Oral Lore: New Life in a New Land and How the Women’s Tales May Shed Light on the Classification of the Edda Poems
  • Katelin Parsons, Raven Tracks Across the Prairies: Icelandic Immigration and Manuscript Culture in the Canadian West
  • Birna Bjarnadóttir, Another Emigrant Ship Crossing the Atlantic: The Poetics of Migration in the Poetry of Undína and Stephan G. Stephansson

Saturday, February 26

9:00 am Opening Remarks — Jeannette Menzies, Ambassador of Canada to Iceland (3:00 pm)
  • Chair Peter John Buchan
9:30 am The Natural Environment of the North — Þóra Ellen Þórhallsdóttir, Guðfinna Aðalsteinsdóttir (3:30 pm)
  • Chair Gary Stern
  • Þóra Ellen Þórhallsdóttir, There and Back Again: The Double Environmental Transformation of Skeiðarársandur Glacial Outwash Plain, SE Iceland
  • Guðfinna Aðalsteinsdóttir, The Impact of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Glaciers in Iceland
10:30 am Institutions and Cultural Connections — Vanessa Warne, Katrín Níelsdóttir, Christopher Crocker, Paul D. Larson (4:30 pm)
  • Chair Pam Perkins
  • Vanessa Warne, Interwoven: Cane Work and Resistance at the Ontario Institute for the Blind
  • Katrín Níelsdóttir, The Use of Special Collections to Connect People and Culture
  • Christopher Crocker, “Ég þakka þér fyrir litla blaðið”: North American-Icelandic Community, Cultural Identity, and the Children’s Newspaper Sólskin
  • Paul D. Larson, The Hudson Bay Railway Saga
1:15 pm Travel, Literature, and Geography — Pam Perkins, Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson, Ingibjörg Ágústsdóttir, Kristín Ingvarsdóttir (7:15 pm)
  • Chair Vanessa Warne
  • Pam Perkins, A “singular anomaly”: Henry Holland’s Writing on Iceland
  • Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson, Ida Pfeiffer and Travels in Iceland in the 19th Century
  • Ingibjörg Ágústsdóttir, “Queen of Lands”: Iceland in the Writings of Mary Gordon and Isobel Wylie Hutchison
  • Kristín Ingvarsdóttir, Building Bridges in His Name: Icelandic and Western Icelandic Missionaries in Early 20th-Century Asia
3:30 pm Aesthetics and Representation — Dustin Geeraert, Mackenzie Stewart, Thomas Ellison, Liv Valmestad (9:30 pm)

Presented by

University of Manitoba · University of Iceland

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