The Jew Who Wasn't There: Studies on Jews and Their Absence in Old Norse Literature

Description

This dissertation explores certain attitudes towards Jews and Judaism in Old Norse literature. Regardless of an apparent lack of actual Jewish settlement in the Nordic region during the Middle Ages, medieval Icelanders and Norwegians frequently turned to the image of 'the Jew' in writing and in art, sometimes using him as an abstract theological model, or elsewhere constructing a similar kind of ethnic Other to the anti-Semitic tropes we find in medieval societies where gentiles really did live alongside Jews. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the differing histories and functions projected onto the absent Jew in medieval Scandinavia. / Germanic Languages and Literatures

Links & Downloads

1. Cole, Richard. 2015. The Jew Who Wasn't There: Studies on Jews and Their Absence in Old Norse Literature. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
2. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23845410

Tags

Literature, Scandinavian and Icelandic

Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies

History, Medieval

Additional Fields

Identifer	oai:union.ndltd.org:harvard.edu/oai:dash.harvard.edu:1/23845410
Date	January 2015
Creators	Cole, Richard
Contributors	Mitchell, Stephen, Harris, Joseph
Publisher	Harvard University
Source Sets	Harvard University
Language	English
Detected Language	English
Type	Thesis or Dissertation, text
Format	application/pdf
Rights	embargoed