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This essay offers a succinct but comprehensive overview of Icelandic cinema from its early 20th-century emergence to the present day. Split into two parts, the first half focusses on filmmaking in Iceland prior to the founding of the Icelandic Film Fund in 1978, which was to establish a continuous local film production for the first time. Prior to that filmmaking in Iceland boiled down to the occasional efforts of local amateurs, albeit often quite skilled ones, and professional filmmakers visiting from abroad. Indeed, the few silent feature films made in the country all stemmed from foreign filmmakers adapting Icelandic literature and taking advantage of its photogenic landscapes. The first Icelandic feature was not made until 1948 and although immensely popular, like those that followed in its wake, the national audience was simply too small to sustain filmmaking without financial support. Although this changed fundamentally with the Icelandic Film Fund, which instigated contemporary Icelandic cinema and the subject of the essay's second half, the Fund's support proved insufficient as the novelty of Icelandic cinema began to wear off at the local box office in the late 1980s. The rescue came from outside sources, in the form of nordic and European film funds, whose support was to transnationalize Icelandic cinema in terms of not only financing and production but also themes and subject material. These changes are most apparent in Icelandic cinema of the 1990s which also began to garner interest at the international film festival circuit. In the first decade of the twenty first century, however, American genre cinema began to replace the European art film as the typical model for Icelandic filmmakers. Hollywood itself also began to show extensive interest in Icelandic landscapes for its runaway productions, as did many other foreign film crews. In this way Icelandic cinema is increasingly characterized by not only national and transnational elements but also international ones.

The paper analyzes the rulings of the Supreme Court of iceland in rape cases after changes in the penal code in 1992 and 2007. The study employs discourse analysis in which legitimizing principles are identified. The aim of the paper is to explore whether victim blaming, misogyny or other such attitudes are reflected in the rul­ings. The paper concludes that the rulings' focus is mainly on physical abuse and violence although less emphasis is put on that after the changes in the penal code. Mental harm caused by rape is often given little attention or even completely igno­red. One main conclusion is that rape myths are reflected in the rulings and victim blaming is common although it is decreasing. it is also apparent that the emphasis on victim blaming diminishes if the perpetrator is of foreign origin.

This essay concerns itself with perceptions of the urban sphere, with its manifestations in literature and life writing, and with the city as a place of strangeness and travel in various senses, including the ways in which it pertains to the individual
world view. Cities are places of density and internal connections, but their gates also open out and connect with other places, and increasingly other cities. Following a discussion of the Icelandic links between Copenhagen and Reykjavík, and the slow emergence of the latter as a "literary capital", the course is set for foreign cities, including Berlin and Paris in the company of Walter Benjamin, and the experience of getting lost with Franz Kafka in places that may be Prague and New York. In
attempting to answer the question whether it is possible to become intimate with cities, we have recourse to city guides, life maps, a touring theatre – and the art of losing and finding.

This paper discusses the history of the nouns gleðimaður, which is known from Old as well as Modern icelandic, and gleðikona which first occurs in an 18th-century source. Other nominal compounds for men and women that have gleði- as their first member are also introduced. The meaning of these words is compared, as is their usage, in order to test the claim that the words for men normally have a neutral meaning ('cheerful man, party animal') but the words for women have a pejorative meaning ('hussy, prostitute'). The nature of the changes in the history of the gleði-compounds is also discussed, e.g., to what extent borrowing from a foreign language has taken place. Lars-Gunnar Andersson's categorization of the so-called "ugliness" of words is used for a more detailed definition of the semantic changes. Finally, we touch on the wish to reclaim the word gleðikona that has been observed in the last decades, i.e., to revive the practically forgotten meaning 'cheerful woman, female party animal'.

The article recounts the account from the Árna saga about Loftur Helgason's trip to Bergen in 1282 and his stay there over winter, explained in terms of the formal sources about the organization of the government and changes in the law in the latter half of the 13th century. These changes were aimed at introducing into Iceland the power of both the King and the Church and in fact marked the actual changes throughout the Norwegian state. Loftur was Skálholt's official and the story about him was part of a long-standing dispute about the position of the chieftains versus the new power of the Church and the opposition to its introduction. The article defines the political confusion described in the Árna sagain Bergen in the winter of 1282-1283 as, on the one hand, changes in the constitution and, on the other hand, legislation, and at the same time whether the Kings Hákon Hákonarson and his son Magnús had systematically pursued a policy of having the Church be an independent party to the government of the state from 1247 onward until the death of the latter in 1280. When the disagreement is looked at as continuing, it is seen that Icelanders had made preparations for changes in the constitution with assurances of introduction of the power of the Church beginning in 1253 and the power of the King from 1262, but, on the other hand, the disagreements in both countries disappeared in the 1270s in the face of the conflict of interests that resulted from the laws that followed in the wake of the constiututional changes. Árna saga tell of this and how the disputes were described, but also that their nature changed as King Erikur came to power in 1280, as he gave the power of the King a new policy that was aimed against the power of the Church. Ousting of the archbishop from Norway and the Christian funerals of the excommunicated chieftains are examples of the conditions of government that could not have been, if the King had no longer had executive power over Christian concerns, as he had already conceded power over spiritual issues to the Pope in Rome with the Settlement at Túnsberg in 1277.