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This article offers a discussion of two contemporary Icelandic literary works, Woman at 1000 Degreesby Hallgrímur Helgason and The Outlaw by Jón Gnarr, both of which have been subject to discussion and critique regarding the authors' use of real life individuals and events. The reception of these texts is read against the framework of Icelandic laws regarding freedom of expression and rights to privacy. Two Icelandic legal cases, regarding a literary text and cinematic production, serve as case studies for the Icelandic framework.

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.

In the past months and years women have been raising awareness against rape and other sexual violence. The aim of the research discussed in this article is to shed a light on rape culture in Iceland, especially what ideas are prevailing among young people about rape, survivors and perpetrators. Moreover, the aim is to shed a light on the impact of these ideas on rape survivors. The study draws on focus group interviews with university students and semi-structured interviews with a university student, rape survivors and an expert who works closely with survivors. The findings highlight rape culture in Iceland and how rape and other sexual violence is normal-ized. Predominant discourses and myths tend to question the rape, portray survivors as responsible for the rape and find ways to extenuate perpetrators.

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.

Alda Björk Valdimarsdóttir's book of poetry, We Who Are Blind and Nameless, was published in 2015. The first part of the book, titled "The course of signs", lays the groundwork for the conceptual basis of the work through five poems. These five
poems will be examined through close reading and scholarly materials from various sources, such as cognitive literary studies, philosophy, psychology, social studies and neurological research. There is particular focus on how the poems stimulate the imagination of readers and ruffle their feelings; there is a discussion on (conceptual) metaphors, irony, humor, paradox, geometrical shapes, enumeration, anaphora and, not least, silence which is a common theme in Alda's poetry and also defines the structure of her poems in various ways. This analysis shows how Alda convinces readers to think about the "course of signs" in both a narrow and wider context. She not only causes readers to think about the paradoxical interplay of silence and signs – and thus man's ingrained need to both speak and be silent – but also woman's position within her family/world history and the encroachment of man upon his own environment. Through clever humour and irony, Alda Björk shows how apathetic people often are when faced with signs; how without thinking they give themselves over to them, even though they have other options; how people contribute for the signs to be isolating instead of connecting us with each other – and how they misuse silence or are not able to make use of it.

The aim of this article is to discuss the book Dísusaga by Vigdís Grímsdóttir. In the story, which has been categorized as a fictional auto­biography, Vigdís writes about a rape she experienced as a child, focusing on the crime ́s effect. She talks about her decision to keep silent about the crime, which leads to – as described in Dísusaga– her being split into two personas, Dísa and Gríms. This article focuses on the communication between the two characters, in particular their power struggle. The analysis that is put forth is based on methods from theories about trauma, dialogical self and conceptual metaphors. In this article different attitudes toward sexual vio­lence in different times is also addressed by looking at the reception of other works by Vigdís, which have been connected to her persona.

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.

n 2017 the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation was celebrated. Then there was a huge discussion about the impact of the Reformation on church, culture and society. In this article and in a second one that follows, this question will be raised, especially in Icelandic context.Here it is assumed that it is only possible to state that a change has occurred or a novelty has arised because of Lutheran influence if it can be demonstrated that the Reformation is a necessary prerequisite for the change / innovation being discussed. Here it is particularly pointed out that various changes that until now have been traced to the Reformation can have been due to the development of the central-con-trolled state power. It is also pointed out that, due to the small population, rural areas and simple social structure, various changes that occurred in urban areas did not succeed in Iceland until long after the Reformation. Such cases are interpret-ed as delayed Lutheran effects. Then, in Iceland, many changes, which were well matched to the core areas of the Reformation, did not work until the 18th century and then because of the pietism. Such cases are interpreted as derivative Lutheran effects.In Iceland two generalizations have been evident in the debate on the influence of the Lutheran Reformation. The first one emphasizes an extensive and radical changes in many areas in the Reformation period and subsequent extensive decline. It is also stated that this regression can be traced directly to the Reformation and not to other fenomenons, e.g. the development of modern, centralized state. The other one states that the Reformation was most powerful in the modernization in both the church and society in Iceland.This article focuses on the influence of the Reformation on religious and church life. Despite the fact that the Reformation has certainly had the broadest and most direct effects on this field, it is noteworthy that the church organization itself was only scarsely affected by the Reformation. After the Reformation the Icelandic church was for example almost as clergy-orientaded as in the middle Ages.

This article discusses the "Critical period" in language acquisition – based on the theory that children are born with the natural ability to learn language; an ability that gradually fades or disappears. According to this theory, children who are not privy to normal language stimulation during childhood miss their chance to acquire a language "perfectly".Critical periods do not only exist in language, e.g. children and other young animals need to receive visual stimulation for their vision to develop. The beginning of this article considers difference in opportunities for research, and thereby the state of knowledge concerning the critical period in vision, compared to language acquisition. The difference is based mainly on two factors: on the one hand, animals have been studied to elucidate the critical period in vision – an option that linguists do not have – and, on the other, it is quite common for children to lack visual stimulation, i.e. due to cataracts. It is less common for children to grow up without language stimulation, although stories exist of children that, for one reason or another, were deprived of human interaction during childhood. The author uses this opportunity to provide an account of two such stories, in a more detailed fashion than would be necessary to define the critical period in language acquisition. These are also stories of violence and questionable work methods for the sake of science. This is followed by a discussion of deaf children as, in the past – as well as the present day – it was common for them not to receive appropriate language stimulation from the beginning, i.e. via the use of sign language. The examples are so many that late language acquisition by deaf children can shed light on the critical period in language acquisition.Many have discussed the critical period in language acquisition but emphasis is often placed on that which has remained unlearned. This article asks rather what can be learned and whether language structure can be established despite a late start for the language acquisition process.

This chapter explores the possible influences of Sweden, Denmark and Finland on the Environmental Policy of the EU. We focus specifically on the reputation, expertise and role model behaviour of the Nordic EU members and their possibilities to use these factors as cognitive power resources.The chapter discusses several examples where the Nordic EU member states have successfully promoted their national environmental interests within the EU. We also make use of interviews with environmental representatives at the Swedish, Danish and Finnish Permanent Representations to the EU in Brussels, officials from other member states, DG Environment of the Commission and the European Environment Agency. The results indicate that the Nordic EU members have to some extent minimised their quantitative disadvantages, such as small administrations and limited voting powers, by successfully using the cognitive power resources in question within the Environmental Policy of the European Union.

In 2017 the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation was celebrated. Then there was a huge discussion about the impact of the Reformation on church, culture and society. In this article and in an another one published in last number of this journal, this question will be raised, especially in Icelandic context. Here it is assumed that it is only possible to state that a change has occurred or a novelty has arised because of Lutheran influence if it can be demonstrated that the Reformation is a necessary prerequisite for the change / innovation being discussed. Here it is particularly pointed out that various changes that until now have been traced to the Reformation can have been due to the development of the central-controlled state power. It is also pointed out that, due to the small population, rural areas and simple social structure, various changes that occurred in urban areas did not succeed in Iceland until long after the Reformation. Such cases are interpreted as delayed Lutheran effects. Then, in Iceland, many changes, which were well matched to the core areas of the Reformation, did not work until the 18th century and then because of the pietism. Such cases are interpreted as derivative Lutheran effects.In Iceland two generalizations have been evident in the debate on the influence of the Lutheran Reformation. The first one emphasizes extensive and radical changes in many areas in the Reformation period and subsequent extensive decline. It is also stated that this regression can be traced directly to the Reformation and not to other fenomenons, e.g. the development of modern, centralized state. The other one states that the Reformation was most powerful in the modernization in both the church and society in Iceland.This article focuses on the influence of the Reformation in the field of culture and society. These include e.g. the closure of monasteries and the consequences of it in the field of welfare, which have been widely discussed in recent times.The final conclusion of these two articles is that the main influence of the Reformation is found in the field of faith itself, and that the Reformation made it easier for the Lutheran Church than the two traditional denominations, the Roman Catholic Church and that Orthodox one, to meet the modernization in culture and society.

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'.

This article presents findings from two qualitative research studies on readers' emotional reactions and empathy towards literary texts. Participants were presented with two fragments from novels by Vigdís Grímsdóttir and then asked about their reactions. In the first study, 20 participants were asked to read a fragment from the novel Þögnin(2000) and half of the participants had some kind of a musical education and the other half with no background in music. Interestingly, having a musical background impacted reactions differently than what was expected. As a result, a second study was carried out where the reactions of visual artists (10) were compared to non-artists (10) to a fragment from the novel Þegar stjarna hrapar (2003). Both novels contain information specific to music (Þögnin) or visual arts (Þegar stjarna hrapar). Cognitive science methods, such as the schema theory, will be used to explain how readers of diverse backgrounds react differently to the same text. This approach also illustrates how useful qualitative methods can be in studying topics beyond only the content of the text.

Icelandic politics are analysed from the perspectives of three normative models of democracy: the liberal, republican and deliberative democratic theories. While the Icelandic constitution is rooted in classical liberal ideas, Icelandic politics can be harshly criticized from a liberal perspective, primarily because of the unclear separation of powers of government and for the extensive involvement of politics in other social sectors. Despite strong nationalist discourse which reflects republican characteristics, rooted in the struggle for independence from Denmark, republicanism has been marginal in Icelandic politics. In the years before the financial collapse, Icelandic society underwent a process of liberalization in which power shifted to the financial sector without disentangling the close ties that had prevailed between business and politics. The special commission set up by the Icelandic Parliament to investigate the causes of the financial collapse criticized Icelandic politics and governance for its flawed working practices and lack of professionalism. The appropriate lessons to draw from this criticism are to strengthen democratic practices and institutions. In the spirit of republicanism, however, the dominant discourse about Icelandic democracy after the financial collapse has been on increasing direct, vote-centric participation in opposition to the system of formal politics. While this development is understandable in light of the loss of trust in political institutions in the wake of the financial collapse, it has not contributed to trustworthy practices. In order to improve Icelandic politics, the analysis in this paper shows, it is important to work more in the spirit of deliberative democratic theory ; Peer Reviewed