Suchergebnisse

This article is written on the occasion of the 500 years anniversary of the Lutheran reformation (siðbót) which started in 1517. The aim is to point out new perspectives worth considering in research on the main implications of the reformation in the political field (siðaskipti) and cultural and / or social field (siðbreyting). In this regard, it is pointed out that in researches of such a complex historical process is inevitable to assume pre-defined pardigms that can serve as prerequisites for the interpretation of the subject. It is also pointed out that, up to present time, a single one-sided paradigm which describes the reformation as a revolution has been assumed in Icelandic studies of the reformation which assumes that the transition from a catholic to a lutheran church in Iceland has been sudden and for more or less political reasons, ie. for the efforts of Christian the III:rd of Denmark to increase his assets, properties and power in the country. The article argues that the relationships between religion and politics was much more complexed at this time than has generally been expected, as well as that Christina the III:rd and his representatives in Iceland considered it as their duties as christians to promote the reformation in the country and in that way respond to the demand of Luther to the christian nobility to rescue the Church on the basis of the gospel. In the article it is assumed that the reformation in Iceland happened in the period 1539-1600 and the development took place on various religious, ecclesial, political and cultural fields. In that way it is meaningful to describe it as a viscous reformation.

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.

During the Forties, Icelandic novelist Guðmundur Daníelsson, wrote a trilogy called Out of the Ground Wast Thou Taken: Fire (1941), Sand (1942) and The Land beyond the Land (1944). Leading up to the publications Daníelsson was vocal about the fact that he had read the works of American novelist William Faulkner. Later in life he would reveal that he read Faulkner in Norwegian translations and proudly acknowledged the direct line of descent he recognized between his own work and that of his American colleague. Until now no systematic analyzes has been done on the many parallels between their works. The article is divided in two. The first half unfolds in which ways Daníelsson reproduced structures, milieu, ideas, characters and events from Faulkner's nov-el Light in August in Fire. The latter half of the article situates Daníelsson's trilogy within a critical framework developed by Faulkner scholars in the last two decades where they have explored the relationship between Faulkner and the many writers who have engaged with him from the postcolonial world. Questions will be raised about if and then how Daníelsson deals with Iceland's postcolonial past in his novels, with a special emphasis on the connection between power and identity as it mani-fests itself in relation to, for example, class, race, gender and disability.

Should the progress in the biological sciences during the last decades give rise to a re-evaluation of literary analysis? The paper opens with a discussion of this question with reference to a fragment of Dagur Sigurðarson's poem "Takk takk Tobbi", pub-lished in Rógmálmur og grásilfur (1971). The question is answered partly affirmative-ly, mostly on the grounds that embodied cognition has to be taken into account when analysing literature. It is pointed out that among the factors that have contributed to a better understanding of the complex relation between the body and language is recent research on Tourette syndrome. The relationship between this neurological disorder and poetry is the main subject of the paper and it is discussed with refer-ence to a scaldic strophe from The Saga of Gisli Sursson. First, Tourette-syndrome is discussed briefly, including the medical profession's stance toward it during the 19thand 20th century and scholarly work on the common traits that the disorder shares with poetry. Subsequently it is considered how these writings can benefit literary scholarship, Gisli Sursson's strophe is analysed and it is proposed that this analysis can't rely on metrical rules alone. Then the aforementioned poem by Dagur Sig-urðarson is reconsidered, and finally a few points are recapitulated.

The article initially addresses the novel Kata by Steinar Bragi in the context of genre and asks to what extent it aligns itself with the crime novel, in particular the more recent brand of the crime novel wherein social issues are placed at the forefront. The point is made that Kata diverges in some important respects from even the most radical of critiques found within the parameters of the crime genre, in that it suspends the very concepts that usually ground such narratives (justice, right, and crime) and comes to the conclusion that the widespread social acceptance of violence against women delegitimizes the entire edifice of Western thinking on social justice. It is here that the article looks towards Louis Althusser's theorization 149of ideological and oppressive state apparatuses, while shifting their object from the class struggle to gender relations. Althusser's concepts are employed to shed light on the ideology that supports and enables violence against women in contemporary societies, and how the reverse of the oppressive function of the state, that is, state leniency and disinterest in prosecuting sex crimes, or creating the environment in which they are unlikely to be reported, are taken up in the novel, thematized, and in turn, fuel the rage of the protagonist. Finally, a question is raised as to the signific-ance of the fact that a novel about female rage and disempowerment is written by a male author.

This article discusses the phenomenon of self-harming or "non-Suicidal Self-In-jury" (nSSI). The International Society for the Study of Self-Injury defines non-sui cidal self-injury as the deliberate, self-inflicted damage of body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially or culturally sanctioned." The article discusses the cultural and social representations of self-injury, what is implied in it, who engages in it, and for what reasons. A lot can be deduced from interviews with self-harmers who use it to gain control over bad feelings and stress, by hurting their body and participating in risky behaviour. This dangerous activity often has more complicated sides with reference to rituals and spiritual associations to bloodletting, cleansing of all evil and healing, absolution and much wanted peace of mind. Finally, the changes in self-harming discourse and channels of communication are discussed. It has opened up during the last two decades with the arrival of social media. The self-harmers have built their own subcultures with special aesthetics and often preferring theatrical staging or performances instead of verbal expres-sion. These channels can have an uncanny power and influence over young and vulnerable people. The conclusion of the article is that all this requires an informed discussion as a special world, a special angst which is expressing itself in ways that might develop into suicidal behaviour if it is not taken seriously.

Kosningaréttur er grundvallarréttur þegna í lýðræðisríkjum og þátttaka í kosningum álitin ein af mikilvægustu athöfnum borgaranna. Þó að þessi réttindi skuli tryggð öllum þegnum sýna alþjóðlegar rannsóknir að fatlað fólk er víða útilokað frá þátttöku í kosningum. Fatlað fólk er síður líklegt til að kjósa en ófatlað fólk og mætir iðulega ýmsum hindrunum ef það reynir að taka þátt í kosningum. Þessi grein fjallar um kosningaþátttöku fatlaðs fólks með hliðsjón af niðurstöðum alþjóðlegra rannsókna. Í upphafi eru raktar helstu hindranir í vegi kosningaþátttöku fatlaðs fólks og leitast við að svara hvaða áhrif þessar hindranir hafi, ekki aðeins fyrir fatlaða borgara, heldur jafnframt hvað það þýði fyrir heilbrigði lýðræðis og lýðræðislegra stofnana þegar hluti þegnanna mætir alvarlegum hindrunum varðandi borgaraleg grundvallarréttindi. Íslenskar rannsóknir á þessu sviði eru ekki fyrir hendi og engin skipuleg tölfræðileg gögn eru til varðandi þátttöku fatlaðs fólks í kosningum eða stjórnmálum hér á landi. Byggt á gögnum sem aflað var hjá tveimur fjölmennustu heildarsamtökum fatlaðs fólks hér á landi er rýnt í reynslu, aðstæður og möguleika fatlaðs fólks til þátttöku í kosningum á Íslandi, lagasetningar þar að lútandi og skyldur ríkisins til að stuðla að og tryggja þátttöku fatlaðs fólks í stjórnmálum og opinberu lífi, ekki síst í ljósi þess að Samningur Sameinuðu þjóðanna (SÞ) um réttindi fatlaðs fólks (SRFF) hefur verið fullgiltur hér á landi ; The right to vote is a fundamental right of citizenship in democratic nations, and participation in elections in one of the most important acts undertaken by citizens. Although these rights are guaranteed to all citizens, international research shows that disabled people are widely excluded from participation in elections. Disabled people are less likely to vote than non-disabled people and often encounter various obstacles when they try to participate in elections. This article discusses the voting participation of disabled people in consideration of the international research. The main barriers that disabled people encounter in the voting process will first be outlined. This will be followed by questions concerning the effects these obstacles produce, not only for disabled citizens, but what this means overall for the health of democracy and democratic institutions when a portion of the citizenry encounter serious obstacles concerning their basic civil rights. Icelandic research in this field is extremely limited and no systematic statistical data exists on the participation of disabled people in elections, or politics in general, in this country. Based on data drawn from sources from two of the largest disabled people's organization in the country, the focus here is on the experiences, circumstances and opportunities for disabled people to participate in elections in the country. The findings draw attention to the obligations of the state to promote and ensure the participation of disabled people in politics and public life in light of the recent ratification in Iceland of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) ; Peer Reviewed