Welcome Announcement

Welcome to Vikings!

Dear Vikings! students,

This is Professor Liebscher welcoming you to Vikings! online. I am delighted that you have signed up for this course, and look forward to guiding you through it, together with our TA for the course, Jane Doe.

Your main tasks for Week 1 are:

  1. Acquire the four required books, through purchase from the UWaterloo bookstore (https://wstore.uwaterloo.ca/course-materials/my-booklook.html), as e-books and/or checking their availability as e-books in the UW library. Note: Unfortunately, the University of Waterloo Library has not been able to purchase e-licensed copies of the Penguin editions of The Sagas of Icelanders and The Prose Edda, so you'll need to purchase these books. When doing so, please pay attention to the editions as specified in the syllabus. These editions have been selected for this course because your instructors want you to be working with and learning from the best sources. These editions are reliable, trustworthy, and accurate, and the translations are written in understandable, modern English. We will be working with these books throughout the semester.
  2. Familiarize yourself with the course, especially with the syllabus. Take the syllabus quiz and introduce yourself on the discussion board.

Vikings remain an enduring part of the cultural memory in Scandinavia and beyond, and their continued presence in modern popular culture is remarkable. You may be familiar with the Eurovision song contest, an international song competition that began in the 1950s (!). The Danish entry for 2018 featured a Viking theme with an interesting twist; listen carefully to the lyrics. The link is below. (Note that the singer, Rasmussen, is not related to the course author, Prof. Rasmussen.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeraDSzu0nw

Are you ready to set sail? I am!

Best,

Grit Liebscher

Published with permission from the course instructor and author (Liebscher & Rasmussen, 2020)

 

Source: Liebsher, G., and Rasmussen A.M. (2020) GER 230: Vikings!. Centre for Extended Learning, University of Waterloo. Online course, spring 2020.