Satisfied

Sometimes when scholars disagree with each other, things can be unpleasant. But I must say, although everyone at the conference today had radically different ideas about what the word Viking should refer to, and there were a few moments when it seemed like the panelists might start entrenching to their own viewpoints, my feeling was that by the end there was a newfound feeling of respect and openness by almost everyone in the room. A pivotal moment came actually when one scholar made a very positive remark about how clever Jón Páll (the world's strongest man) had been in defining himself as a Viking. The talks prior to that talk were not the sort that would have looked kindly on such a neologism, but in a scholarly symposium, it usually only takes one good idea for everyone in the room to start thinking about things differently.

I was most grateful that I was not the one who had to come up with such a discussion-altering tidbit.

The discussion afterwards came around to one of my favorite subjects: finding a way to bridge the gap between scholarly knowledge and general knowledge about a subject.

It was in many ways a very brave conference, for bringing together so many people who have historically disagreed with one another, and I congratulate Reykjavík Museums for putting it together. Takk fyrir mig.