This spring, a series of public lectures in Shetland and Orkney will explore different aspects of things. Shetland Amenity Trust and Orkney College are jointly hosting the THING lecture series as part of the Northern Periphery Programme transnational THING Project and parallel lectures will be held in both island groups.
The first lecture will be in Shetland on Thursday 16th February. Dr Alexandra Sanmark will discuss ‘Viking and Norse Ting Sites in Shetland.’ Dr Sanmark is a postdoctoral research associate at the UHI Centre for Nordic Studies in Kirkwall. A native of Sweden, she has written extensively about assembly places in the north. She will also lecture in Orkney as part of the Gender and Justice Conference on International Women’s Day, Thursday 8th March: 'Women’s Things'.
On Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd March Professor Stefan Brink will deliver a lecture entitled ‘Law in Early Scandinavia’. Professor Brink is director of the Centre for Scandinavian Studies at the University of Aberdeen. He is author of hundreds of publications concerning the history and language of the medieval north.
The series will continue on Thursday 19th and Friday 20th April when Professor Judith Jesch will visit to discuss ‘Sagas and Things: The Cultural Life of Assemblies.’ Professor Jesch is director of the Centre for the Study of the Viking Age at the University of Nottingham, and President of the Viking Society for Northern Research. She is the author of many books and articles on Viking Society and sagas.
Dr Peter Anderson will conclude the lecture series on Thursday 24th and Friday 25th May when he talks about the Orkney Earls. Dr Anderson, a native of Orkney and former Deputy Keeper of the National Archives of Scotland, is author of Robert Stewart (1982), and Black Patie, earl of Orkney, lord of Shetland (1993). His omnibus volume about both earls will appear in May this year.
Thingsites.com
Whilst the Royal Scottish National Orchestra were in Shetland, three of their musicians took time out to visit the site which gave its name to Chris Stout's composition - Tingaholm. On Sunday afternoon, Jacquie Speirs, Peter Hunt and Fiona West accompanied Shetland Place Names Project Officer Eileen Brooke-Freeman to the small promontory at the north end of Tingwall Loch, the former site of Shetland's parliament or lawthing.
A seminar took place in the Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney last Thursday, 8 March, to mark International Women’s Day. Entitled Women’s Things, the event, organised by UHI Archaeology Department, Orkney College, was the 1st seminar of the Orkney Viking & Medieval Forum and also formed part of the international THING Project of which both the UHI Archaeology Department, Orkney College and Shetland Amenity Trust are partners.
©Frank Bradford
