By Peter Simonsen, Jon Helt Haarder. Guest editors Peter Simonsen and Jon Helt Haarder introduce this theme issue, discussing the definition and stakes of precarity in society in general and in contemporary Scandinavian literature in particular.

This book consists of an Introduction, nineteen chapters by mostly different authors (Carolyne Larrington contributes two), an 'Annotated taxonomy of genres', a 'Chronological outline' of events relevant to the development of Old Norse-Icelandic literature, and a bibliography of works cited.Frequent reference is made from one chapter to another, sometimes by title and/or the name of the author, but sometimes, more confusingly, by chapter number, the confusion arising from the fact that the chapters are numbered neither in the Contents nor at their headings where they appear within the book.This means in theory that in such cases the reader has to refer to the Contents and count from the first chapter listed there (on 'Genre', by Massimiliano Bampi) in order to follow up the reference, though in practice it is often clear from the context which chapter is meant.In the Introduction, by Bampi and Sif Rikhardsdottir, it is shown that certain of the terms used today for the genres of Old Norse-Icelandic literature are attested from the medieval period, notably konunga sögur ('kings' sagas') and riddara sögur ('sagas of knightsʼ, i.e. romances), which point to a classification of prose works by content, whereas the different uses of the term háttr ('mode'), also attested from the medieval period and still in use, indicate a classification of poetry by form.While 'hybridityʼ, the merging of one literary form with another, is obviously apparent in prosimetrum, which is exemplified in a good many sagas, the exclusively poetic forms seem to allow for less hybridity among themselves than do the essentially prose forms of saga narrative.The chapters are divided into three numbered parts, the first, entitled 'Theory', containing six chapters, and the second and third, 'Themes' and 'Genre in Focus', containing seven and six respectively.The first chapter in Part I, on 'Genre', by Bampi, views Old Norse-Icelandic literature in terms of polysystem theory, that is, as a network of interrelating literary forms in which a dominant form can be superseded and influenced by other forms in the course of time, as with the preponderance of riddara sögur and fornaldarsögur (ʻsagas of antiquityʼ) over the Íslendinga sögur ('sagas of Icelanders') after the

Front matter aside, the pagination in this two-volume work is continuous.940 of its 1163 pages make up the first volume, while the second, containing seven of its 54 figures and all 26 of its colour plates, gives extracts, with translations, from writings and runic inscriptions in Old Norse (West and East), and from works in medieval Latin, illustrating in one way or another the ways in which memory and commemoration found expression in ancient Scandinavia.The first volume contains an Introduction by the three editors and a hundred chapters (numbered I: 1-30; II: 1-70) by seventy-eight contributors, some of them (including the editors) contributing more than one chapter (the extracts in volume II are numbered III: 1-45).While the focus of the book is mainly on pre-modern Scandinavia, as its title suggests and as the contents of its second volume confirm, there is in fact much in it that is modern, since it is concerned with how ancient Scandinavia both was and is remembered, in the present as well as the past, and includes chapters on present-day popular culture and neopaganism as well as on late Iron Age architecture and medieval manuscripts.Its interdisciplinary approach, also signalled in the title, is evident in contributions from such neighbouring disciplines as Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Sámi studies, and in chapters on Greenlandic, Balto-Finnic, North American, Irish, British, French, German, Polish, and Russian perspectives on the Scandinavian past.Where chapters are referred to solely by number in the present review (for reasons of space) it should be noted that the topics stated here as treated in them are not always reflected in their titles.Key concepts in the first volume are collective memory, communicative memory, and cultural memory, which the editors discuss in a somewhat open-ended way in their , acknowledging that the term ʻmemoryʼ is ʻstill not fully explainedʼ (p.11), and preparing the reader for the many different modifiers applied to it by the volumeʼs contributors.The term ʻcollective memoryʼ derives from writings by Maurice Halbwachs (referred to on pp.29, 129), who argued (if I have understood him correctly) that memory is essentially a social phenomenon, in that individuals cannot exercise

of a major biography of Ibsen. Such layering lends the work an additional interest, depth, and authority. In addition, this new Ibsen biography is part of a renaissance not just in the practice of life-writing but in Ibsen studies as well. The fascination with what it means to form a pattern and a structure out of a life in hindsight has never seemed stronger, while the scholarship on Ibsen over the past decade or so has yielded new insights into his early years, his theatrical apprenticeships, and the sophisticated publishing and bookselling networks throughout the Nordic region from which his career benefited. We also have new translations of Ibsen's plays from Penguin and the meticulously researched and comprehensive Henrik Ibsens Skrifter database (University of Oslo Library platform), spearheaded by the historian Narve Fulsaas.

Two major defences of the freedom of expression were articulated in the nineteenth-century utilitarian tradition. Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was concerned with establishing the freedom of expression, and in particular the freedom of the press, as a protection against despotism and thereby furthering his schemes for the introduction of a democratic form of government, while John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) in _On Liberty_ famously defended freedom of expression on the grounds that it promoted the discovery and maintenance of truth. Nevertheless, Bentham and Mill both retained deep philosophical commitments to truth and utility, and their different approaches are better understood as complementary rather than contradictory and as reflecting the circumstances in which they were writing. Taking as a starting point the connections between the Nordic countries and these two thinkers, this article examines and compares Bentham’s and Mill’s work on freedom of expression.

The Nordic countries have traditionally been regarded as pioneers in the historical development of the freedom of expression. In 2016, Sweden and Finland celebrated the 250th anniversary of the world’s first freedom of the press act, passed in 1766. Even later on, the history of freedom of expression remained primarily synonymous with that of freedom of the press. The Danish autocracy’s regulation on the boundaries of press freedom in 1799 restricted the previously tolerated freedom of the press but was based on the idea of the rule of law and on two principles, namely the absence of advance censorship and the right of the author and publisher to have their case tried before a court. These principles were repeated in the Swedish Instrument of Government of 1809, the Norwegian Constitution of 1814 and the Danish Constitution of 1849. Even the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was in Russia’s possession, received its own constitutional statute concerning the freedom of expression in 1906. In reality, however, freedom of expression was often under threat as all those in power were opposed to the right of the opposition to express themselves. Judicial control therefore acted as an important protection for the freedom of expression, but even this shield had its limits depending on the political views of the judges.

This article seeks to open up an exploration of the relationship between union, nation and civil society. The two multinational union polities which are used as case studies are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) and the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway (1814–1905). The article is structured around three discrete but interlinked questions or issues. First, given that the premise of the analysis offered here is the value of comparative approaches, is there in fact a basis for comparing these two united kingdoms? Second, given that the relationship between associational cultures, civil society and the democratic health of a polity has long been debated, should we now also be asking whether the condition of union states was related to the shape of civil society? Lastly, in Gramscian terms civil society is the arena in which consent for the hegemony of the dominant class is achieved: any reflection on the formation of consent raises the issue of union (or supranational) symbolism and national symbolism within civil society in different types of union state.

This article introduces the most significant steps taken towards the introduction of freedom of discussion in the UK and compares them with debates on freedom of the press and freedom of expression in the rest of Europe. Taking as a starting point John Stuart Mill’s and Albert Dicey’s nineteenth-century deliberations on freedom of discussion and freedom of the press, this article examines debates around the extent to which English law should guarantee or restrict the press’s or the individual’s ability to spread new ideas.

Ibsen’s _An Enemy of the People_ is frequently performed worldwide today. Its popularity must be due to the relevance of the problems depicted therein to the current global context, such as extreme individualism, democracy vs. mobocracy, environmental pollution, manipulation of information, and the conservative education system. _An Enemy of the People_ was the first Ibsen play to be staged in Japan, although it was adapted for the Japanese setting. At the time of its staging, it reflected the then much-debated issue of copper mine pollution in central Japan. Norway and Japan underwent similar processes of modernization in the second half of the nineteenth century, although with a certain time lag. Therefore, in order to properly appreciate _An Enemy of the People_ today, this article examines the play from an inter-sociocultural perspective. Adopting this perspective allows us to demonstrate the continued relevance of Ibsen to our post-modern world.