Upcoming Events
Fall 2025 Lectures (September–December)
The location for the talks has not yet been confirmed.
Sunday, September 14, at 2:00 pm
Education is the lightest load you will ever carry
: The significance of self-education in the cultural history of the descendants of Icelandic 19th-century immigrants to Canada
Birna Bjarnadóttir, Research Specialist, Faculty of Languages and Cultures, University of Iceland, and former Chair of Icelandic (2003 —2015), University of Manitoba
Sunday, October 5, at 2:00 pm
The varieties of migration experience in the poetry of Undína and Stephan G. Stephansson
Birna Bjarnadóttir, Research Specialist, Faculty of Languages and Cultures, University of Iceland, and former Chair of Icelandic (2003 —2015), University of Manitoba
Saturday, October 18, at 2:00 pm
Icelandic emigration to the Americas 1870−1914, seen from a Nordic comparative perspective
Ólöf Garðarsdóttir, Professor of Social History, Dean of the School of Humanities, University of Iceland
Sunday, November 22, at 2:00 pm
The creative power of the Westfjords and Strandir in the history of Icelandic literature and world literature
Birna Bjarnadóttir, Research Specialist, Faculty of Languages and Cultures, University of Iceland, and former Chair of Icelandic (2003 —2015), University of Manitoba
Monday, December 29, at 7:30 pm
Screening of The Swan, directed by Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir
As part of the Victoria International Film Festival, Icelandic film director Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir will be present during the screening of her 2017 film The Swan, which is based on a novel by the Icelandic writer Guðbergur Bergsson.
September–December 2025 Course
Dr. Birna Bjarnadóttir will be teaching a course on Icelandic Canadian Literature.
GGMST 369: Special Topics in Scandinavian Studies Fall 2025 Topic: The Transatlantic Context in Icelandic Canadian Literature
In this course, students will get an opportunity to explore and study the far-reaching intercultural enterprise in the literary works of both Icelandic 19th-century immigrants to Canada and their descendants. The focus will be on the works of the poet, farmer, essayist, pacifist, and social prophet Stephan G. Stephansson (1853 –1927); Helga Steinvör Baldvinsdóttir (1858–1941), who writes her poetry under the pseudonym Undína, and the poet and playwright Guttormur J. Guttormsson, (1878 – 1966), the son of Icelandic immigrants. Stephan G., Undína and Guttormur only write in Icelandic and manifest a life-long attachment to and engagement with the culture and heritage of Iceland. However, in their lives as immigrants and children of immigrants, the Icelandic language does not set them free from existential and historic complexities in the transatlantic region. Neither does the Icelandic language secure their works a uniform account of these complexities; a subject that is manifested by evident differences of their individual aesthetics and the varieties of their lived experiences.
Information for community members interested in auditing a course at UVic: https://www.uvic.ca/students/undergraduate/course-registration/auditing/index.php/.