Prof Stefan Brink

Institute for Northern Studies
Scott's House,
Grainshore Road,
Kirkwall,
KW15 1FL

stefan.brink@uhi.ac.uk
tel: 01856 569300

Available to talk to the media about

  • Culture and languages of Early Scandinavia
  • Christianisation and Early Church
  • Landscape studies (Scandinavia)
  • Language and history in the Early Germanic World
  • Viking slavery
  • Germanic and Scandinavian place-names
  • Old Norse mythology
  • Runology

In these languages

English, Swedish

Biography

Professor Stefan Brink FRSE, is Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands and specialises in interdisciplinary research on Viking and medieval Scandinavia. His main focus is place-names and Old Norse philology, but also Norse law and mythology, and he has published extensively on these subjects. Stefan was formerly the Sixth Century Chair in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Aberdeen and has also held appointments at the universities of Uppsala and Bergen.

Current research

  • Society, culture and languages of Early Scandinavia
  • The Christianisation and Early Church Organisation in Scandinavia
  • Landscape studies (Scandinavia)
  • Language and history in the Early Germanic World
  • Viking slavery
  • Germanic place-names
  • Early law in Scandinavia
  • Old Norse mythology

Research groups and interests

  • Fellow of the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy, Uppsala (since 1997)
  • Fellow of The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, Stockholm
  • Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh
  • Member at The Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton (2017-18)
  • Editor of the Journal Viking and Medieval Scandinavia (Brepols)
  • General Editor of the Series Acta Scandinavica (Brepols)
  • General Editor Medieval Nordic Laws (a subseries to Routledge Medieval Translations) (Routledge)
  • Member of the Editorial Board of Northern Scotland (Edinburgh University Press)

Selected publications

“Gesellschaft und Kultur”, in Wikinger!, ed. M. Helmbrecht (Rosenheim: Koehler im Maximilian Verlag GmbH & Co 2016), pp. 78-89.

Stefan Brink (Aberdeen), and John Lindow (Berkeley), ‘Place Names in Eddic Poetry’, in A Handbook in Eddic Poetry. Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. C. Larrington et al. (Cambridge University Press 2015) (pp. 173-89)

“Avaldsnes, Kormt and Rogaland. A Toponymy and Landscape Survey”, in Avaldsnes A Sea-King’s Manor in First-Millennium Western Scandinavia, ed. by Dagfinn Skre (Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Ergänzungsband 1049 (Berlin & New York: de Gruyter, 2017), pp. 665-86.

“Law, Society and Landscape in Early Scandinavia”, in Comparative Law and Anthropology, ed. by James A. R. Nafziger (Research Handbooks in Comparative Law Series) (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2017), pp. 319-37.

”Nationernas och regionernas återkomst”, in Stad och land, ed. by Kurt Almqvist (Stockholm: Axel och Margaret Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse, 2017), pp. 47-53.

Theorizing Old Norse Myth, eds S. Brink and L. Collinson (Acta Scandinavica 7), Turnhout: Brepols 2017.

“Uppsala – in Myth and Reality”, in Theorizing Old Norse Myth, eds S. Brink and L. Collinson (Acta Scandinavica 7), Turnhout: Brepols 2017, pp. 175–94.

“Memory in Law” and “Onomastics”, in Handbook of Pre-Modern Nordic Memory Studies. Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. by J. Glauser, P. Hermann & S. Mitchell, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018, pp. xx