American/Medieval Goes North: Earth and Water in Transit

The North signifies, as do all four cardinal directions, emotional, environmental, and cultural bodies of knowledge. These include political structures ("the wealthy North"), artistic productions ("Scandinavian" design), nomadic Hunter "Indigeneity" and Colonizer "Whiteness" as Northern signifiers - and, of course, the domain of many species of spirit masters, demons, and missionaries. Archaeologists agree that long before Columbus, it was Vikings and their slaves - northern seafarers from Scandinavia and enslaved men and women from Ireland - who made first contact with "America" in its northernmost regions. Twelve previously unpublished essays represent the disciplines of literature, history, art history, film studies, rhetoric, religious studies, cultural and queer studies.