Norse Revival: Transformations Of Germanic Neopaganism: Studies in Critical Research on Religion

Description

Norse Revival offers a thorough investigation of Germanic Neopaganism (Asatru) through an international and comprehensive historical perspective. It traces Germanic Neopaganism's genesis in German ultra-nationalist and occultist movements around 1900. It demonstrates how ambiguous ideas about Nordic myth permeate general discourses on race, religion, gender, sexuality, and aesthetics. Ultimately, Norse Revival raises the question whether Norse mythology can be freed from its reactionary ideological baggage.

Stefanie von Schnurbein, Dr. phil (1992), is professor for modern Scandinavian Literatures at Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin. She has published monographs and articles on Germanic Neopaganism, Scandinavian literature, gender, sexuality and masculinity and literary anti-semitism.

"aluable, rewarding, even urgent. I agree entirely with the author that we need to seriously think through the stakes of reconstructionist methodologies. The challenge issued in this book's pages is one all students of Old Norse myth must take up ...[Norse Revival] is an erudite, nuanced work of scholarship-an important contribution to our understanding of a growing international religious movement, its intellectual and cultural underpinnings, and our relationship to both." -Merrill Kaplan, Edda