A forthcoming issue of postmedieval on the Staffordshire Hoard is calling on the community for crowd review. The issue, edited by the Material Collective, will be published spring 2016. The edition will utilize Crowd Review instead of the more traditional peer review making this issue of postmedieval a community project, and redefining scholarly review in the process. From their website:

Selections from the Staffordshire Hoard. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

“In the spirit of our collaborative process, we now ask contributors–and the broader public–to respond to one another’s work in the form of a crowd review. We ask for comments, queries, suggestions, and ideas for new direction. As a reviewer, you are charged with being part of the collaboration, part of the Hoard/Horde. Our goal in this open review process is not to change the form of these experimental contributions, but rather to collaborate to expand, clarify, and refine. The crowd review mirrors the dialogic and collaborative form of the volume itself, and so we have generated an interface that allows for threaded comments in which readers can respond to one another as well as to authors directly. Our hope is that a lively month-long discussion will become its own kind of response to the Hoard, and we intend to archive the threaded comments on the Material Collective website. Authors may also incorporate suggestions into individual essays before final publication of the volume in summer of 2016.”

If you are interested in the Staffordshire Hoard, feel free to contribute, even if you are not a traditional academic. This special issue follows postmedieval’s efforts to redefine academia and include all interested parties, no matter your education level or scholarly discipline.

Seljord Folkehøgskule, a Norwegian Folkehøgskole in the remote and mountainous area of Seljord, Norway, has received international media attention for offering a class on “vikings” (outlets include for example, Time.com and the internet extensions of the Guardian and Russia Today). The course is nine months long and seems primarily focused on crafts, with some time spent in York, England, a major trade center controlled by the Norse during the Viking Age.

According to Arve Husby, head teacher of the school, the program has also received a significant response from potential students, perhaps motivated by modern popular culture:

Portrait of N. F. S. Grundtvig by Constantin Hansen. Grundtvig, an iconic figure in Danish history, was the ideological founder of the folk school concept, which is now widespread in Scandinavia, Germany, and Austria. The concept has also inspi… — Portrait of N. F. S. Grundtvig by Constantin Hansen. Grundtvig, an iconic figure in Danish history, was the ideological founder of the folk school concept, which is now widespread in Scandinavia, Germany, and Austria. The concept has also inspired scattered schools throughout the United States.

“We’ve been overwhelmed by the response to our Viking course,” said Husby. “I think it appealed because there’s a real interest from TV shows like Game of Thrones and Vikings. Plus we’re in a proper Viking location, surrounded by what many people call ‘Norway’s most beautiful mountains’ – we call them ‘hills’ – and overlooking Lake Seljord, where the Seljord monster is supposed to reside, like Norway’s Loch Ness. So Seljord is just as it would have looked in Viking times.”

For more information regarding the program, see Seljord Folkehøgskule's official site for the course:
http://www.seljord.fhs.no/linjer/viking

Postmedieval Issue - Hoarders and Hordes: Responses to the Staffordshire Hoard

Seljord Folkehøgskule's "Viking Course"