SYMBODIN · The Symbolism of the Body in Northern Europe. Cognitive Metaphors and Old Norse Myth from the Viking Age to Late Medieval Times

The Symbolism of the Body in Northern Europe. Cognitive Metaphors and Old Norse Myth from the Viking Age to Late Medieval Times

The issue The main focus of the project was the issue of symbolic usage of body parts in human thinking, especially mythology. Mythology was chosen due to its surreal nature where metaphoric processes abound. Myth and ritual serve as a tool for the integration of the diverse experiences of the human body and that the human body in turn serves as a source of cognitive metaphors, which are important for the structuring of the shared symbolic system of a given culture. The goal was to study the system of values and symbolisms connected to the human body and its parts via the analysis of Old Norse myths and rituals, especially those connected with sacrifice and initiation. Myths and rituals have a very special position in a society, being of collective traditional nature and having overarching and sacred status. The project is highly relevant to the scholarly fields because, even if some partial studies about bodily symbolisms have been done in the past, there is no comprehensive synthetic work of this sort. The importance While myths are studied by specialists, their importance is still generally overlooked as they are perceived just as a thing of the past or a primitive phenomenon to be ‘debunked’ by real science. My approach to myth attempted to bridge the space between specialist’s analysis of myth and public discourse by stressing the commonalities of myth and everyday discourse and showing how the surrealness of myth is grounded in the same cognitive processes that direct our thinking and form our everyday speech. The objectives The overall objectives were to explore the research topic in the form of one general theoretical study and three case studies – four academic articles in toto. Beside the academic texts targeted at the scholars the results of the research were to be disseminated and presented to various audiences through various media: public lectures, Youtube interviews, outreach articles in specialized outreach journals targeted at policy makers, newspaper articles, seminars for students and presentations for specialists in different disciplines (e.g. physicians) etc. On the personal level the objective was to enrich my skill set (especially management and conference organization) and my experience in specialized methods (especially philology and manuscript studies), and my network by establishing my communication with leading experts in the field.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз