Dr. Solveig Marie Wang

Solveig Marie Wang is an interdisciplinary researcher of medieval Fennoscandia at the University of Greifswald. Solveig received her MA-degree in history at the University of Aberdeen in 2018 and defended her PhD thesis ‘Decolonising Medieval Fennoscandia: Norse-Saami Relations in the Medieval Period’ at the same university in 2021. Solveig is the managing editor of the interdisciplinary and Open Access periodical Apardjón Journal for Scandinavian Studies (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/apardjn-journal-for-scandinavian-studies--1802.php). She is also affiliated with the research group Creating the New North: Manifestations of Central Power in the North AD 500-1800 at the Arctic University of Norway. Solveig’s main research interests lie in the medieval north, with a specific focus on the historiography of Indigenous peoples, postcolonial frameworks, cross-cultural contact and concepts like fluidity. At the University of Greifswald she is part of the project ‘Mission Before Colonisation: A Reassessment of Religious Contact in Greenland and Sápmi, 1000-1550’ and since 10/2023 of the IFZO-cluster "New Nationalisms".

Monograph: 

1. Decolonising Medieval Fennoscandia: An Interdisciplinary Study of Norse-Saami Relations in the Medieval Period (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110784305.

Edited Volumes:

1. Apardjón Volume 2, ed. by Hannah Booth, Heidi Synnøve Djuve, Deniz Cem Gülen, Ingrid Hegland, Jennifer Hemphill, Simon Nygaard, Alessandro Palumbo, Solveig Marie Wang and Jessie Yusek (Aberdeen: Apardjón Journal for Scandinavian Studies, 2021).
2. Grettis rímur, trans. by Lee Colwill, ed. by Hannah Booth, Heidi Synnøve Djuve, Deniz Cem Gülen, Ingrid Hegland, Jennifer Hemphill, Solveig Marie Wang and Jessie Yusek (Aberdeen: Apardjón Journal for Scandinavian Studies, 2021).
3. Apardjón Volume 1, ed. by Daniel Cutts, Heidi Synnøve Djuve, Deniz Cem Gülen, Ingrid Hegland, Jennifer Hemphill, Solveig Marie Wang and Caroline Wilhelmsson (Aberdeen: Apardjón Journal for Scandinavian Studies, 2020).

Published articles: 

1. Review of Andreas Klein: Early Modern Knowledge about the Sámi. A History of Johannes Schefferus’ Lapponia (1673). Hannover: Wehrhan Verlag, Tromsøer Studien zur Kulturwissenschaft, Band 16, NORDEUROPAforum 85 (Jhg. 2023), 83-85.
2. ‘Medieval Literature and Saami in the South’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, Brepols 2023.
3. 'Finnvitka: The Cultural Interface, Identity Negotiation, and Saami Ritual in Medieval Fennoscandia’, CERÆ: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 9 [Ritual: Practice, Performance, Perception] (2022), 4-31.
4. ‘Decolonising Norse Studies: Colonial Strategies and the Saami as the Other in Scholarship’, Kyngervi, 3 (2021) [forthcoming]
5. ‘Conceptualizing the Multi-Cultural North of the Íslendingasögur: Peoples, Places and Phenomena’, Nordlit, 46 (2020), 245-262 (https://doi.org/10.7557/13.5480).

1. ‘Colonial Entanglements and the Medieval Nordic World. Tensions, Nordic Colonialism and Indigeneity’ (2-3.02.2023, University of Greifswald)
2. Nordischer Klang 2023: Sámi cultures, Sámi challenges (moderation)
3. Performing Magic in the Premodern North, virtual conference (8-9.12.2022)
4. Performing Magic in the Premodern North (9-10.11.2023, University of Aberdeen)
5. Moderating «Ethnicity as a Social Concept?: Non-Germans in Medieval Livonia between Rich Research Tradition and New Approaches», presenters; Dr Gustavs Strenga and Erik Wolf, (International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 03.07.2023

• 10.02.2022: «Outwardly hostile to the Norse? The role of the Saami in Norse Studies», Centre for Scandinavian Studies Seminar Series, University of Aberdeen (virtual)
• 16.02.2022: «Finnvitka: The Ambiguity of Saami Magic», Rethinking Social Boundaries in the 'Viking Diaspora', Université de Montréal (virtual)
• 23.03.2022: «Mission Before Colonisation: Medieval Greenland and Reinterpreting Contact Objects», w. Prof. Cordelia Heß, Department of Social and Cultural History Seminar Series, Ilisimatusarfik
• 09.08.2022: «The Role of the Saami in Medieval (Scandinavian) Studies», Nordiska Historikermötet, University of Gothenburg. Panel: Indigenous people in the Christian peripheries: terminology and methodology, chaired by Piotr Olinski
• 15.09.2022: «An Introduction to Mission before Colonisation: Reassessing Religious Contact in Greenland and Sápmi, 1000-1550: Repatriation and Museum Politics, Contact Objects from Medieval Greenland», w. Prof. Cordelia Heß and Erik Wolf, Creating the New North Seminar Series, Arctic University of Norway
• 09.12.2022: «Det indigene i historiografien og primærkildene», Svenska litteratursällskapet, Minoriteter i historieskrivning – granskningar av nordiske historiografier, Helsinki
• 03.02.2023: «Christianity, Conversion and the Saami in the Medieval Period», Colonial Entanglements and the Medieval Nordic World. Tensions, Nordic Colonialism and Indigeneity, University of Greifswald
• 08.06.2023: «Negotiating Indigenous Pasts in the Future of Renewable Energy Sources», co-authored w. Paul Kirschstein (in-person presenter) and Mary Keogh, Predictable Futures? On the Impact of Fear and Insecurity in the Baltic Sea Region, IFZO Conference, University of Greifswald
• 23.06.2023: «Research Project Presentation: Mission Before Colonisation and an Introduction to Medieval Greenland», guest lecture for history students at Institute for Scandinavian and Finnish Studies, University of Gdánsk
• 05.07.2023: «The Indigenous Turn of Medieval Studies: A Comparative Case Study», Panel Silence and Silencing (Silencing and Racialising), International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds