News

The School of Geography at the University of Galway will host a special open guest lecture titled “Poet, Poem and Place: How Iceland’s Christmas folklore is being remade through landscape and community practice.” It will examine how folklore is not only preserved but actively reshaped through creative entrepreneurship, alongside contemporary cultural and spatial practices.

Drawing on research in Dalabyggð, West Iceland, the lecture will explore how the thirteen Yule Lads, figures from Icelandic Christmas folklore, are being reinterpreted through poetry, landscape and community-led initiatives, highlighting the role of storytelling in shaping place identity.

The event will take place on Wednesday, May 6th from 4:00–5:00 PM in the Discipline of Geography, Arts & Science Building, Room AC113.

Bringing together expertise on Icelandic culture and landscape, the event will feature Professor Einar Svansson of Bifröst University, Iceland, alongside Anna Hildur Hildibrandsdóttir, a PhD student at the University of Galway and Assistant Professor at Bifröst University. The lecture draws on the Horizon Europe research project IN SITU, of which the University of Galway and Bifröst University are partners, and which includes Dalabyggð as one of its Icelandic case study sites. It is further informed by Anna Hildur’s PhD research on creative entrepreneurship and the making of peripheral places, as well as Professor Svansson’s personal connection to the poet as his grandson.

The lecture will include a Q&A session moderated by Dr. Patrick Collins, Head of Geography at the University of Galway, offering attendees an opportunity to engage directly with the speakers.

This event provides students, staff, and the wider public with an opportunity to engage with interdisciplinary perspectives on the intersections of folklore, literature and place, and to consider how cultural narratives are continually reinterpreted within communities.

All are welcome to attend.