RE:22 35th Nordic Ethnology and Folklore Conference in Reykjavík 13-16 June 2022

Abstract

As a prelude to midsummer, 450 scholars and students in ethnology, folklore, and related fields gathered from 13 to 16 June at the 35th Nordic Ethnology and Folklore Conference in Reykjavik. The University of Iceland celebrated the 100th anniversary of this triennial encounter relayed among universities in the Nordic region.This edition was sparked by a theme provided by the first syllable of the northernmost capital in the world, "RE". The hosts invited participants to present topics "integral to the ethnographic/folkloristic touch" through re-verbs and re-nouns. This resulted in a myriad of expressions and gave chance to discuss current research that revives the past through tales, crafts, and folk songs; makes us rethink the once familiar everyday life in this strange present; and seeks our reaction to future uncertainties. To suggest a common thread to all possible (re)configurations, Aleida Assmann has given much attention to this prefix in conjunction with cultural memory (e.g. 2008, 2020). For her, "re" is a performative agent that brings the past into the present by an act of remembrance, affecting greatly what survives into the future. Memory works through selective mechanisms that inevitably induce its opposite: forgetting. We can use this to remember that through our interpretations, certain subjectivities and perspectives are represented, reconfigured or renewed, while we should be mindful and seek those that remain silent.Reflecting the broad internationalisation of this conference, the authors of this report are immigrants in Nordic culture, ethnology, and folklore. Even if our projects are tied to these disciplines, and we are based in this region, our (research) identities lay elsewhere. Subsequently, this report does not attempt to be representative. Our "picks" and "reads" were inspired by the keynotes and the panels we visited, which we sorted in the temporalities that converge in Assmann's mechanisms of memory, and in the phenomena we study: the past, the present, and the future.The multinational collaborative work, Grimm Ripples: The Immediate Legacy of the Grimms' Deutsche Sagen in Northern Europe (2022), was the starting point of folklorist Terry Gunnell's keynote lecture. In it, he sketched the extensive history of the northward "cultural tsunami" of Deutsche Sagen [German Leg-