Sagas and Archeology-INLUS Webinar
Vinland Remains: An Icelandic Legacy
Two Medieval Icelandic Sagas tell of a land to the west of Iceland, known today as North America. This lecture will recount the adventures of characters such as Erik the Red, Leif the Lucky, and Gudrid the Far Traveled, while comparing the saga stories with the archaeological evidence. The Viking Age discovery of North America is now widely accepted as fact, but the impact of that discovery on our understanding of the Icelandic sagas, and oral traditions more generally, continues to evolve.
Learn more when the INLUS hosts a presentation with Dr. Ward on Wednesday, September 23, 2026.
Dr. Elisabeth Ida Ward spent her summers in Iceland as a child and has had a life-long academic, professional, and personal connection to Icelandic culture and history. She holds a PhD in Scandinavian Languages and Literature from University of California at Berkeley, and wrote her dissertation on an Icelandic saga set in Northern Iceland, Thordar Saga Hredu. Her academic interests revolve around the relationship between storytelling and landscapes, especially in medieval and non-Western traditions. Professionally, she specializes in museum exhibitions, a career path she began with a position at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, where she served as assistant curator for the special exhibition Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, sponsored by the Nordic Council of Ministers. She currently lives in California, where she runs a local history museum.
Join the webinar via Zoom on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at 8:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM Central / 6:00 PM Mountain/ 5:00 PM Pacific.
This event is open to the public and will be recorded.
How to Watch:
Click either link below a few minutes before the start time for your area.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81872358562
Date
- Sep 23 2026
Time
- 19:00 - 20:00
Local Time
- Timezone: America/New_York
- Date: Sep 23 2026
- Time: 20:00 - 21:00
Labels
- INLUS Event
