The regular issue 14(1)/2019 comprises two new articles that underwent double blind peer-review, one conference paper, one monograph-length contribution, an additional essay written in Icelandic and a rich collection of reviews of recent scientific and scholarly books, many of which deal with Arctic-related issues. (One belated review concerns an older book, but is published nonetheless for the sake of respect to the book’s author and publishers.)

As regards the new peer-reviewed articles (by Birgir Guðmundsson & Baldur Sverrisson, and by Henrik Juel), both of them focus on recent political events from the perspective of rhetorical analysis and communication studies, whether applied on a national scale (i.e. Iceland) or an international one. The conference paper (by Nikola Tutek) deals instead with Iceland in contemporary Canadian literature and originates from the conference “Exploring Canada: Exploits & Encounters”, organised by the Nordic Association of Canadian Studies and held at the University of Akureyri in August 2018. The lengthy non-refereed contribution (by Enrico Arona) tackles fundamental theoretical issues arising in international law in connection with warfare, terrorism and transnational migration. The additional non-refereed essay (by Helga Guðmundsdóttir, Jónína Einarsdóttir & Geir Gunnlaugsson), which is published in the present issue of our journal for the sake of prompt and wide dissemination within Iceland, tackles instead the related topic of immigrant children’s welfare in Iceland and whether the existing institutional provisions within the nation may be adequate or not; it is their authors’ hope that this article may facilitate the local discussion and resolution of the problematic aspects identified by their research.

We thank most warmly all contributors for their good work and their collaboration with Nordicum-Mediterraneum.

Two new issues of Nordicum-Mediterraneum are being released in March 2018.

The former, special issue 12(4), comprises proceedings from the conference “The Sick Action. Shadows of the World, Shadows of Mankind”, held in Palermo, Italy, on the 9th and 10th of June 2017, and organised by the Sneffels Psychoanalytic Circle of Palermo in collaboration with Italian and Icelandic institutions.

The latter, regular issue 13(1), comprises two new articles on recent socio-economic trends in Iceland (both of which underwent double blind peer review) as well as several book reviews and one essay-length additional contribution presenting an original theory of citizenship rights. We thank all contributors and collaborators for their good work.

Two new special issues of Nordicum-Mediterraneum are being released in August 2017.

The former, issue 12(2), comprises proceedings from the latest symposium of the research circle n. 5 of the Nordic Summer University, “International Relations and Human Rights”, held in Wroclaw, Poland, this February.

The latter, issue 12(3), comprises proceedings from the international conference “The Rhetoric of Prejudice: Can Europe be still inclusive?”, held at the University of Genoa, Italy, this May.

We thank all contributors and collaborators for their good work.

The editor and the webmaster are available if you have any questions: http://nome.unak.is/ (cf. Contacts)

The new regular issue 12(1)/2017 comprises four new articles that underwent double blind peer review, three additional contributions (two of which of article-length), and a rich collection of reviews of recent scientific and scholarly literature, including three publications dealing specifically with Arctic issues. As regards the four new articles, the first one, written by Eirikur Bergmann, discusses the legal and political intricacies surrounding the notorious Icesave dispute, i.e. one of the many poisoned fruits inherited by the Icelandic polity after several years of deregulated finance in the 2000s and the internationally televised dramatic collapse of the nation’s recently privatised banking sector in 2008. The second article, authored by Kristin Tiili and Annalien Ramakers, addresses the good-governance-related issue of transparency in the making, enforcing and reviewing of laws concerning whaling in contemporary Norway. The third one, penned by Stéphanie Barillé and Markus Meckl, offers an articulate statistical survey of the high levels of happiness and wellbeing recorded among immigrants in today’s northern Iceland; in essence, it is a rare case of sociological investigation presenting a positive account of a current state of affairs rather than a problematic one. The fourth one, written by Vasiliki Saranti, looks at the post-2008 slump from the south, for it focuses on the application of human rights legislation to the case of hard-hit Greece and in particular to the dire fate of economic, social and cultural rights in the face of prolonged austerity policies. Concerning the additional article-length contributions, one focuses upon the notion of the “competition state”, which so much currency seems to have gained in the Danish political language over recent times (Jacob Dahl Rendtorff), another is an interview with the deputy director at the new national library of Alexandria in Egypt (Rosella Perugi), whilst the third one opens a long-awaited English-language window over the much-debated research by one of Italy’s leading experts on the famous Genoese explorer, Christopher Columbus (Ruggero Marino).

To access freely the new issue, click on the links in the menus to the left or above this brief note, or copy-and-paste what follows: http://nome.unak.is/wordpress/volume-12-no-1-2017/

This special issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum contains selected proceedings from the meetings of two Nordic Summer University research circles: Crisis and Crisis Scenarios: Normativity, Possibilities and Dilemmas and Human Rights and International Relations.

Once again, Nordicum-Mediterraneum was chosen by the Nordic Summer University as the venue to make the dissemination of the research circles’ output available to the international academic community in a prompt, convenient and totally open-access manner. We are proud and grateful for the continuing collaboration.

The introductory note of this special issue was penned by Drs. Mogens Chrom Jacobsen and Øjvind Larsen, who are respectively the coordinators of the two research circles, i.e. #3 (Crisis and Crisis Scenarios: Normativity, Possibilities and Dilemmas) and #5 (Human Rights and International Relations).

Please visit the following page to read the new special issue: http://nome.unak.is/wordpress/volume-11-no-3-2016/

In its eleven years of life, Nordicum-Mediterraneum has relied primarily upon two persons, namely its editor and its webmaster, Mr Fabrizio Veneziano of Schiller International University in Paris, France. As of today, Mr Veneziano steps down qua webmaster and the IT Services Department of the University of Akureyri replace him. On behalf of the Editorial Board and of myself, I welcome the latter and thank most warmly the former, whose hard work, attention to detail and technical competence have been fundamental for the journal’s existence and success.

The Editor

The University of Akureyri and Akureyri Academy held the Conference entitled “No one is an island: Iceland and the International Community” at the University of Akureyri on the 19th of March 2016, in collaboration with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The conference addressed the subject of Iceland in the International Community on a broad basis, featuring a variety of perspectives on the subject from academics, officials and NGOs. The conference was a forum for discussion on the position of Iceland in the International Community, inasmuch as the position, influence and interests of Iceland in international relations are currently and will continue to be important issues. Select papers presented at the conference were collected and published in the proceedings  available on our website qua special issue nr. 11(2)/2016.

In March 2016 two issues of Nordicum-Mediterraneum are being published simultaneously.

The first one, special issue 10(3), contains select proceedings from the third meeting of the Nordic Summer University’s research circle called “Crisis and Crisis Scenarios: Normativity, Possibilities and Dilemmas”, held April 9th—12th, 2015 at the Lysebu Conference Centre in Oslo, Norway. The circle’s research programme runs from 2014 to 2016 and is aimed at examining the concept of crisis as it is used today in academia and public discussions. The published contributions originate in the social sciences, economics included, and legal studies.

The second one, regular issue 11(1), comprises three new articles, which underwent double blind peer-review, two additional article-length contributions and a rich collection of reviews of recent scientific and scholarly literature, one third of which dealing with the Polar regions. As regards the three new articles, the first one, written by Jesper Jespersen, discusses and criticises recent Danish macroeconomic policy and the econometric models upon which the policy has been based; the second, authored by Carsten Friberg, makes an original use of Baumgarten’s aesthetics in order to explain the truth behind the seemingly odd claim that Nordic perception differs from Mediterranean perception; the third one offers an overview and a critical analysis of the Arctic policy statement recently released by the Italian government, Towards an Italian Strategy for the Arctic (Rachael Lorna Johnstone & Federica Scarpa). Concerning the additional article-length contributions, one focuses upon contemporary trends in Nordic cuisine (Francesco Mangiapane), another on Western conceptions of the North (Gianluca Pulsoni). We thank all the authors for their good work.

It should be noted that, as of this month, Nordicum-Mediterraneum migrated onto a new software platform because of security hazards. Unforeseen glitches keep being discovered, unfortunately. We apologise for any technical problems that our readers may encounter and we invite them to contact the journal’s webmaster in order to notify these problems at once and, hopefully, have them fixed promptly.

The 2015 regular issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum celebrates the journal’s first decade with three special contributions by noted Icelanders who, for professional or personal reasons, have very close ties with Italy: the celebrated tenor Kristján Jóhannsson; the ECHR judge and jurist Róbert Spanó; and the TV journalist, anchorwoman  and former presidential candidate Þóra Arnórsdóttir. In addition,  a selection of papers from an Akureyri-based international conference on freedom of the press, three interviews and many book reviews further enrich this celebratory issue.

The 2015 special issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum comprises six papers and an introductory note concerning the NordForsk-funded IDIN network of 2011-2014, which brought together specialists in different areas of the human and social sciences in order engage in discussions about immigration in an inter-cultural perspective. The principal objective of the research network was to analyse the insufficient theoretical characterisation of the received categories (universalism and multiculturalism and connected theories such as liberalism and pluralism) that have been used to explain and regulate the relations between the ethnically defined majority and the ethnically defined minorities within the same society, with particular reference to the Nordic context and the so-called “Scandinavian model”.

NOVEMBER 2014

In this special issue of our journal, several conference papers are published that are based upon lectures delivered by members of the NSU study group called “Crisis and Crisis Scenarios: Normativity, Possibilities and Dilemmas” at the 2014 NSU Summer Session, held between 24th July and 31st July 2014 in Sauðárkrókur, Northern Iceland. The overall theme of the meeting was the notion of crisis, broadly and differently understood, though special attention was paid to the sub-theme entitled “Neoliberalism, Economic Crisis and a New Economy”. The general discussion was a continuation of the work by the same NSU study group on topics such as: the concept of crisis; democracy in crisis: the European Union and the public sector; crisis, existence and culture; crisis in the Arctic (especially climate change and environmental issues); crisis and the paradoxes of new technologies; globalization and crisis. Given the defining spirit and the stated mission of Nordicum-Mediterraneum, which fosters and investigates cultural exchanges between Nordic and Mediterranean countries, it should be noted that some of the lectures published hereby were delivered by Nordic-based academics making extensive use of Mediterranean scholarship and thinkers (e.g. Lyotard, Castoriadis, Piketty). We thank all participants for their contribution. 

JUNE 2014 

This special issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum contains the proceedings from the first meeting of the third NSU study group called “Crisis and Crisis Scenarios: Normativity, Possibilities and Dilemmas”, held March 14-16 2014 at the Lysebu Conference Centre in Oslo, Norway, and having a research programme that runs from 2014 to 2016 aimed at examining the concept of crisis as this is used today in academia’s many declinations. In this collection of papers we present some of the different ways in which the topic of the study group has been addressed.

MARCH 2014

This year, two issues of Nordicum-Mediterraneum are published jointly in the month of March.

The former, issue 9(1), is the regular annual issue of our scholarly journal. It contains six new articles that passed our blind peer-review process of assessment, for which we thank the collaborators acting as referees. In addition, it comprises several book reviews, one authorial reply to a book review published previously and four further contributions. Among them, one is the first installment of a much longer historical study about the return of Catholicism to Iceland, in the true spirit of the exchanges between Northern and Southern Europe constituting the original research theme of Nordicum-Mediterraneum. Another is the keynote speech at the 2014 Zeitgeist international conference, held this month at the University of Toronto, by FSRC fellow Prof. John McMurtry, who thus continues and enriches his contribution to the journal’s ongoing reflection on the economic crisis. Naturally, we thank all contributors to this new regular issue of the journal.

The latter, issue 9(2), contains some rather special conference proceedings. March 26th, 2013 marked the 70th birthday of Mikael Karlsson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iceland and former Dean of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences at the University of Akureyri, which publishes Nordicum-Mediterraneum. The same year marked also the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences at the University of Akureyri, under Mikael Karlsson’s leadership. To celebrate this twofold festive occasion, the local School of Humanities and Social Sciences, which is the direct descendent of that 2003-born Faculty, organised on April 19th, 2013 a colloquium in Mikael Karlsson‘s honour. Researchers from within and beyond Iceland delivered presentations related to the colloquium’s theme – “what is morality?” (chosen by Prof. Karlsson himself) or on other topics related to his philosophical interests. One presentation was devoted entirely to Mikael Karlsson’s manifold and significant contributions to the University of Akureyri and to the practice of philosophy in Iceland. The opening address by the Rector of the University of Akureyri, Stefán B. Sigurðsson, and the official programme of the colloquium are also included in this special issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum, which wishes to record and reinforce such a twofold festive occasion and, especially, honour further Mikael Karlsson, to whom the Icelandic academic community owes so much.

NOVEMBER 2013  

Issue 8(3) – 2013 Special issue #2

The study group number three of the Nordic Summer University (NSU), called “Towards a New Ethical Imagination. Political and Social Values in a Cosmopolitan World Society”, held its last meeting, in a cycle of six, at the Sunnmøre Folkehøgskule in Ålesund, Norway, from July 29 to August 5, 2013. The special topic chosen for the last meeting was good governance, although the group’s traditional areas of study of the research group — ethics, cosmopolitanism, sustainability — were amply covered as well. Many interesting and useful discussions took place at the summer meeting in Ålesund, for which the organisers are extremely grateful. The present special issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum contains only a selection of the papers presented on the occasion or prepared for the meeting and made available to the participants on a later date. In keeping with the spirit of the journal, most papers published in this special issue are tokens of Nordic scholarship on Mediterranean thinkers and themes, given subjects such as Greece’s 2010 Loan Agreements, the ethics of public administration vis-à-vis the global scourge of corruption, early-modern Continental diplomatic traditions established in Colbertine France, the environemntalist thought of the Israeli War of Independence’s veteran Hans Jonas, and contemporary French and Italian political philosophy. The editorial team of Nordicum-Mediterraneum salutes the NSU study group number three and thanks its members for the fruitful collaboration enjoyed over the past three years.

JUNE 2013 

Issue 8(2) – 2013 Special issue #1

The study group number three of the Nordic Summer University (NSU), called “Towards a New Ethical Imagination. Political and Social Values in a Cosmopolitan World Society”, held its annual Winter meeting at the University of Akureyri, Iceland, March 1-3, 2013. Different topics in the fields of moral, political, economic and social philosophy were discussed, with the addition of a special theme chosen for the occasion, i.e. ethical, political and legal issues in the Arctic region. It was a very fruitful meeting and the group members would like to thank the local organisers and in particular the Icelandic NSU coordinator, Ágúst Þór Árnason, for all the hard work done in Akureyri. In this special issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum the papers accepted and prepared for the Winter meeting have been collected, re-edited and made available to the international academic community, in the hope that the reader may be able to enjoy the same thought-provoking experience as the participants did during the intense days of presentations and discussions that took place at the University of Akureyri.

MARCH 2013

Issue 8(1) – 2013 Regular issue 

This year’s regular issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum opens with two new articles, which have passed the double blind peer-review process of selection for all article-level submissions to our journal. Both of them deal with legal and political issues in the Arctic region. Specifically, Irina Zhilina’s contribution deals with NATO’s presence and security role in the far North, whereas Hjalti Ómar Ágústsson’s and Rachael Lorna Johnstone’s determines whether good governance standards were upheld in the relations between the Icelandic government and the IMF during the latter’s involvement in the country’s financial policies following the 2008 collapse of the nation’s banking sector. Further reflections on the economic crisis are offered in special editor-reviewed contributions that further the journal’s continuing engagement with this particular topic. The journal’s acceptance rate for this regular issue was 33%.

In addition to the new articles and reflections, the current issue contains a rich survey of recent scholarly and scientific literature via two review essays and several book reviews, including two replies by authors of volumes that have been reviewed in our journal, i.e. Herman Salton’s Arctic Host, Icy Visit and Federico Sollazzo’s Totalitarismo, democrazia, etica pubblica. We are particularly grateful for these replies, which allow our journal to serve as a vibrant venue for the exchange of ideas and information on Nordic and Mediterranean matters. A novel, partial English translation of a classic text in medieval Norse literature — Nikulás Bergsson’s Leiðarvísir — concludes the current issue.