This new regular issue of NoMe contains: three original articles that underwent double blind peer-review; sixteen book reviews; and one additional editor-reviewed contribution,  i.e., the second edition of the only extant Icelandic-language glossary of technical terms in Roman law, as prepared by Dr Jürgen Jamin and originally published in its first version in issue 16(1)/2021 of our journal. We are proud to be able to host such a gem of truly Nordic-Mediterranean scholarship, which has already been utilised in Iceland for university-level instruction. On their part, the three new peer-reviewed articles are as follows:

“Arab Muslim Immigrant Women in Iceland: Immigration Experience and Future Expectation”, by Fayrouz Nouh, Andrea Hjálmsdóttir and Marcus Meckl, who present and discuss their qualitative study of the experiences of Arab immigrant women in today’s Iceland, and especially how these women have faced the challenges of integration within Icelandic society.

“Studying Small States: The Role of Security and Strategy as Concepts”, by Jakob Þór Kristjánsson, who discusses the limited power of small states in international relations and argues that keen scholarly research can actually help the political elite and the public institutions to clarify the small states’ policies in light of their inherent vulnerabilities.

“Four Perspectives on Dilemmas in Management Analysis in Greenland”, by Poul Bitsch Olesn and Jacob Dahl Rendtorff, who discuss important methodological questions related to how socio-scientific analyses have been conducted with regard to Greenlandic management and Greenlandic managers, especially as concerns creating productive communication with local public institutions.

We thank most warmly all the contributors for their fine works, which ensure the continued relevance and usefulness of Nordicum-Mediterraneum as the online, free, open-access, multi- and inter-disciplinary forum that it has endeavoured to be since its inception in 2005.

The new special issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum 16(2)/2021, led by Dr. Barry Zellen from the Center for Arctic Study and Policy at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, includes a ground-breaking and fresh set of eight new research articles that underwent double blind peer review. This issue focuses on international relations theories and geopolitics, providing analysis of the current state of Arctic geopolitics and the Arctic Council, as well as personal insights regarding the integration of the individual and its perspective in the Arctic.

In this issue, two articles deal with indigenous peoples, geopolitics and international relations: “Geopolitics, Indigenous Peoples, and the Polar Thaw: Sub- and Transnational Fault Lines of the Coming Arctic Cold War” by Dr. Barry Zellen, who highlights the interwoven nature of Arctic indigenous peoples’ empowerment and the interplay of rising great power competition; and “Understanding the Role of Arctic States, Non-Arctic States and Indigenous Peoples in Arctic Affairs Through the Lens of International Relations Theories” by Thomas Viguier, who focuses on understanding each group of power’ stakes in the Arctic from the perspective of international relations and geopolitics.

In addition, two articles tackle the ongoing transformation of Greenland and its challenges: “High Stakes in the High North: Alternative Models for Greenland’s Ongoing Constitutional and Political Transformation” by Dr. Barry Zellen, who provides a deep analysis of alternative tools for Greenland to advance its stakes as a potential future Arctic state; and “The Greenlandic Question: An International Relations Analysis of a Post-Independence Inuit Nation” by Jonathan Wood, who provides an insight on the position of Greenland in the international scene as an independent indigenous state.

Furthermore, one article deals with the ambitions and international relations’ approach to Arctic affairs arising in Singapore: “Singapore and the Arctic: Is the Gibraltar of the East Going to Materialize its Geopolitical Ambitions?” by Thomas Viguier, who uses the microstate’s historical and development analysis in order to understand its philosophy and geopolitical position in Arctic affairs, promoting knowledge sharing as well as cooperation for a mutual benefit while addressing security issues.

Finally, three articles propose a reflection of the self in the Arctic from different perspectives: “Schrödinger’s American: A Self-Reflection of One Person’s Role in Iceland’s Nordic and Arctic Discourse” by Jonathan Wood, who explains his role in contributing to Iceland’s discourse on both national and international levels; “Climate Change, the Arctic and I” by Martin Binachon, who exposes an original self-reflection connected to the role of non-state actors in shaping international relations in a context of a warming Arctic; and “The Pandemic, the Arctic and Me: A Levels of Analysis Discussion of Arctic Security Focusing on the 2020 Global Pandemic” by Soazic Dacal, who provides an analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on Arctic residents as well as the challenges and opportunities that arose from the situation using her personal experience as an Arctic resident in Iceland.

Overall, it is a juicy special issue that goes beyond traditional topics and is a genuine source of originality and fresh analysis: From future indigenous independent states to non-Arctic microstate and going through the role of self-reflection in international relations and the ongoing issues of the current COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the reader will find new perspectives to further understand the Arctic, its affairs, its people, its cultures, challenges and opportunities in a growing context of internationalization of the region. Here at NoMe, we would like to encourage everyone to submit academic articles, book reviews and any other academic material for publication in order to continue shaping a high-quality scholarly open-access journal coming directly from the Arctic. We wish you a nice reading!

The new regular issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum 16(1)/2021 includes three new research articles that underwent double blind peer review. Two of them deal with matters concerning the Nordic countries, i.e., experimental pedagogy across Scandinavia (“Children’s Rock Art. A Scandinavian Study” by Francis Joy) and the implications for the Arctic region of the current international shipping regime of flags of convenience (“What Are These Countries Doing Here? Analyzing Transparency in the Current Flag of Convenience Regime and Their Impact on Shipping in the Arctic” by Jonathan Wood, Thomas Viguier and Emma Ashlock). The third one, instead, recovers and reassesses the importance of an eminently Mediterranean cultural creation, i.e., classical rhetoric, in connection with the pedagogical needs arising from the increasingly visual and oral features of today’s digital media (“The Need for Oratory Skills in the Digital Age. A Phenomenological Approach to Teaching Speech Today” by Henrik Juel).

In addition, this issue comprises the usual, rich and truly Nordic-Mediterranean review of many recent publications that, in all likelihood, should be of interest to our readership in Northern as well as Southern Europe, plus many countries across the Circumpolar North,  Northern Africa and the Middle East. The reviewed volumes amount to fifteen, as a matter of fact. We are most grateful to the publishers that keep cooperating with our journal. Also, we are grateful to the individual collaborators who submitted to our attention several interesting research items included in the closing section of this issue. They are: the human rights specialist Eyassu Gayim, who uses our journal to alert us to the ongoing tragedy of Tigray; Jürgen Jamin, who contributes the first lexicon of key terms in Roman Law ever written in Icelandic; Marisa Dolente, who releases two original manuscripts by the Genoese historian Severino D. Dolente and a short biography of the same; and the Croatian literary critic and auteur Nikola Tutek, who pens a witty reflection on the demonisation of the year 2020, which has witnessed, inter alia, a worldwide pandemic and the likely end of Trumpism in American politics. All these additional contributions, as usual, underwent thorough editorial review.

UPDATE

NoMe has recently and successfully re-applied for inclusion in DOAJ, after complying with additional layers of editorial bureaucracy. At the same time, NoMe has been accepted among the point-giving scholarly journals listed on the Finnish Publication Forum (JUFO), as we announced in November 2021. We are therefore attempting to achieve a balancing act and meet the criteria arising from Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden (notably, DOAJ). New forces have joined our Editorial Team, and it is primarily thanks to them that NoMe can look forward to the future and come to consider DOAJ’s de-listing as a mere temporary hiccup caused, as explained hereby, by our stricter adherence to home-grown editorial criteria rather than larger Scandinavia-based ones. Which challenges and changes may be needed in the coming years, we do not know. If past experience can teach us any valuable lesson, however, it is that open-access electronic publishing is no longer the flexible and expedient means of academic dissemination that it used to be in the beginning, but has been standardised and regulated to such an extent as to resemble the trite reality of traditional academic publishing at large.

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As of 11th February 2021, our journal (NoMe) is no longer listed on the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The reason for this change is simple and straightforward: in 2020, too few double-blind peer-reviewed research articles were published by us, and DOAJ’s official policy requires an yearly minimum of such publications. We fully understand and respect the decision of the editorial managers at DOAJ, but we also regret it. Since its creation in 2005, in fact, NoMe has pioneered, championed and, eventually, established full and free Open-Access (OA) scholarship in Iceland. Under this respect, then, our journal’s inclusion in DOAJ had always been a much-cherished recognition of our accomplishments, as well as a sign of our devotion to OA publishing in general. As a memento of the fruitful decade of active collaboration between NoMe and DOAJ, the latter’s logo and weblink will still be available on our homepage, along with EBSCO’s, which started listing NoMe after DOAJ itself.

It must be stated that the small number of double-blind peer-reviewed research articles that were published in 2020 was no accident. It was instead the result of three known factors:

1. By having only one regular annual issue devoted to an academic niche such as Nordic and Mediterranean studies, NoMe has never produced a large output of double-blind peer-reviewed research articles in its many years of editorial activity.
2. As stated in NoMe’s Editorial Policy, the journal’s focus has never been on these items as such, but on being “an international, multi- and interdisciplinary forum for the presentation, discussion and exchange of ideas, studies and resources dealing with Mediterranean and Nordic matters. In particular, though by no means exclusively, Nordicum-Mediterraneum wishes to be a venue for the exploration of the ties between Iceland and Italy: historical, cultural, economic, political, scientific, religious and artistic.”
3. Over the years, NoMe has been striving to accommodate the policies and priorities of Iceland’s National Research Evaluation Committee, which ranks the local educational institutions’ scholarly and scientific journals also on the basis of how selective they are. Thus, while in 2011 about half of the received manuscripts could stand a chance of being published as double-blind peer-reviewed research articles, the forthcoming 2021 regular issue has accepted, emblematically, only one manuscript every four.

On top of the divergent pressures originating from DOAJ and Iceland’s National Research Evaluation Committee, it is important to consider as well the many years and the countless hours of unpaid volunteer work put into NoMe by its Editor-in-Chief and by the international network of experts serving qua unpaid referees, including the members of NoMe’s Editorial Board. As generous and as committed as all these men and women of high learning may be, it would be unrealistic and unwise to expect them to sustain an increase in annual regular issues, which would imply additional editorial work and heavier refereeing duties. Besides, despite being throughout its history without any budget whatsoever, without special funds, charging no fees of any kind to anyone, offering no direct economic incentives to its editorial team, and benefitting simply from the magnanimous electronic ‘hospitality’ of the University of Akureyri, NoMe has managed nonetheless to publish thirty-six issues between 2006 and 2020, both regular and special.

Still, DOAJ’s decision is a signal that we cannot ignore. Too many contradicting influences and divergent standardisation processes have to be dealt with and accommodated with one another. It is like being Carlo Goldoni’s eponymous Harlequin, servant of two, indeed more, masters. In the end, one or more of these influences and processes must be sacrificed, while others should be retained as pivotal. Henceforth, NoMe will return to its origins, trying to be more than ever that flexible, easily accessible, international forum that it wished to be upon its launch, and especially in the aims of its intellectual father, Dr Maurizio Tani of the University of Iceland. After this year’s regular issue, then, which is going to be followed by a special issue comprising, ironically, only double-blind peer-reviewed research articles about Polar Law and International Relations, the pace and the overall activities of NoMe will be reduced considerably. Iceland-based scholars interested in being involved in the day-to-day running of the journal and/or becoming its editor-in-chief will also be actively looked for. Select, occasional special issues may appear, albeit irregularly, while the backlog of scheduled book reviews will be brought to completion (and the same reviews subject to double blind peer review so as to meet the growing complexity of the bureaucracy surrounding OA publishing). DOI numbers will keep being requested from Iceland’s National & University Library, until all extant publications have received one. Hopefully, our readers will still grow in number, and the acknowledgment of the body of knowledge that we have been piling up for so many years shall become even more marked in the realm of direct references and citations. Finally, in 2022, we may re-apply for inclusion in DOAJ, provided that the formal requirements for inclusion have not changed and/or grown beyond our likely attainment, whether theirs or Iceland’s National Research Evaluation Committee (or both).

The new regular issue 15(1)/2020 of Nordicum-Mediterraneum has been released. It comprises three new scholarly articles that underwent double blind peer-review, three non-refereed additional contributions, and a rich collection of reviews of recent scientific and scholarly books, many of which deal with Arctic-related issues.

Continue reading March 2020 – Issue 15(1) →

The regular issue 14(1)/2019 comprises two new articles that underwent double blind peer-review, one conference paper, 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 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. 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.