2025: Magic and Legend: An Homage to Stephen A. Mitchell
This 2025 event honors the retirement of dedicated faculty member and frequent Chair of Folklore and Mythology, Professor Stephen A. Mitchell. An expert in Scandinavian and Old Norse folklore, Professor Mitchell’s contributions to historical folkloristics and Scandinavian studies is monumental and award-winning. His wide-ranging scholarship has explored topics including heroic sagas and ballads, Swedish literature, Scandinavian drama, Harvard lore, memory studies and performance, and magic and witchcraft in medieval Scandinavia. Beyond his scholarly achievements, Professor Mitchell’s service to the university and his commitment to Harvard student life are equally noteworthy, including tenure as Master of Eliot House (1991-2000), Chair of Folklore & Mythology, curator of the Milman Parry collection, former Resident Tutor of Pforzheimer House, and Director of the popular Viking Studies in Scandinavia course abroad in the Harvard Summer School. Professor Mitchell’s award-winning book on Scandinavian magic, Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages and his current efforts to compile a new reference work on magic, satisfy student and scholarly appetites for understanding magic and enchantment, providing grounded, historicized ways of understanding the continuities of the present turn to older practices as antidotes to a seemingly disenchanted present. In honor of Professor Mitchell’s illustrious career and his dedication to the students of Folklore & Mythology, the 2025 Folklore and Mythology symposium celebrates and centers scholarship on magic and legend, from close colleagues in the U.S. and abroad, from former students, and from local colleagues at Harvard.
SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
Saturday, April 5, 2025 | Thompson Room, Barker Center, Barker Ctr, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
8:30 - 9:00 BREAKFAST (coffee and pastries)
9:00 - 9:15 OPENING REMARKS
Michael Puett (Harvard U), Chair, Folklore and Mythology
9:15 - 10:35 PANEL 1: Myth and Legend
Gísli Sigurðsson (U of Iceland) - “The Magic of Storytelling in the Field – or in the Hot Tub in Reykholt: Snorri’s Edda as an Insider’s Report About the Elitist Cult of Poets and Their Celestial Terminology"
Merrill Kaplan (Ohio State U) - “What is Hyndla on About? Making Sense of a Monologuing Giantess”
Daniel Donoghue (Harvard U) - “An Enthralling Performance: Bede in Lawman’s Brut”
Stefan Brink (U Cambridge) - “Who Was the Heros Eponymos for the Svíar in Their Genealogical and Regnal List”
10:35 - 11:00 COFFEE / TEA + BRIEF REMARKS
11:00 - 12:15 KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Introduction
Terry Gunnell (U of Iceland) - "Dark Priests and the Devil: Artful Escapists and Epic Journeys Across the North"
12:15 - 1:45 LUNCH (catered)
1:45 - 3:05 PANEL 2: Magic, Witchcraft, and Healing
Madeleine Woods (Harvard U) - “Harvesting Efficacy Under Moon and Sun: Empirical Plant Knowledge in Old English Herbals"
Louise Nyholm Kallestrup (U of Southern Denmark) - “Drunken men and evil women: warnings against witches in 16th century Denmark”
Amber Rose Cederström (U Wisconsin Press) - "The Shape of Evil: Demons, Witches, and Animal Forms in Scandinavian Legends”
Ailie Westbrook (U Wisconsin) - “Giving up evil living: Aphrodisiac Medicine as Social Control"
3:05 - 3:30 COFFEE / TEA + BRIEF REMARKS
3:30 - 4:30 PANEL 3: Narrative, Ritual, and Belief
Lowell Brower (U Wisconsin) - “Kissing and Pissing on John Harvard's Foot: Rituals of Belonging and Traditional Transgression at America's Oldest College"
Daniel Frim (Harvard U) - "It really seems like it always hails": The Importance of Knowing Which Story You're In”
Timothy Tangherlini (UC Berkeley) - "ChatImp: Modeling Belief Narrative in the Age of AI"
5:00 - 6:30 DINNER (catered)