The Board of The Icelandic Research Fund has completed its allocation of grants for new research projects for 2023. A total of 337 eligible applications were received of which 74 were awarded grants.

Two of the four project grants in the humanities and arts allocated from the Icelandic Research Fund this year will come under the auspices of the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.

One of the two projects will be led by Gudrún Nordal with Tarrin Wills and Kate Heslop. Entitled Viðtökur dróttkvæða: breytileiki brags og skáldskaparmáls í íslenskum handritum (Reception of Dróttkvætt: Variations in Verse and Poetic Language in Icelandic Manuscripts), the project will investigate how complex metrical rules and poetic language (primarily kennings) developed over a long period of time, while also tracing the history of how dróttkvætt verse was received. The project incorporates a variety of research methods, from highly technical digital approaches to close analysis of specific pieces and manuscripts, the results of which will become available through open-access digital databases and provide the basis for further research.

Emily Lethbridge also received a grant for her project entitled Kvennaspor: Unearthing and Foregrounding Women in Icelandic Saga Landscapes. Kvennaspor will produce new knowledge about women and their place in the Icelandic landscape, with a dual focus. The first focus is on narrative connections between and Icelandic landscapes as represented in medieval Icelandic narrative sources while the other is on 19th and 20th-century women, their understudied accounts of travel to Iceland and their engagement with saga-sites.

For more information about this year’s allocations see the Icelandic Research Fund’s site.