Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Lecture: The Job of a Philologist is Never Done: Translating and Editing Jónsbók, the Laws of Later Iceland

Western Michigan University's Dr. Jana Schulman will talk about her recently published bilingual edition of the Jónsbók, a late 13th-century legal text, Thursday, Feb. 10, at 7 p.m. in Room 3025 of Brown Hall.

Schulman, WMU professor of English, will discuss "The Job of a Philologist is Never Done: Translating and Editing Jónsbók, the Laws of Later Iceland." The lecture is part of WMU's English Scholarly Speakers Series, and is open to the public free of charge.

Jónsbók's contents focus on land use, tenancy, personal rights, farming, maritime law, marriage and family law, and inheritance, in addition to poor and theft law. Schulman's is the first translation into English of any Jónsbók manuscript. It makes the text accessible to English-language readers, providing a more comprehensive history of medieval Icelandic law for scholars worldwide.

Click here to read this article from Western Michigan University