The Viking: Ideal and Reality

Education facts

Code: 5AR775

The Viking Age is the most famous period in Scandinavian prehistory and references to it abound in popular culture. The course gives access to ideas and results in the most ambitious research project about Vikings ever launched in Sweden - the Viking Phenomenon. With a varied focus on issues such as identity, mobility, religion, violence, slavery and gender, and with the use of all available sources, the Viking-Age is peopled with individuals both familiar and disconcertingly different. A historiographical perspective is also used to dissect the Viking image, that has often been shaped to serve a variety of purposes through a mixing of reality and idealised reconstruction. The participant's knowledge and understanding of the Viking period enables a comparison between current research and its reflections in popular culture.

Entry requirements

A Bachelor's degree, equivalent to a Swedish Kandidatexamen, from an internationally recognised university.

Education offerings

Each offering has its own dates and conditions. Closed offerings are retained as history and do not mean that a new application is open.

• The Viking: Ideal and Reality

  Uppsala University

  Start date: 4 November 2026

  End date: 17 January 2027

  Pace of study: 50 %