Last weekend I attended the CHAOS symposium 2012 in Göteborg on Religion and Literature together with a nice blend of Swedish and Danish historians of religion, literary scholars and other interested parties.

Between rock climbing and potatismos I had the good fortune to enjoy lectures on a variety of subjects: From Lars Lönnroth’s talk on the noble and the not-so-noble heathen in the Icelandic sagas, through Claus Jacobsen’s presentation of the British wave introducing action gods into American comics, to Tao Thykier Makeeff’s introduction into the labyrinthine universe of Jorge Luis Borges where “anything is possible, even the holy trinity” (Borges).

At dinner I had an interesting discussion with Lars on the function of skjaldemjød (bards mead) in Icelandic poetry compared to the role of drinking in the school of Chinese drinking poets (a topic I’m very interested in, see Dissolved into Wine and World).

I also briefly talked with Ulrika Lagerlöf Nilsson about the interesting project ‘Skönlitteratur som historisk källa’ (fiction as historical source) that she is a part of. It seems to me that fiction, with all its particularity and inherent self-contradiction, could provide a nice counter balance to the more generalizing aspects of history writing.

I presented my paper on the material aspects of Daoism found in A Cheng’s novella 棋王 (Chess King) through an analysis focusing on the role of food and eating. (See abstract here)