{"id":12142,"date":"2021-03-31T16:37:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T22:37:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12142"},"modified":"2021-04-02T12:12:10","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T18:12:10","slug":"great-review-for-calicos-being-viking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12142","title":{"rendered":"Great Review for Calico’s “Being Viking”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em>I was happy to see Being Vking: Heathenism in Contemporary America <\/em><\/a>get a good review in Reading Religion, <\/em>which is the American Academy of Religion’s online book-review site.<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Strmiska (currently teaching in Latvia) writes,<\/p>\n

Being Viking<\/em> deserves great praise and wide readership as an extremely detailed and well-researched historical and ethnographical study of the American variant of the New Religious Movement (NRM) variously known as Heathenry, Heathenism, Asatru or Modern Norse (or Germanic) Paganism.<\/p>\n

Calico ably addresses many dimensions of the American Heathen religion from the biographies and contributions of religious leaders such as Stephen McNallen, Valgard Murray, and Diana Paxson to such particular practices as the sumbel <\/em>(a toasting ritual); the blot<\/em> (an alternate form of the sumbel<\/em>)), and seid<\/em>\/seit <\/em>(an oracular rite). In addition, Calico examines the devotion to medieval Icelandic and Germanic literary and religious texts as key source materials, the dedication of many members to practicing premodern folk crafts from Norse and Germanic tradition, variant forms of organization that have developed over time, questions of the importance of ancestral identity in the self-definition of Heathenism, and the important and enduring debate between \u201cuniversalist\u201d and \u201cfolkish\u201d forms of the religion over who should be allowed to participate in and affiliate themselves with the religion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Being Viking<\/em> deserves great praise and wide readership as an extremely detailed and well-researched historical and ethnographical study of the American variant of the New Religious Movement (NRM) variously known as Heathenry, Heathenism, Asatru or Modern Norse (or Germanic) Paganism.<\/p>\n

Heathenism, to use Jefferson Calico\u2019s preferred term for the modern Norse Pagan movement in America, \u00a0is a form of modern or contemporary Paganism that endeavors to create a workable contemporary version of pre-Christian Norse Paganism as was once practiced in Iceland, Scandinavia, and Germanic Europe. Being Viking<\/em> is the product of many years of participant-observation fieldwork research that Calico has conducted among Heathens in the United States and informed by extensive reading in the literature of NRMs in general and Modern Norse Paganism in particular. He builds on the previous work of such scholars as Jeffrey Kaplan, Mattias Gardell, Jenny Blain, Jennifer Snook, and myself.<\/p>\n

Calico ably addresses many dimensions of the American Heathen religion from the biographies and contributions of religious leaders such as Stephen McNallen, Valgard Murray, and Diana Paxson to such particular practices as the sumbel <\/em>(a toasting ritual); the blot<\/em> (an alternate form of the sumbel<\/em>)), and seid<\/em>\/seit <\/em>(an oracular rite). In addition, Calico examines the devotion to medieval Icelandic and Germanic literary and religious texts as key source materials, the dedication of many members to practicing premodern folk crafts from Norse and Germanic tradition, variant forms of organization that have developed over time, questions of the importance of ancestral identity in the self-definition of Heathenism, and the important and enduring debate between \u201cuniversalist\u201d and \u201cfolkish\u201d forms of the religion over who should be allowed to participate in and affiliate themselves with the religion.<\/p>\n

The universalist conception holds that Modern Norse Paganism should be open and embracing to any person anywhere regardless of ethnic or racial background who feels a sincere spiritual interest in Norse Pagan gods and traditions. The folkish perspective holds that membership in the religion should be mainly\u2014or even exclusively\u2014limited to people of European or Germanic descent. Calico also provides valuable discussion of the problematic \u201cmetagenetics\u201d theory propounded by Stephen McNallen, a pseudo-scientific attempt to ground Heathen spirituality\u2014and folkish exclusiveness\u2014in European genetics.<\/p>\n

Calico juxtaposes the historical development of each topic while also providing colorful sketches of particular Heathens and their life-situations and religious practices. The author traces the lineages of different organizational structures that have undergirded the development of American Heathenism such as the Ring of Troth, more commonly and simply known as the Troth, and the Asatru Folk Alliance (AFA) pointing out their differing attitudes toward both religious practice and preferred practitioners, with the Troth being the more open and inclusive structure and the AFA the least, with a pronounced emphasis on ancestry and ethnicity that many observers have reckoned a thinly masked form of racism, or at the very least, very attractive to racists. Calico uses the metaphor of a river into which tributary streams feed and swirl as a means of explicating the different intellectual, cultural and social \u201cstreams\u201d of influence that have fed into American Asatru, and this is an effective and intriguing manner of conceptualizing the internal diversity, dialogue, and conflict in the religion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing.<\/a><\/p>\n

Being Viking <\/em>is part of Equinox Publishing’s Pagan-studies book series, of which I am the longest-surving editor, a tale of success, frustration, corporate marriage and corporate divorce, and who knows what will happen next?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was happy to see Being Vking: Heathenism in Contemporary America get a good review in Reading Religion, which is the American Academy of Religion’s online book-review site. Michael Strmiska (currently teaching in Latvia) writes, Being Viking deserves great praise and wide readership as an extremely detailed and well-researched historical and ethnographical study of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,130,134,7,4],"class_list":["post-12142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-heathenry","tag-norse","tag-publishing","tag-scholarship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-39Q","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12100,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12100","url_meta":{"origin":12142,"position":0},"title":"Jefferson Calico, Author of “Being Viking,” Interviewed by Angela Puca","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Angela Puca, who recently earned a PhD in religious studies while still\u00a0managing to be a dominant figure in Pagan-studies YouTube, has interviewed Jefferson Calico, author of Being Viking: Heathenism in Contemporary America, which I consider to be the best new study of Heathenry that is accessible to both scholars and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asatru\"","block_context":{"text":"Asatru","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asatru"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13604,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13604","url_meta":{"origin":12142,"position":1},"title":"Four Notable Books in Pagan Studies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 12, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"From Reading Religion, the book review website of the American Academy of Religion, a post by Ethan Doyle White, who writes, From Wiccan covens assembling in English drawing rooms to Rodnover midsummer gatherings in rural Russia, the modern Pagan religions represent a fascinating and diverse component of our contemporary religious\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Heathenry\"","block_context":{"text":"Heathenry","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=heathenry"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/being-viking.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12338,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12338","url_meta":{"origin":12142,"position":2},"title":"Jefferson Calico Talks Heathenry with Ethan Doyle White","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 22, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Click over to Ethan Doyle White's blog, Albion Calling,\u00a0 to read a new interview with Jefferson Calico, author of Being Viking: Heathenism in Contemporary America. Since I acquired this book for Equinox Publishing's Pagan studies book series, I am happy to see it praised by an astute writer on Pagan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/viking-200x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9843,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9843","url_meta":{"origin":12142,"position":3},"title":"Coming Soon \u2014 Being Viking: Heathenism in Contemporary America","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"What do I like about Being Viking beyond Mark Lee's arresting cover design? It is that author Jefferson Calico can move beyond rehashing the folkish-universalist issue and look at some things not normally talked about, such as social class. Americans will talk you to death about race and ethnicity, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/being-viking-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11651,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11651","url_meta":{"origin":12142,"position":4},"title":"What Female Heathen Instagrammers Reveal","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 6, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Another article from the new issue of The Pomegranate on the theme of Paganism, art, and fashion, guest-edited by Caroline Tully. \"Hashtag Heathens: Contemporary Germanic Pagan Feminine Visuals on Instagram,\" by Ross Downing. You can download the entire paper free at the link this summer. Here is the abstract: A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"Instagrammer Helheimen as the goddess Hel.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Fig.-2-Helheimen-as-the-goddess-Hel300.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9153,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9153","url_meta":{"origin":12142,"position":5},"title":"Does Anyone “Own” the Vikings? The NY Times Wants to Know","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Some years ago \u2014 the late 1990s? \u2014 I had a Swedish freshman student in one of my classes. Looking over his shoulder as he was typing at his computer station, I noticed that he had a silver Mj\u00f6llnir (Thor's hammer) pendant on a thin chain around his neck. Naturally,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asatru\"","block_context":{"text":"Asatru","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asatru"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/hammer-maiden.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12142"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12153,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12142\/revisions\/12153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}