Alan Macniven

Born and raised in SW Stirlingshire, Alan's life journey has followed a winding path. During his formative years in Glasgow, he developed an enduring fascination for Scandinavian culture and language - first modern then medieval. After pursuing these interests at the University of Edinburgh, he spent time living, studying and working in Sweden and Iceland, before relocating to England. By 2008, Alan had acquired a range of qualifications, including an MA (Hons), an MSc (R) - funded by SAAS, a PhD - funded by the Carnegie Trust, a PGCE, and later a PGCUT, at which point he returned to Edinburgh to take up a position as lecturer in the department of Scandinavian Studies.

In addition to his teaching, pastoral, and research activities, Dr Macniven has held a number of adminsitrative roles, including those of Convener, and Deputy Convener of the MEL Honours Exam Board for DELC, and School Representative on the College Library & IS Committee for LLC. As Head of the DELC Teaching Organisation, he was responsible for compiling the Analytical Report for DELC's periodical Teaching Programme Review in 2017.

As Head of Scandinavian Studies since 2016, Dr Macniven has striven to build links between the department, Scotland and Norden – ‘The North’. In recent years, Alan has given talks to the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group on the Nordic Area, official delegations from the Nordic Council, and The Swedish Institute, as well as groups of visiting gymnasium pupils from Sweden and Denmark. He has also produced outreach materials and given talks for museums and broadcasters including the National Museum of Scotland, the BBC, and ZDF in Germany, as well as community groups, and schoolchildren in Edinburgh, Perth, Fife, and Islay.

At Edinburgh, Alan has taken a leading role in organising collaborative events with Samarbetsnämnden för Nordenundervisning i Utlandet (SNU), involving both academics and cultural practitioners, for negotiating the University of Edinburgh’s membership of UArctic, in the project relocating the Edinburgh Runestone to its new home in George Square, and in framing Memorandums of Understanding and Agreement with the University of Lund in Sweden for a joint PGT initiative.

In his spare time, Alan is President of the Scottish Society for Northern Studies. He also sits on the committee of the Scottish Place-Name Society, of which he was Convener from 2020-2024, and the University of Edinburgh’s Nothern Scholars Scheme, which he also convenes. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the Higher Education Academy, one of the two Scotland representatives on the Viking Congress, and a Trustee of the Finlaggan Trust in Islay.

Dr Macniven's current research focuses on cultural interaction, principally between Norse and native in western maritime Scotland during the Viking Age. Although dogmatically interdisciplinary, the main source material for this work comes from the names of places and associated settlement studies. Specific interests include: immigrant naming practices in fully occupied and named landscapes; the nature and extent of cultural transitions at the beginning and end of Scotland’s Viking Age; and the evidence for maricultural practices and military infrastructure in Scandinavian Scotland. Alan's Monograph, The Vikings in Islay (2015, John Donald), was shortlisted for the Saltire Society's 'Research Book of the Year' award.

 Postgraduate

• Pretext, Context and Intertext: Navigating Viking Culture, Then and Now (Course Organiser)
• Old Norse Literature and Society (Course Organiser)

1^st & 2^nd Year

• Scandinavian Literature 2 (Course Organiser)
• Scandinavian Civilisation A (Course Organiser)
• Scandinavian Civilisation B (Course Organiser)

 Honours

• Old Norse Literature and Society (Course Organiser)
• Pretext, Context and Intertext: Navigating Viking Culture, Then and Now (Course Organiser)

Current Research Students

• Alex Payne (PhD), Boundaries of Distance Through Time: Climate Change as a Driver of Historic Othering in the Nordic Circumpolar.
• Anthony Jay Olsson (PhD), Heroic journeys to Lochlann and Bretland as tropes: What are the joint motifs and intercultural connections between the fantastic exploits of Faroese and Irish/Scots Gaelic balladry? 
• Jess Nutt (PhD): An inter-disciplinary investigation into the Viking’s presence in Early Medieval Wales using evidence of conflict.
• Lynn Schoenbeck (PhD): Bog bodies, and their place in Danish national identity.
• Joseph Fenwick (PhD): Spinning the fabric of fate: household ritual, femininity and magic in Viking Age Scandinavia.

Completed PhD Projects

• Dr Daniel Haycraft (2022): Famine, Fever, Flood, and Conquest: The Impact of Natural Disasters on the Ninth-Century Rise of the Vikings in the Carolingian Empire According to the Royal Frankish Annals, the Annals of Xanten, the Annals of St Bertin, and The Annals of Fulda.
• Dr Christian Cooijmans (2018): Of Monarchs and Hydrarchs: A Conceptual Development Model for Viking Activity across the Frankish Realm (c. 750-940 CE).
• Dr Ryan Foster (2018): Norse Shielings in Scotland: An interdisciplinary study of setr/sætr and ærgi-names.
• Dr Ian Giles (2018): Tracing the Transmission of Scandinavian Literature to the UK: 1917-2017.
• Dr Katarzyna Aleksiejuk (2016): Names on the Internet: Towards Electronic Socio-onomastics.
• Dr Dominic Hinde (2015): Our shared future: The rhetorics of modern Swedish environmentalism.
• Dr Ersev Ersoy (2012): Social reality and mythic worlds: reflections on folk belief and the supernatural in James Macpherson's Ossian and Elias Lönnrot's Kalevala.

Completed MSc by Research Projects

• Elizabeth Bradbury (2018): Facets of the Feminine in Old Norse Religion.
• Kevin Luschen (2018): Aspects of Viking Age Sword Culture in Scotland.
• Eric Cain (2012): Insecurity in the Unresolved: The Game of Literature Experience and [Un]resolution in Swedish Crime and Horror Fiction of Mankell’s Mördare mot ansikte, Lindqvist’s Låt den rätta komma in, and Roman’s Mörkrädd.
• Marilyn Amedro (2011): Reflections on the Instability of Place and Identity in the first two novels of William Heinesen.               
• Dominic Hinde (2011): A perceived utopia?: Four narratives on the environment in Sweden.