Nordic Light mainly comprises Scandinavian contributions to two conferences convened by The International Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (ISECS) at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2003; and at the Research Center on European Enlightenment at the Martin Luther University of Halle, Germany, in 2005. The theme of the first conference was "Global Eighteenth Century," and that of the second conference was "Religion and Enlightenment." The Enlightenment was nothing if not an age of networking. People travelled in real or imaginary worlds in order to connect, deride, improve, and learn. This was the age when the notion of universality took shape. Ideas travelled because if rights and wrongs are universal, sound ideas must be accessible to all and unsound ones challenged by being exposed to foreign scrutiny. The various contributions show facets of Scandinavian research into the 18th century. The need to see Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish culture and literature in a larger context is a characteristic of recent research, as these essays demonstrate.

The Icelandic Family Sagas - major medieval prose epics such as Egil's Saga, Laxdaela Saga, Njal's Saga, Hrafnkel's Saga - present detailed sophisticated images of a society in which man acts and suffers the consequences of his actions - or has them visited upon others. Feuds rage and disaster triumphs. Chaos and Love introduces the reader to a number of such narratives, studies the notions of guilt and causes embedded in them, and, as a result of the study, suggests that reckless erotic desire, is often at the root of the evil. When love is practiced within the boundaries set by family and tradition, peace prevails. When love is pursued as a means of individual satisfaction, regardless of the views of others, disaster prevails. The rules of society, notably the rules of feud, designed to balance competing forces, tend rather to aggravate the disasters, sometimes, as in Laxdaela and Njala, to the extent that only Christian divine grace can restore the peace.

Text in English & Danish. Danish poetry is coloured by the distinctive tone of its language, shaped by the contours of the landscape, the rhythms of modern small-town life, and derives impressions from the luminous nights, the autumn storms, and the long dark winter months. This anthology provides a representative selection of 100 Danish poems by sixty-four poets, ranging from the medieval balladeers to poets already of international standing as well as younger poets. The edition is bilingual, allowing readers the possibility of reading the English and Danish texts side by side, and contains a lengthy introduction outlining the central developments in the history of Danish poetry, situating its most important oeuvres and themes within a larger international framework. The majority of the poems have not previously been made available in English. Published in collaboration with the University of Washington Press.