Weiner Wins Fulbright to Study Icelandic Medieval Legal History

Mark S. Weiner, Rutgers School of Law–Newark, has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to teach and undertake research at the University of Akureyri, Iceland, for the fall term of the 2009-2010 academic year. According to the Rutgers press release, "As a Fulbright Scholar, Weiner will teach an intensive course on U.S. constitutional law and conduct research for his new book on the transformation of clan identity and the development of the rule of law." The release continues:

The first chapter of Professor Weiner’s new book will likely focus on Iceland, whose history provides a valuable case study of the relation between legal development and clan identity. Many of the country’s popular medieval Sagas concern law and the legal process and, Weiner explains, generally law plays as central a symbolic role in Icelandic national identity as the Constitution does in the United States. He is especially interested in the medieval legal history of the island and the contemporary popular historical consciousness of that legal past.

Image credit: Hrafnkel’s Saga