Richard Cole
Biographic Data
| ID | 3866005 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard Cole |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard |
| FAMILY NAME | Cole |
| SIGNATURE | COLE R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aarhus University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6763-4871 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 30 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1962 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
‘As you write your Odyssey…’
The various ways that players actually play historical games, and how history – or players’ conceptualization thereof – impacts play processes, remains understudied in the field of historical game studies. This study investigates how players make decisions in historical games, and assesses to what extent such choices are directed by historical considerations or ideas of history. Specifically, we examined this through the perspective of ergodic ch…
Danish peasants destroying paperwork, 1438–1441
The theft and burning of records during popular uprisings (especially the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381) has attracted significant attention. However, no devoted study has yet considered examples from the case of the Danish Peasants’ Revolt of 1438–1441. In this article the extent of violence against paperwork in the Danish uprising is recovered from a challenging source situation. Comparisons with England in 1381 are offered in order to sugge…
The False King Olaf and His Necklace of Letters
> That so many spurious [bureaucratic and legal] productions should have been executed in those times and that so many pious and indisputably high-minded persons should have had a hand in such dealings, although they were expressly condemned by the law and morality of the age—the psychological
The False King Olaf and His Necklace of Letters
As the False King Olaf was led to the stake, on the 28th of October 1402, it would have been no comfort for him to know that much of his story had happened before, and would happen again. He was an impostor, posing as a king who had died young, now apparently back from the dead. This was not an unheard-of occurrence in medieval kingdoms (Cheesman and Williams 2002, 87–8; Lecuppre 2006, 67–72). The False Olaf claimed to be King Olaf II of Denmark …
Runes and Rye
In this article, I take up the case of runic writing to reflect upon James Scott's view of the nexus between writing and various forms of domination in early states, especially the use of literacy for taxation in cereal-growing societies. Scott's theses provide interesting matter 'to think with,' even when his grasp of historical detail has been found wanting. It is not controversial to grant Scott that cuneiform writing was a remarkable tool for…
The False King Olaf, Queen Margaret, and the Prussian Hansa
The case of the False Olaf has received comparatively little attention. In 1402, a Prussian peasant was brought to Scandinavia, heralded by his supporters as King Óláfr Hákonarson (known in modern Danish as Oluf II, or in Norwegian as Olav IV). The real King Óláfr had died in 1387, and the imposter seems to have capitalized on a popular belief that Queen Margaret, the King’s mother, had him killed. In this article I begin by introducing the sourc…
Mashing Up History and Heritage in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
This article proposes a new framework for analysing how developers structure – and players experience – history and heritage in historical video games. Drawing on the theory of mashups, this article demonstrates how historical games generate ‘technocultural mashups’ by cutting and pasting aspects of cultural heritage into the gameplay experience and then challenging players to further adapt this. ‘Technocultural mashups’, the article suggests, ex…
When Gods Become Bureaucrats
Even gods are not always above bureaucracy. Societies very different from each other have entertained the idea that the heavens might be arranged much like an earthly bureaucracy, or that mythological beings might exercise their power in a way that makes them resembles bureaucrats. The best-known case is the Chinese “celestial bureaucracy,” but the idea is also found in (to take nearly random examples) Ancient Near Eastern cosmology, the Hebrew B…
Breaking the frame in historical fiction
The historical note is a familiar device in historical fiction. While such devices have begun to attract scholarly attention, the focus has typically been on the way they signal the genre’s relationship to truth. This article proposes instead to look at how historical notes rework an understanding of the story and its source material by breaking the frame between events retold in fiction, and narrative history. Frame breaking, or metalepsis, is t…
In Pursuit of an Æsirist Ideology
Is it possible for characters in fiction to be motivated by unique ideologies in the way that political movements are in real life? This essay considers the example of the Æsir (the dominant tribe of gods) in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda. Analogies with later ideologies are offered as a way to highlight the idiosyncratic ideological brew which seems to govern the Æsir's actions. The Æsir have the acquisitiveness, violence, and sexual neurosis of…
Priestly prayer and pastoral ministry
A slightly shortened version of the 2018 Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture given at Westminster Abbey and Keble College Oxford
Homotopia, or, Reading Sagas on an Industrial Estate
What are the psychological forces that imbue certain spaces with emotional power? Michel Foucault described one such space as “heterotopia.” Heterotopias are places of extreme color and diversity, where the magical coming-together of usually contradictory forces exerted profound influence on people’s emotions. This article presents spaces in Old Norse literature where it is not difference and strangeness that have dramatic impact, but rather same…
Towards a Typology of Absence in Old Norse Literature
This essay accepts Patrick Fuery’s challenge to “get directly engaged in issues of typology” when considering absence. The powers of lost lovers, slain gods, and howling voids in Old Norse literature are anatomized according to the many phenomena denoted by the word “absence.” Demonstrating several species and differing degrees of absence, the essay also shows how each is created by a particular mechanism, and each tends towards specific emotiona…
One or several Jews? The Jewish massed body in Old Norse literature
In this article, I seek to articulate a troubling quality in Old Norse depictions of the Jewish body: namely, its contiguity, inscrutability and lack of individuality. In Old Norse literature (visual culture is a different matter) the usual somatic markers of medieval antisemitism, such as hooked noses, dark skin and effeminacy, are conspicuous by their absence. Rather, Jews are often rendered ‘Other’ by the organization of their bodies. Like a s…
The French Connection, or Þórr versus the Golem
This article investigates the extent to which Jewish exegetical and magical traditions were known in medieval Scandinavia. Particular attention is paid to the mythological work, Snorra Edda (ca. 1220), and the prose narrative Þorleifs þáttr jarlsskálds (ca. 1300). In Snorra Edda , we encounter the character of Mǫkkurkálfi, a clay giant who has been magically animated to defend the race of giants against the god Thor (Þórr). In Þorleifs þáttr jarl…
The Common Law in Colonial America—Volume I, The Chesapeake and New England, 1607–1660
Journal Article The Common Law in Colonial America—Volume I, The Chesapeake and New England, 1607–1660 Get access Nelson William E.. The Common Law in Colonial America—Volume I, The Chesapeake and New England, 1607–1660. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 216 pp. $35.00 (cloth). Richard Cole Richard Cole Western New England College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Vo…
A Mirror Image of Sigmund Skard? Paul Knaplund and the Role of the Historian between European and American Cultures
1. IntroductionPaul Knaplund (1885-1962), long -time Professor of History and Chair at the University of Wisconsin, was one of the great and famous scholars of the British Empire. Yet, a significant amount of his time and energy as a scholar was devoted to historical issues in Norway and to Scandinavian immigrant culture in the US Midwest. This article consider’s Knaplund’s Norwegian background and his role as cultural intermediary between Norway…
Excavations at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed
Excavations of sites spanning the Beaker to early Roman periods at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed, are described. The sites are in an area of blown sand which enhanced their preservation and led to the separation of several horizons. The earliest is a buried soil beneath the blown sand which contained Mesolithic to Bronze Age artefacts. At site A, there was a roundhouse associated with Early Bronze Age pottery and dated to 1620±70 and 1400±70 BC uncal.,…
Some Thoughts On the Future of Content Analysis
Precision Journalism
The changing shape of news The meaning of news differs widely among reporters within a nation or culture and, as certainly, among journalists who work in different cultures. Yet while we differ, we also share a great deal- the desire to provide information which will make life easier and more under-standable for those who read, hear or see our news. News systems may reflect different values over time. There has been a gradual shift in the news ap…
Do we really need those oversized pencils to write with
1980). Do we really need those oversized pencils to write with? Theory Into Practice: Vol. 19, Learning to Write: an Expression of Language, pp. 194-196
Possibility matrices
Research Article Productivity of U. S. Journalism Faculties
Study identifies schools and departments which produced greatest number of mass media research articles from 1962 to 1971
Top Songs in the Sixties
Moral possibility
Excavations at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed
Excavations of sites spanning the Beaker to early Roman periods at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed, are described. The sites are in an area of blown sand which enhanced their preservation and led to the separation of several horizons. The earliest is a buried soil beneath the blown sand which contained Mesolithic to Bronze Age artefacts. At site A, there was a roundhouse associated with Early Bronze Age pottery and dated to 1620±70 and 1400±70 BC uncal.,…
Research Article Productivity of U. S. Journalism Faculties
Study identifies schools and departments which produced greatest number of mass media research articles from 1962 to 1971
Top Songs in the Sixties
Precision Journalism
The changing shape of news The meaning of news differs widely among reporters within a nation or culture and, as certainly, among journalists who work in different cultures. Yet while we differ, we also share a great deal- the desire to provide information which will make life easier and more under-standable for those who read, hear or see our news. News systems may reflect different values over time. There has been a gradual shift in the news ap…
Do we really need those oversized pencils to write with
1980). Do we really need those oversized pencils to write with? Theory Into Practice: Vol. 19, Learning to Write: an Expression of Language, pp. 194-196
Ptolemy and Copernicus
Moral possibility
Top Songs in the Sixties
Research Article Productivity of U. S. Journalism Faculties
Study identifies schools and departments which produced greatest number of mass media research articles from 1962 to 1971
Possibility matrices
Do we really need those oversized pencils to write with
1980). Do we really need those oversized pencils to write with? Theory Into Practice: Vol. 19, Learning to Write: an Expression of Language, pp. 194-196
Precision Journalism
The changing shape of news The meaning of news differs widely among reporters within a nation or culture and, as certainly, among journalists who work in different cultures. Yet while we differ, we also share a great deal- the desire to provide information which will make life easier and more under-standable for those who read, hear or see our news. News systems may reflect different values over time. There has been a gradual shift in the news ap…
Some Thoughts On the Future of Content Analysis
Excavations at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed
Excavations of sites spanning the Beaker to early Roman periods at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed, are described. The sites are in an area of blown sand which enhanced their preservation and led to the separation of several horizons. The earliest is a buried soil beneath the blown sand which contained Mesolithic to Bronze Age artefacts. At site A, there was a roundhouse associated with Early Bronze Age pottery and dated to 1620±70 and 1400±70 BC uncal.,…
A Mirror Image of Sigmund Skard? Paul Knaplund and the Role of the Historian between European and American Cultures
1. IntroductionPaul Knaplund (1885-1962), long -time Professor of History and Chair at the University of Wisconsin, was one of the great and famous scholars of the British Empire. Yet, a significant amount of his time and energy as a scholar was devoted to historical issues in Norway and to Scandinavian immigrant culture in the US Midwest. This article consider’s Knaplund’s Norwegian background and his role as cultural intermediary between Norway…
The Common Law in Colonial America—Volume I, The Chesapeake and New England, 1607–1660
Journal Article The Common Law in Colonial America—Volume I, The Chesapeake and New England, 1607–1660 Get access Nelson William E.. The Common Law in Colonial America—Volume I, The Chesapeake and New England, 1607–1660. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 216 pp. $35.00 (cloth). Richard Cole Richard Cole Western New England College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Vo…
One or several Jews? The Jewish massed body in Old Norse literature
In this article, I seek to articulate a troubling quality in Old Norse depictions of the Jewish body: namely, its contiguity, inscrutability and lack of individuality. In Old Norse literature (visual culture is a different matter) the usual somatic markers of medieval antisemitism, such as hooked noses, dark skin and effeminacy, are conspicuous by their absence. Rather, Jews are often rendered ‘Other’ by the organization of their bodies. Like a s…
The French Connection, or Þórr versus the Golem
This article investigates the extent to which Jewish exegetical and magical traditions were known in medieval Scandinavia. Particular attention is paid to the mythological work, Snorra Edda (ca. 1220), and the prose narrative Þorleifs þáttr jarlsskálds (ca. 1300). In Snorra Edda , we encounter the character of Mǫkkurkálfi, a clay giant who has been magically animated to defend the race of giants against the god Thor (Þórr). In Þorleifs þáttr jarl…
Towards a Typology of Absence in Old Norse Literature
This essay accepts Patrick Fuery’s challenge to “get directly engaged in issues of typology” when considering absence. The powers of lost lovers, slain gods, and howling voids in Old Norse literature are anatomized according to the many phenomena denoted by the word “absence.” Demonstrating several species and differing degrees of absence, the essay also shows how each is created by a particular mechanism, and each tends towards specific emotiona…
Homotopia, or, Reading Sagas on an Industrial Estate
What are the psychological forces that imbue certain spaces with emotional power? Michel Foucault described one such space as “heterotopia.” Heterotopias are places of extreme color and diversity, where the magical coming-together of usually contradictory forces exerted profound influence on people’s emotions. This article presents spaces in Old Norse literature where it is not difference and strangeness that have dramatic impact, but rather same…
In Pursuit of an Æsirist Ideology
Is it possible for characters in fiction to be motivated by unique ideologies in the way that political movements are in real life? This essay considers the example of the Æsir (the dominant tribe of gods) in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda. Analogies with later ideologies are offered as a way to highlight the idiosyncratic ideological brew which seems to govern the Æsir's actions. The Æsir have the acquisitiveness, violence, and sexual neurosis of…
Priestly prayer and pastoral ministry
A slightly shortened version of the 2018 Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture given at Westminster Abbey and Keble College Oxford
When Gods Become Bureaucrats
Even gods are not always above bureaucracy. Societies very different from each other have entertained the idea that the heavens might be arranged much like an earthly bureaucracy, or that mythological beings might exercise their power in a way that makes them resembles bureaucrats. The best-known case is the Chinese “celestial bureaucracy,” but the idea is also found in (to take nearly random examples) Ancient Near Eastern cosmology, the Hebrew B…
Breaking the frame in historical fiction
The historical note is a familiar device in historical fiction. While such devices have begun to attract scholarly attention, the focus has typically been on the way they signal the genre’s relationship to truth. This article proposes instead to look at how historical notes rework an understanding of the story and its source material by breaking the frame between events retold in fiction, and narrative history. Frame breaking, or metalepsis, is t…
The False King Olaf, Queen Margaret, and the Prussian Hansa
The case of the False Olaf has received comparatively little attention. In 1402, a Prussian peasant was brought to Scandinavia, heralded by his supporters as King Óláfr Hákonarson (known in modern Danish as Oluf II, or in Norwegian as Olav IV). The real King Óláfr had died in 1387, and the imposter seems to have capitalized on a popular belief that Queen Margaret, the King’s mother, had him killed. In this article I begin by introducing the sourc…
Mashing Up History and Heritage in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
This article proposes a new framework for analysing how developers structure – and players experience – history and heritage in historical video games. Drawing on the theory of mashups, this article demonstrates how historical games generate ‘technocultural mashups’ by cutting and pasting aspects of cultural heritage into the gameplay experience and then challenging players to further adapt this. ‘Technocultural mashups’, the article suggests, ex…
The False King Olaf and His Necklace of Letters
> That so many spurious [bureaucratic and legal] productions should have been executed in those times and that so many pious and indisputably high-minded persons should have had a hand in such dealings, although they were expressly condemned by the law and morality of the age—the psychological
The False King Olaf and His Necklace of Letters
As the False King Olaf was led to the stake, on the 28th of October 1402, it would have been no comfort for him to know that much of his story had happened before, and would happen again. He was an impostor, posing as a king who had died young, now apparently back from the dead. This was not an unheard-of occurrence in medieval kingdoms (Cheesman and Williams 2002, 87–8; Lecuppre 2006, 67–72). The False Olaf claimed to be King Olaf II of Denmark …
Runes and Rye
In this article, I take up the case of runic writing to reflect upon James Scott's view of the nexus between writing and various forms of domination in early states, especially the use of literacy for taxation in cereal-growing societies. Scott's theses provide interesting matter 'to think with,' even when his grasp of historical detail has been found wanting. It is not controversial to grant Scott that cuneiform writing was a remarkable tool for…
‘As you write your Odyssey…’
The various ways that players actually play historical games, and how history – or players’ conceptualization thereof – impacts play processes, remains understudied in the field of historical game studies. This study investigates how players make decisions in historical games, and assesses to what extent such choices are directed by historical considerations or ideas of history. Specifically, we examined this through the perspective of ergodic ch…
History (15 works) · Art (12 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Archaeology (8 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · History (7 works) · Literature (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works)