is the title of an international research project based at the Reykjavík Academy. It was recently awarded a three-year project grant from the Icelandic Research Fund. The subtitle of the project, The Shaping of National and Transnational Identities through Old Norse Literature 1750-1900, provides further insight into the matter under investigation. The plan is to examine the productive reception of Old Norse literature in various cultural fields during the period, with a special focus on the role of the heritage in national discourse. The study will cover the Nordic countries and a few other countries in Northern Europe. The research team hopes to adduce evidence for its view that the diversity of national ideas informed by this heritage has hitherto been underestimated. The team intends not to limit the scope of the study to accounts of the origins or formative histories of specific nation-states but also to examine ideas that were not realised in the political sphere. The interplay of discourses, as well as transnational self-images, will receive particular attention. The team’s methodological approach will be based on the latest studies of cultural nationalism, in addition to which it will take account of histoire croisée