The author of the critically acclaimed book The Viking Way has been invited by Cornell University to hold a series of Messenger Lectures, open to the public and faculty at their Ithaca campus in upstate New York.
Professor Price will speak this September on the theme of ‘The Viking Mind’, and during his week-long visit will also give a number of seminars for Cornell postgraduates.
The Messenger Lectures on the Evolution of Civilisation are among the most prestigious of their kind in the academic world and previous scholars include Bronislaw Malinowski, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, Edward O. Wilson, Edward Said, Jürgen Habermas and Bruno Latour.
The lectures were established in 1924 with a donation from the mathematician Hiram Messenger and have as their purpose “to provide a course of lectures on the evolution of civilization, for the special purpose of raising the moral standards of our political, business and social life”.
Originally given by one lecturer each year, since 1960 the Messengers have been held each semester, with two speakers per annum.
Messenger Scholars are appointed from all disciplines and from any country in the world.
Professor Price is the first Messenger Scholar to have been invited from Aberdeen, and the third from Scotland; he is the eighth archaeologist to present the lectures.