students to aid with management and restoration
efforts at the Trust.
wegian sources, Lawing’s project seeks to understand retributive justice as depicted in Old Norse
laws and Old Icelandic sagas. By reading literary
and legal sources together, this project defines,
reconstructs, and then evaluates the practice of
disfigurement in Old Norse culture. Lexical and
contextual analysis show that the chief function
of disfiguring attacks is to disgrace an opponent,
linking it to a particular type of ritual insult.
This research project finds that although legal texts contain clear moral sanctions against
extreme insults and violence, Old Icelandic saga
are ambiguous on the matter. This tension can
be attributed to their different aims: Laws seek to
maintain order by limiting aggression where as
saga are more interested in promoting a heroic
code of conduct that in part advocates humiliating opponents. These two systems must inevitably
come into conflict.
SUMMARY OF 2012 SUMMER
RESEARCH PROJECTS
Eugene Potapov
Eugene Potapov continued his ongoing research
of the Steller’s Sea Eagle, an endangered raptor. In
2012, the Bryn Athyn Research Fund facilitated
monitoring of the Steller’s Sea Eagle for the 21st
field season in a long-term monitoring program
of the Sea Eagle population of the Magadan District, Russia and adjoining territories. Dr. Potapov
hosted an intern (Michael Rodgers, biology major)
on his travels and work in Russian wilderness in
the summer of 2012. The experience for the student was phenomenal.
The hypothesis formulated before 2012 about
the negative correlation between snow accumulation and breeding success of the river population
of Steller’s Sea Eagle was shown to be true. After relatively low snow accumulation during the
winter 2011-2012, the population was breeding
again after many years of failure. The summer research also shed some light on the factors affecting
breeding output of the Steller’s Sea Eagle at the sea
coastline.
One major accomplishment was the successful application of field work to test an unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by Dr. Potapov for
its performance in monitoring nests. This was the
first of its kind in the wo