Bastian Dahl: Academic Networking Outside Academia

Abstract

Since the foundation of Norway’s first university in 1811, classics has been an important part of Norwegian academia. The history of Norwegian classical scholarship, however, has received relatively little attention from researchers, and minimal literature exists on Norway’s first classical scholars. One such scholar was Bastian Anastasius Dahl (1851–1895), a gifted Latinist who was expelled from academia on apparently dubious grounds and died at the age of just 43. Dahl produced several highly regarded works and, as recent archival research has revealed, created a vast international network of classical scholars, in stark contrast to his Norwegian contemporaries. In this article, I use my archival findings to shed light on this overlooked, yet illustrative chapter of Norwegian academic history, employing Dahl as a case study from a less canonical area of classical scholarship.