I was determined to become a student in nineteenth-century intellectual and cultural history until I met Helgi Þorláksson, who drew my attention to early and pre-modern cultures of power, anthropological and sociological theory, and saga studies. He is responsible for my medieval turn as an undergraduate. I wrote my BA thesis under his supervision, on Snorri Sturluson’s wealth, honor, and power with reference to Pierre Bourdieu’s discourse on capital.

At Berkeley, where I studied medieval and early modern Europe at a department that does not specialize in Icelandic or Scandinavian history, my fields expanded and came to include, more generally, early law and legal history, intellectual history, and political thought and culture from medieval to early modern times. I returned to Iceland and Scandinavia in my dissertation, however, on feasting and gift giving as modes of political communication, written under Carol J. Clover and John Lindow from the Department of Scandinavian and Thomas A. Brady Jr. and Maureen C. Miller from the Department of history. My revised dissertation (originally titled Power and Political Communication) was published in the Islandica series at Cornell as Language of Power: Feasting and Gift Giving in Medieval Iceland and its Sagas.

RESEARCH PROJECTS AND PUBLICATION COLLABORATIONS

• Since 2021, I have participated in the international research project Jónsbók and the Monarchical Project for Iceland, led by Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen and Julián Valle at the University of Bergen. A conference was held in Bergen in 2021 and a volume of articles is forthcoming, published by Bryggen Papers in Bergen.
• Since 2020, I have participated in the research project Oddarannsókn (The Oddi Research Project), led by Helgi Þorláksson (University of Iceland) on behalf of the Oddafélag (The Oddi Society). The project is funded by the research plan RÍM (Ritmenning íslenskra miðalda (The Textual Culture of Medieval Iceland)). It is an interdisciplinary project combining history, literature, archaeology, and more. My contribution focuses on the early history of Oddi as an ecclesiastical center. Contributors have presented their research at conferences. Two volumes are forthcoming, an academic volume in English from Brill and a more popular one in Icelandic ― I write one article in the former, two in the latter.
• 2020–23, I lead the research project Samhengi Kristinréttar Árna Þorlákssonar (Iceland’s Medieval Christian Law in Context) with Anders Winroth (University of Oslo), in collaboration with Elizabeth Walgenbach (The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies) and Magnús Lyngdal Magnússon. This international project in medieval legal and church history was funded (verkefnastyrkur) for two years by Rannís (The Icelandic Research Council) but its work was spread over three years. It was hosted by the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies. The project concluded successfully, with a critical edition and English translation of Bishop Árni Þorláksson’s church law of 1275, with thorough commentary on its international context and sources, forthcoming (to be published by the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies).
• 2016‒21, I participated in a research project on Bishop Jón Halldórsson (bishop in Skálholt 1322‒39) and his legacy, organized by Miðaldastofa (The Center for Medieval Studies), University of Iceland. It was an interdisciplinary project bringing together scholars from Iceland and Norway. A conference/workshop was held in Skálholt, followed by an article collection published by Brill in 2021.
• 2016‒20, I participated in the Scandinavian research project Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050–1250, led by historians Lars Hermanson (University of Gothenburg), Kim Esmark (Roskilde University), Hans Jacob Orning (University of Oslo), Jón Viðar Sigurðsson (University of Oslo), Helle Vogt (University of Copenhagen), Bjørn Poulsen (Aarhus University), and Wojtek Jezierski (University of Gothenburg). Three volumes were published 2019‒20 by Routledge, I contributed to the second volume (stemming from a workshop held in Aarhus).
• I am currently translating Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum and writing thorough commentary on it, to be published with an introduction co-authored by Sverrir Jakobsson.
• In 2012–14, I was a Rannís post-doc at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic studies in Reykjavík, working on Power and Political Violence in Medieval Iceland.
• I wrote an introduction and commentary to Eiríkur Gauti Kristjánsson’s Icelandic translation of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, published in the Lærdómsrit series of Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag in 2016.
• 2010‒18, I participated in Reykholtsverkefnið (The Reykholt Project), an international and interdisciplinary project hosted by Snorrastofa in Reykholt. Workshops and conferences were held. Its final volume appeared in 2018, published by Museum Tusculanum Press.
• 2013‒17, I participated in the international and interdisciplinary project The Medieval Buildings of Reykholt, led by archaeologist Guðrún Sveinbjarnardóttir (University College, London, and leader of the archaeological research at Reykholt), hosted by Snorrastofa. I workshop was held in Reykholt and an article collection was published by the University of Iceland Press in 2017.
• I contributed two chapters to 66 handrit úr fórum Árna Magnússonar (2013) and one to The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas (2017), international publication collaborations within Old Norse scholarship.