{"id":31,"date":"2016-03-19T01:11:02","date_gmt":"2016-03-19T01:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uni.hi.is\/vp\/?page_id=31"},"modified":"2026-01-31T22:53:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T22:53:35","slug":"research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/vp\/research\/","title":{"rendered":"Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was determined to become a student in nineteenth-century intellectual and cultural history until I met Helgi \u00deorl\u00e1ksson, 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\u2019s wealth, honor, and power with reference to Pierre Bourdieu\u2019s discourse on capital.<\/p>\n<p>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 <em>Power and Political Communication<\/em>) was published\u00a0in the <em>Islandica<\/em> series at Cornell as <em>Language of Power: Feasting and Gift Giving in Medieval Iceland and its Sagas<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>RESEARCH PROJECTS AND PUBLICATION COLLABORATIONS<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Since 2025, I have participated in the international research project <em>A Viking in the Sun: Harald Hardrada, the Mediterranean, and the Nordic World, between the late Viking Age and the Eve of the Crusades<\/em>, led by Gianluca Raccagni (University of Edinburg) and Bergur \u00deorgeirsson (Snorrastofa in Reykholt). Its third conference was held in Siracusa in Sicily in 2025 (<em>Multi-Ethnicity in 11th-Century Armies from the Mediterranean and Beyond<\/em>) and volume of articles emanating from it is forthcoming from Brepols.<\/li>\n<li>Since 2021, I have participated in the international research project <em>J\u00f3nsb\u00f3k and the Monarchical Project for Iceland<\/em>, led by Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen and Juli\u00e1n 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.<\/li>\n<li>Since 2020, I have participated in the research project <em>Oddaranns\u00f3kn<\/em> (<em>The Oddi Research Project<\/em>), led by Helgi \u00deorl\u00e1ksson (University of Iceland) on behalf of the Oddaf\u00e9lag (The Oddi Society). The project is funded by the research plan R\u00cdM (<em>Ritmenning \u00edslenskra mi\u00f0alda<\/em> (<em>The Textual Culture of Medieval Iceland<\/em>)). 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 \u2015 I write one article in the former, two in the latter.<\/li>\n<li>2020\u201323, I lead the research project <em>Samhengi Kristinr\u00e9ttar \u00c1rna \u00deorl\u00e1kssonar<\/em> (<em>Iceland\u2019s Medieval Christian Law in Context<\/em>) with Anders Winroth (University of Oslo), in collaboration with Elizabeth Walgenbach (The \u00c1rni Magn\u00fasson Institute for Icelandic Studies) and Magn\u00fas Lyngdal Magn\u00fasson. This international project in medieval legal and church history was funded (<em>verkefnastyrkur<\/em>) for two years by Rann\u00eds (The Icelandic Research Council) but its work was spread over three years. It was hosted by the \u00c1rni Magn\u00fasson Institute for Icelandic Studies. The project concluded successfully, with a critical edition and English translation of Bishop \u00c1rni \u00deorl\u00e1ksson\u2019s church law of 1275, with thorough commentary on its international context and sources, forthcoming (to be published by the \u00c1rni Magn\u00fasson Institute for Icelandic Studies).<\/li>\n<li>2016\u201221, I participated in a research project on Bishop J\u00f3n Halld\u00f3rsson (bishop in Sk\u00e1lholt 1322\u201239) and his legacy, organized by Mi\u00f0aldastofa (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 Sk\u00e1lholt, followed by an article collection published by Brill in 2021.<\/li>\n<li>2016\u201220, I participated in the Scandinavian research project <em>Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050\u20131250<\/em>, led by historians Lars Hermanson (University of Gothenburg), Kim Esmark (Roskilde University),\u00a0Hans Jacob Orning (University of Oslo), J\u00f3n Vi\u00f0ar Sigur\u00f0sson (University of Oslo), Helle Vogt (University of Copenhagen), Bj\u00f8rn Poulsen (Aarhus University), and Wojtek Jezierski (University of Gothenburg). Three volumes were published 2019\u201220 by Routledge, I contributed to the second volume (stemming from a workshop held in Aarhus).<\/li>\n<li>I am currently translating Adam of Bremen\u2019s <em>Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum\u00a0<\/em>and writing thorough commentary on it, to be published with an introduction co-authored by Sverrir Jakobsson.<\/li>\n<li>In 2012\u201314, I was a Rann\u00eds post-doc at the \u00c1rni Magn\u00fasson Institute for Icelandic studies in Reykjav\u00edk, working on\u00a0<em>Power and Political Violence in Medieval Iceland<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>I wrote an introduction and commentary to Eir\u00edkur Gauti Kristj\u00e1nsson\u2019s Icelandic translation of Sir Thomas More\u2019s <em>Utopia<\/em>, published in the <em>L\u00e6rd\u00f3msrit<\/em> series of Hi\u00f0 \u00edslenzka b\u00f3kmenntaf\u00e9lag in 2016.<\/li>\n<li>2010\u201218, I participated in <em>Reykholtsverkefni\u00f0<\/em> (<em>The Reykholt Project<\/em>), 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.<\/li>\n<li>2013\u201217, I participated in the international and interdisciplinary project <em>The Medieval Buildings of Reykholt<\/em>, led by archaeologist Gu\u00f0r\u00fan Sveinbjarnard\u00f3ttir (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.<\/li>\n<li>I contributed two chapters to <em>66 handrit \u00far f\u00f3rum \u00c1rna Magn\u00fassonar<\/em> (2013) and one to <em>The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas<\/em> (2017), international publication collaborations within Old Norse scholarship.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was determined to become a student in nineteenth-century intellectual and cultural history until I met Helgi \u00deorl\u00e1ksson, 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1417,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-31","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/vp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/vp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/vp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/vp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1417"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/vp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/vp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156,"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/vp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uni.hi.is\/vp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}