Primary fields of research

• Icelandic saga literature, in particular the late medieval mythical-heroic sagas (fornaldarsögur) and chivalric romances (riddarasögur).
• Popular literature in post-Reformation Iceland, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries. This includes both prose sagas and metrical romances (rímur).
• Manuscript and textual studies.
• Text encoding and digital humanities.

Fields of interest

Icelandic language and literature in general, textual scholarship, book history, manuscript studies.

Current research

My research interests include manuscript and textual studies, particularly in the area of Old and Early-Modern Icelandic.

In addition to my work with manuscripts copied by ordinary people in 18th- and 19th-century Iceland I have in recent years been head of a team engaged in the study of one of the Spanish manuscripts in the Arnamagnæan Collection, AM 377 fol., known as El libro de los epítomes, one of the catalogues or inventories from the great library of Hernando Colón (1488-1539), son of the famous navigator Christopher Columbus. El libro contains summaries of around 2000 books from Colón's library.

CV

Academic qualifications

• 1994: DPhil, University of Oxford; thesis: ‘Sagas attributed to Jón Oddsson Hjaltalín (1749-1835)’.
• 1988: Cand.mag. in Icelandic literature, Háskóli Íslands, Reykjavík.
• 1979: BA (Hons) in English Studies, University of Stirling, Scotland.

Employment

• 2017-2024: Professor in Old Norse Philology, The Arnamagnæan Institute, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen.
• 1998-2017: Lektor/Associate Professor (from April 2010 Lektor MSK [‘with special qualifications’]) in Old Norse Philology, The Arnamagnæan Institute, Department of Scandinavian Research, University of Copenhagen; from 2004 to 2015 also Afdelingsleder/Head of Division.
• Sept. 2016-Aug. 2017: Leverhulme Visiting Professor, Ulster University.
• Oct. 2011-April 2012: Professeur invité, Université de Caen Normandie.
• Oct.-Dec. 2006: Gastdozent, Abteilung für Nordische Philologie, Deutsches Seminar, Universität Zürich.
• 1995-1998: Adjunkt/Assistant Professor, The Arnamagnæan Institute, University of Copenhagen.