Dr Dale Kedwards

Assistant Professor in Old Norse-Icelandic

Departmental and College Responsibilities

  • Teaching in Old Norse-Icelandic language and literature (Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic Tripos, Paper 6)
  • Supervision of graduate students in Old Norse language and literature
  • Deputy Chair of Examiners for Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic
  • EDI Representative for Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic

I am also an Official Fellow at King's College, Cambridge, where I am Director of Studies for ASNC.

Academic Interests

Old Norse literature; Old Norse language; medieval literature and science; medieval astronomy; geography and travel; manuscript studies

Selected Publications

BOOK

The Mappae Mundi of Medieval Iceland. Studies in Old Norse Literature vol. 6. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2020.

JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE

 ‘Interstellar Skies: Astronomy in Literature through the Ages’, Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures, vol. 8 (2021).

JOURNAL ARTICLES

‘Astronomy, Literary Criticism, and Medieval Literature: An Introduction’, Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures, vol. 8 (2021): 7-13

‘On Languages On Islands’ (with Joshua Nash, Peter Bakker, Kristoffer Friis Bøegh, Aymeric Daval-Markussen, Hartmut Haberland, John Ladhams, Carsten Levisen, Jón Símon Markússon, Joost Robbe & Jeroen Willemsen), Acta Linguistica Hafniensia: International Journal of Linguistics 42:1 (2020): 1-37.

‘Iceland, Thule, and the Tilensian Precedent in Medieval Historiography’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 130 (2015): 57-78.

 ‘Cartography and Culture in Medieval Iceland’, Imago Mundi 67:1 (2015): 120–21.

 'Wind Diagrams in Medieval Iceland’, Quaestio Insularis 16 (2014): 92–107.

BOOK CHAPTERS

‘The Compassed Earth: Maps and Diagrams in GkS 1812 4to’. World in Fragments: Studies on GKS 1812 4to, ed. Gunnar Harðarson, Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir and Guðrún Nordal (Reykjavík: The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, 2021), 211-226.

 ‘Geography’. In A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre, edited by Massimiliano Bampi, Carolyne Larrington, and Sif Rikharðsdóttir (Cambridge: D.S Brewer, 2020), pp. 127-44.

 ‘Þat hafa gamlir menn mælt: The Proverbs of Egils saga.’ In Words by the Northern Way: The Uses of the Proverb in the Medieval Cultures of Northern Europe, edited by Michael Cichon and Lin Yiu. Tempe, Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2019, pp. 69–82.

 'The World Image of the Konungs skuggsjá.’ In Speculum Septentrionale: Konungs skuggsjá and the European Encyclopaedic Tradition, edited by Karl Gunnar Johansson and Elise Kleivane. Oslo, Novus, 2018, pp. 71–92.

 ‘The Sun’s Companions: The Heliocentric Orbits of Mercury and Venus.’ In Skandinavische Schriftlandschaften / Scandinavian Textscapes, edited by Klaus Müller-Wille, Kate Heslop, Anna Katharina Richter, and Lukas Rösli. Tübingen: A. Francke, 2017, pp. 97-101.

REFEREED WEB PUBLICATIONS

'The Vínland sagas'. In The Literary Encyclopedia, vol. 1.3.4: Icelandic WRiting and Culture, ed. Ármann Jakobssonr 

with Elena Parina, ‘Elucidarium: Translation and Transmission’, Crossing Borders in the Insular Middle Ages, ed. Aisling Byrne and Victoria Flood, http://digitalcultures.ncl.ac.uk/projects/crossingborders

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

 ‘The World from On High.’ History Today, May 2016: Issue 5: 3-4 (Online at  https://www.historytoday.com/world-high)

REVIEWS

Art and Optics in the Hereford Map: An English Mappa Mundi, c. 1300. By Marcia Kupfer, Peregrinations: Journal Of Medieval Art And Architecture 7:1, 172-79. 

The Vikings and their Age. By Angus A. Somerville and R. Andrew McDonald, Saga- Book 61: 153-155.

 The Viking Experience. By Marjolein Stern and Roderick Dale, Saga-Book 60: 117-119.