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ABOUT
My research centres on Iceland and Scandinavia in the medieval and early modern periods, often with a thematic emphasis on the ways in which people perceived and rationalised their geographical experiences and the world around them. My work is comparative and connective, theorising Scandinavian intellectual and literary cultures on a European scale, and emphasising the region's global connectedness. Here, you can read more about my research, and read some works in progress.
PROJECTS
This project examines the hitherto unknown corpus of sea charts in the Árni Magnússon Collection, casting light on how Scandinavian maritime cultures conceptualised the waterways that connected them. Moving from the Bay of Bengal to Iceland, sea charts are the most mobile documents in the early modern world, and their story touches on all the shores to which they travelled.
This project critically examines the profusion of historical imagery in discourses about space and its exploration: from NASA’s Viking program, to place-names derived from Norse myth on moons in our solar system.
The Mappae Mundi of Medieval Iceland
This book attends to the roles played by world maps in medieval Icelandic culture, showing how medieval Icelanders used them to think about their nation, their political culture, and history.
EMPLOYMENT
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2021 -
Árni Magnússon Research Fellow
The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, Manuscript Department
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2019 - 2021
HM Queen Margrethe II Distinguished Research Fellow
The National Museum of Iceland, the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark, and the University of Iceland.
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2016 - 2018
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Centre for Medieval Literature, Syddansk Universitet, Odense.
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2015 - 2016
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
The University of Zürich
EDUCATION
2011 - 2015
University of York
PhD English and Related Literature
Funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
2009 - 2010
University of Nottingham
MA Norse and Viking Studies (Distinction)
Funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Margaret Orme Prize, Viking Society for Northern Research
2008 - 2009
University of Iceland
Diploma in Practical Icelandic (Ágætiseinkunn)
Funded by the Icelandic Ministry for Education, Science and Culture
2005 - 2008
University of Birmingham
BA English (First Class)
Geoffrey-Shepherd Prize for Medieval Studies
PUBLICATIONS
Books
2020
Kedwards, Dale. The Mappae Mundi of Medieval Iceland (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer).
Special Issues
2021
Kedwards, Dale (ed.). ‘The Astronomical Imagination in Literature through the Ages’, Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures, vol. 8 (2021).
Exhibitions
2021
Writing Futures, curated by Dale Kedwards
The National Museum of Iceland and the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle
Paired Objects, curated by Katarzyna Anna Kapitan and Dale Kedwards
The National Museum of Iceland and the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle
Articles and Book Chapters
2021
Kedwards, Dale. ‘Astronomy, Literary Criticism, and Medieval Literature: An Introduction’, Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures, vol. 8 (2021), 7–13.
Kedwards, Dale. ‘The Compassed Earth: Maps and Diagrams in GkS 1812 4to’. A World in Fragments: Studies on the Encyclopedic Manuscript GKS 1812 4to, ed. Gunnar Harðarson, with Christian Etheridge, Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, and Guðrún Nordal (Reykjavík: The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, 2021), pp. 211–26
2020
‘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, 1-37.
Kedwards, Dale. ‘Geography’. In A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre, edited by Massimiliano Bampi, Carolyne Larrington, and Sif Rikharðsdóttir (Cambridge: D.S Brewer), pp. 127-44.
2019
Kedwards, Dale. ‘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), pp. 69–82.
Kedwards, Dale, with Elena Parina, ‘Elucidarium: Translation and Transmission’, Crossing Borders in the Insular Middle Ages, edited by Aisling Byrne and Victoria Flood.
2018
Kedwards, Dale. ‘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), pp. 71–92.
2017
Kedwards, Dale. ‘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), pp. 97-101.
2015
Kedwards, Dale. ‘Iceland, Thule, and the Tilensian Precedent in Medieval Historiography’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 130: 57-78.
Kedwards, Dale. ‘Cartography and Culture in Medieval Iceland’, Imago Mundi: International Journal for the History of Cartography 67:1: 120–21.
2014
Kedwards, Dale. ‘Wind Diagrams in Medieval Iceland’, Quaestio Insularis 16: 92–107.
Public Writing
2016
Kedwards, Dale. ‘The World from On High.’ History Today, May 2016: Issue 5: 3-4.
Kedwards, Dale, and Lee Swain, ‘Analysing Glacial Deposits: Fieldwork Techniques’, Geography Review 20:4, 31.
Reviews
2019
Kedwards, Dale. Review: 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.
2017
Kedwards, Dale. Review: The Vikings and their Age. By Angus A. Somerville and R. Andrew McDonald, Saga- Book 61: 153-155.
2016
Kedwards, Dale. Review: The Viking Experience. By Marjolein Stern and Roderick Dale, Saga-Book 60: 117-119.