Steven T Dunn
Independent Scholar, Medieval Studies, Department Member
- Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture, Old Norse Literature, Icelandic Sagas, Medieval Icelandic Literature, Early Medieval Ireland, Law and Dispute Settlement, Viking Age Scandinavia, Skaldic Poetry, Eddic Poetry, Mythology And Folklore, and 14 moreWomen and Gender Studies, Old Norse Language, Modern Icelandic Language, Medieval Studies, Britain and Ireland In the Viking Age, Medieval England, Medieval Wales, Early Medieval Scotland, Historical Linguistics, Storytelling, Material Culture, Masculinity, Translation Studies, and Mosfell Archaeological Projectedit
- My current focus is further developing my educational website Fjorn's Hall, where I provide low-cost online courses for Norse history, literature, and lore. In terms of scholarship, I am deeply interested in how Old Norse literature treats material culture, especially with regards to social commentary. I am particularly interest in ordinary objects, such as food, clothing, and other objects associated with daily life.edit
This thesis unravels the deeper meanings attributed to ordinary objects, such as clothing and food, in thirteenth-century Icelandic literature and legal records. I argue that women weaponized these ordinary objects to circumvent their... more
This thesis unravels the deeper meanings attributed to ordinary objects, such as clothing and food, in thirteenth-century Icelandic literature and legal records. I argue that women weaponized these ordinary objects to circumvent their social and legal disadvantages by performing acts that medieval Icelandic society deemed masculine. By comparing various literary sources, however, I show that medieval Icelandic society gradually redefined and questioned the acceptability of that behavior, especially during the thirteenth-century. This is particularly evident in the late thirteenth-century Njal’s Saga, wherein a woman named Hallgerd has been villainized for stealing cheese from a troublesome neighbor. If Hallgerd were a man, this behavior would have been considered rán, which was a masculine act whereby men challenged one another to take things by force. As a woman, however, Hallgerd’s clever use of ordinary objects was unsettling to men; her act, although mirroring the masculine expectations of rán, has been condemned by the author. Thus, by emphasizing the anxieties of men regarding such behavior, it is evident that later male authors, particularly those writing from the late thirteenth century onwards, considered this behavior as preventing society’s progression away from extra-legal conflict resolution. In doing so, the author of Njal’s Saga demonstrated that both women and men were aware of the power that these ordinary objects had in the hands of ambitious women, as well as how potentially dangerous and harmful to society they could be.