Pablo Scheffer

Thesis Title: Environmental Change in the Sagas of Icelanders

Supervisor: Professor Siân Grønlie

Research Interests: Old Norse literature; Old English literature; environmental humanities; reception studies

Doctoral Research:

The Sagas of Icelanders — forty-or-so (pseudo-)naturalistic narratives about Iceland's first generations of settlers — were produced against a background of an unpredictable, marginal climate, frequent resource scarcity and violent geological activity. My DPhil project examines how the sagas grapple with this challenging environment. It is funded by the AHRC, the Clarendon Fund and Magdalen College.

Academic Publications:

"Beyond the Critical Edition: Beowulf, New Materialism and the Promise of an Object-Oriented Palaeography", Journal of English and Germanic Philology 123.1 (2024), 48-68

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I also write book reviews and essays, most regularly for the Times Literary Supplement (where I am a consultant editor), but also occasionally for the Telegraph, the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books and the Financial Times.