Professor Gareth Lloyd Evans

My primary field of research is Old Norse-Icelandic literature, and I have secondary research interests in Old and Middle English literature. I am particularly interested in questions of gender, sexuality, and emotion, and of identity more broadly. I am also interested in questions of poetics and style. I am author of Men and Masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders (Oxford University Press, 2019) and co-editor of Masculinities in Old Norse Literature (D. S. Brewer, 2020) and Saga Emotions (Manchester University Press, 2025). 

My current research focuses on the representation of emotion in Old Norse literature. I am working on a monograph entitled The Poetics of Emotion in Old Norse Saga Narrative (under contract with Boydell and Brewer) and am co-editing New Studies on Emotion in Old Norse Literature (under contract with Brepols). I am also convenor and Principal Investigator of the AHRC-funded 'Old Norse Emotion Network', which will run from 2024 to 2026.

I am one of the editors of  Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research. I am a steering committee member and treasurer of the Gender and Medieval Studies Group, and am a member of the editorial board for the Brepols book series, Gender and Sexuality in the Global Middle Ages. I am also co-convenor of the Old Norse in Oxford Research Seminar.

I welcome enquiries from prospective doctoral students. I am currently supervising one doctoral student - Grace O'Duffy -  who works on sexual violence against women in Old Norse literature. For further information about studying Old Norse at graduate level at Oxford, click here.