Centre for Medieval Studies
Basil Price
The Shadow Age: Genre and Place in the Post-Classical Íslendingasögur
My research considers Icelandic literature and culture after the independent commonwealth collapsed in 1262-1264. In particular, I focus on how the post-classical Íslendingasögur negotiate what Icelandic identity meant under Norwegian and subsequently Danish rule. My discussion revolves around the connections between late medieval Iceland’s social reality and the sagas’ construction of domestic, foreign, and fantastical realms. Borrowing from post-colonial, critical race, and queer theories, I endeavour to understand the ways in which these sagas - through their imagined landscapes - express an urgent and resistant alternative to dominant structures. My project therefore contributes to the growing interest in non-normative medieval identities, and offers Iceland as another site of colony, race, and queerness. My research is generously funded by the Wolfson Foundation.
Biography
Basil holds a B.F.A in Art and Technology and a B.A. in Medieval Studies from the University of Oregon, as well as an M.A in Medieval Studies from the University of York. He continued to pursue his research on late medieval Iceland while teaching English composition at Arizona State University. In 2020, Basil returned to York to begin his Ph.D in Medieval Studies as a Wolfson scholar. He currently coordinates the Critical Theory for Medievalists and the Old Norse reading groups for the University of York. He is also a founding board member and editor of Kyngervi: a student journal that explores the marginal and marginalised in medieval Scandinavian culture. His research interests broadly include: Old Norse and Old English language, literature and culture; Judaic studies, critical race and post-colonial theory; gender and queer studies.
Publications
Price, B. A., et al., editors. Medieval Mobilities: Gendered Bodies, Spaces, and Movements in the Middle Ages. Palgrave. 2023.
Price, B. A. et al., “Introduction” Medieval Mobilities: Gendered Bodies, Spaces, and Movements edited by B. A. Price et al., Palgrave. 2023.
Price, B. A. “Greenland as a Horizon: Queer Utopia in Flóamanna Saga.” Medieval Mobilities: Gendered Bodies, Spaces, and Movements. edited by B. A. Price et al., Palgrave. 2023
Price, B.A. “Foreword,” Kyngervi 2, 4-20, (2020).
Price, B.A. “Potentiality and Possibility: An Overview of Beowulf and Queer Theory” Neophilologus 104, 401–419 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-020-09636-8
Price, B.A. Búi and the Blámaðr: Comprehending Racial Others in Kjalnesinga Saga. postmedieval 11 (4), 442–450 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-020-00195-4
