Maimed Bodies and Broken Systems in the Old Norse Imaginary
John Lindow is Professor in the Department of Scandinavian and a member of the Graduate Group in Folklore at UC Berkeley. His research and teaching focus on medieval Scandinavian textual traditions and on more recent folklore of the Nordic region, from Greenland to Karelia. He has treated Scandinavian mythology and early religion in three books: Scandinavian Mythology: An Annotated Bibliography (1988), Death and Vengeance among the Gods: Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology (1997), and Handbook of Norse Mythology (2001). Among his other books are Comitatus, Individual and Honor (1975), Swedish Legends and Folktales (1977), and, with Carol J. Clover and others, Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide (1985; reprint 2005). With Carl Lindahl and John McNamara, he is co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Medieval Folklore (2000).
Lindow has served as long-term mentor to distinguished Berkeley folklore students including our own Merrill Kaplan, who with Tim Tangherlini recently co-edited a Festschrift for Lindow: News from Other Worlds: Studies in Nordic Folklore, Mythology, and Culture.
