Dr Alaric Hall
- Position: Associate Professor
- Areas of expertise: Language, literature, and history of the Germanic-, Celtic-, and Semitic-speaking regions in the Middle Ages; Iceland and Icelandic.
- Email: A.T.P.Hall@leeds.ac.uk
- Phone: +44(0)113 343 4761
- Location: 2.02 7 Cavendish Road, School of English
- Website: My actual website | Wikipedia userpage | Twitter | Googlescholar | ORCID
Profile
My teaching, research, and supervision focus on Britain and Scandinavia, 500-1600; modern Icelandic language and culture; and to a slowly growing extent medieval Arabic and Hebrew literature. For the most up-to-date information on my activities, web-resources, and publications, see http://www.alarichall.org.uk.
Responsibilities
- Director of the Institute for Medieval Studies
Research interests
For much of my career, I have researched medieval Britain and Scandinavia. I have also worked extensively on modern Icelandic literature. My current research follows two main threads:
- Comparative study of early medieval cultures in north-west Europe and the Semitic-speaking world. In particular, I am working on comparative cultural studies of riddles in Arabic, Hebrew, Old English, Old Norse, Latin, and Greek, particularly from an ecocritical perspective.
- The manuscript transmission of medieval Icelandic sagas from the Middle Ages to the end of the manuscript tradition in the early twentieth century.
For the most up-to-date list of my publications, including links to free-access texts, forthcoming articles, and abstracts see http://www.alarichall.org.uk/bibliog.php.
For working papers see http://www.alarichall.org.uk/iease.php.
I also co-edit Leeds Medieval Studies, for which we’re always seeking good submissions.
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>Qualifications
- BA Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic
- M.Phil. Medieval Studies
- Ph.D. English Literature
Student education
Postgraduate supervision
My postgraduate supervision focuses on language, literature and history in early medieval Britain and medieval Scandinavia, and modern medievalisms, and I welcome postgraduate research applications in these fields. I am also open to discussing supervision of research on medieval Semitic-speaking cultures.
Teaching
Teaching is one of the most fun things that I do, and is the single most important thing to me in my job here at Leeds. I particularly enjoy that fact that my students have almost never studied my subjects at school: we get to start from scratch, looking at some amazing material which people generally haven't had a chance to study before. The texts I teach were mostly written in languages other than modern English, and although I also teach a lot in translation, helping students to access and appreciate medieval texts in the original language is central to my work—and through this I seek to open up other opportunities for students’ language-learning in future.
I frequently teach Old and Middle English, Old and modern Icelandic, and a variety of modules focusing on medieval cultural history.
Research groups and institutes
- Centre for Endangered Languages, Cultures and Ecosystems