Daniel C. Najork, Ph.D.

                                               

Education

  • Ph.D. in English Literature, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ             

  • MA in English Literature, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX      

  • BA in English Literature, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX

Research Interests

  • Medieval Icelandic Manuscript Culture

  • Translation in Medieval Icelandic and English Literature

  • Medieval Icelandic and English Hagiography

  • The Benedictine writers of Northern Iceland

  • The “English Age” of Iceland

  • Nineteenth-century medievalism and its consequences

Publications

  • Books

2021. Reading the Old Norse-Icelandic Maríu saga in its Manuscript Contexts (monograph). Arc Humanities Press—Medieval Institute Publications: The Northern Medieval World). February, 2021.

  • Review: The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 48.2 (2022): 264-266

  • Review: Saga-Book 46 (2022): 208-211

  • Review: Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 99.2 (April 2024): 607-608

  • Articles

2019. “The Virgin Mary and the Last Judgment in the Old Norse-Icelandic Maríu saga,” in Catastrophes and the Apocalyptic in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Ed. Robert Bjork. Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Turnhout: Brepols, 15-28.

2018. “The Middle English Translation of the Transitus Mariae Attributed to Joseph of Arimathea: An Edition of Oxford, All Souls College, Manuscript 26,” in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 117.4 (October 2018), 478-504.

  • Translations

    Forthcoming (2024). “Three Passages from Maríu saga,” in Jan Ziolkowski, ed. Titivillus, Devil of Idle Speech and Careless Writing: A Guide to Pandemonium. Open Book Publishers. 2024.

    In Progress. Maríu saga: The Old Norse-Icelandic Life of the Virgin Mary (book-length translation).

  • Invited Entries

    2022. “Religious Instruction (homilies, sermons, etc.)” Oxford Bibliographies in “Medieval Studies.” Ed. Christopher Kleinhenz. New York: Oxford University Press.

  • Reviews

    2024 (forthcoming). Sainthood, Scriptoria, and Secular Erudition in Medieval and Early Modern Scandinavia: Essays in Honour of Kirsten Wolf. ed. Dario Bullitta and Natalie M. Van Deusen. Acta Scandinavica 13. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022. In the Journal of English and Germanic Philology (April 2024).

Academic Presentations

  • 2021 (postponed). “The Apocryphal passiones of Peter and Paul in the Old Norse-Icelandic Postola sögur.” Conference on “Old Norse Apocrypha.” University of Wisconsin-Madison March 24–26 2021.

  • 2019. “Reading the Old Norse-Icelandic Maríu saga in its Manuscript Contexts: The Case of AM 232 fol.” SCRAL at Arizona State University. March 22.

  • 2018. “Conceptualizations of the Sense of Smell in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature.” 10-13 May, 2018. Medieval Studies Institute of Indiana University sponsored session “Sensational Words: Describing Sensory Engagement in the Middle Ages” at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

  • 2018. “Nature and the King in Book Ten of the Old Norse Translation of Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreis.” 8-10 February, 2018. 24th Annual ACMRS Conference, Reading the Natural World: Perceptions of the Environment and Ecology in the Global Middle Ages and Renaissance.

  • 2017. “The Old Norse-Icelandic Maríu saga in its Manuscript Contexts.” 11-14 May, 2017. Hagiography Society Session “The Context of the Codex” at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

  • 2017. “Marian Literature in Medieval and Early Modern Iceland.” 11-12 April, 2017. “The Material Culture of Religious Change and Continuity.” The University of Huddersfield, UK.

  • 2014. “The Icelandic Translations from Robert Mannyng’s Handlyng Synne.” 16-20 July, 2014. 2014 Congress of the New Chaucer Society, Reykjavík, Iceland.

  • 2014. “Mary and the Last Judgment in the Old Norse-Icelandic Maríu saga.” 6-8 February, 2014. 20th Annual Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference. Phoenix, AZ.

  • 2013. “Authorizing the Assumption of Mary in Medieval Iceland.” 8-12 July, 2013. The Medieval Translator: The Cardiff Conference on the Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages. KU Leuven, Belgium.

  • 2013. “The Presence of Affective Piety in Medieval Iceland.” 21-23 March, 2013. Medieval Association of the Pacific Conference. San Diego, CA.

  • 2013. “The Wisdom of the Ants in the Old Norse Konungs skuggsjá.” 14-16 February, 2013. 19th Annual Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference. Phoenix, AZ.

Public Lectures

  • 2018. “Njála: Iceland’s Most Famous Saga.” 21 January, 2018. The East Valley Scandinavian Club.

Conference Panel Organizing, Chairing

  • 2024. “Textual Adaptation and the Creation of Culture in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Medievalisms” (II). The 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 9-11, 2024.

  • 2023. “Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Medievalisms. The 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 11-13, 2023.

  • 2022. “Nineteenth-/Twentieth-/Twenty-First-Century Medievalisms,” The 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 9-14, 2022.

  • 2021. “Nineteenth-/Twentieth-/Twenty-First-Century Medievalisms,” The 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 10-15, 2021.

  • 2021. “Modern Myth and the Medieval.” The 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 10-15, 2021.

  • 2019. “Manuscript Culture and the Reception of Medieval Literature in Post-Reformation Iceland.” The 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 9-12, 2019.

  • 2019. “Nineteenth-Century Medievalism I and II.” The 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 9-12, 2019.

  • 2019. “Textual and Linguistic Transformation in Medieval Scandinavia.” 2019 Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies/Medieval Association of the Pacific Joint Conference - Magic, Religion, and Science in the Global Middle Ages and Renaissance in the Global Middle Ages and Renaissance. February 6-9, 2019.

  • 2017. “Victorian Medievalism: Translation and Adaptation.” The 52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 11-14, 2017.

  • 2016. “Childhood/Innocence in Victorian Medievalism.” The 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 12-15, 2016.

  • 2016. “Insider or Outsider? The State of Medieval Iceland.” Special session, The Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2016 Conference: “Marginal Figures in the Global Middle Ages and Renaissance.” February 4-6, 2016.

Awards

  • 2014. University Graduate Fellowship, Arizona State University

  • 2014. Travel funding from the New Chaucer Society for the meeting held July 16-20, 2014 in Reykjavík, Iceland.

  • 2012–2013. George and Collice Portnoff Endowed Fellow in Comparative Literature

  • 2009. University Graduate Fellowship, Arizona State University

  • 2006. Dedman College Scholar, Southern Methodist University

Teaching Experience

  • 2021–Present: San Diego State University, San Diego, CA. Lecturer

    ECL 220 (The Art of Literature): Literary Monsters

    ECL 220 (The Art of Literature): The Literature of Hell and Underworlds

    ECL 510A: Medieval Icelandic and English Literature

    ECL 510A: The Monsters of Medieval Iceland and England

    ECL 510A: Chaucerian Afterlives

    ECL 510A: Race and Medievalism

    ECL 510B: Victorian Medievalism

    ECL 510B: Gothic Revivals: Medievalism in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

    ECL 565: Ecocriticism (The Blue Humanities-Literature and the Sea)

    ECL 566: Literary Underworlds

  • 2021: Adams State University, Alamosa, CO. Off-Campus Adjunct Faculty

    ENG 539: Mythology: Creation and Destruction in World Myth

  • 2014–2021: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Faculty Associate

    ENG 534: Shakespeare Studies (online course)

    Works taught: The Taming of the Shrew with Performance and Feminist Criticism, The Merchant of Venice with Sexuality Studies, Othello with Race Studies, Henry IV Part I with Materialist Criticism, and The Tempest with Post-Colonial Criticism

    ENG 352: The Short Story (online course)

    ENG 218 (Writing about Literature) Course theme: Revenge

    Works taught: Euripides’s Medea, Njáls saga, Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, Michael Punke’s The Revenant. Shorter works include the “Sermon on the Mount,” selections from Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, Chaucer’s “Tale of Melibee,” Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” Emily Dickinson’s “Mine Enemy is Growing Old,” Sylvia Plath’s “A Lesson in Vengeance,” Alice Walker’s “The Revenge of Hannah Kenhuff.”

    ENG 200 (Critical Reading and Writing about Literature, online)

    Works taught: short stories by Alice Munroe, Lorrie Moore, Edna O’Brien, and Sherman Alexie as well as Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies; August Wilson’s Fences, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia and selections from The Oxford Anthology of American Poetry.

    ENG 101 (Freshman Composition)

    ENG 102 (Freshman Composition)

    ENG 105 (Advanced Composition)

  • 2009–2014: Teaching Assistant, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ                                                                                                           

ENG 221: Monsters and Magic in English Literature, 800-1800, Teaching Assistant for Professor Rosalynn Voaden. Grading and leading weekly recitations. Works taught: Beowulf, Völsunga saga, Hrólfs saga kraka, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Vainglory, Gifts of Mortals, Marie de France (Bisclavret, Yonec) and Old Norse translations, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale and the Franklin’s Prologue and Tale), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, Thomas Aquinas on Curiosity and Pride, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Marlowe’s Faustus, The Miracle of the Virgin Mary concerning Theophilus, Milton’s Paradise Lost and selected prose tracts, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

ENG 101(Freshman Composition)

ENG 102 (Freshman Composition)

  • 2008–2009: Adjunct Faculty, Tarrant County College, Fort Worth, TX

ENG 1301 (Composition)

ENG 1302 (Introduction to Literature)

Service

  • 2014–2019: Organizer, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Old Norse Reading Group. Texts: Brennu-Njals saga, Hrólfs saga kraka, Laxdæla saga, Dínus saga drambláta, Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss.

  • 2014, 2018: Editorial work for the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

  • 2013–2014; 2017–2019: Organizer, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Old English Reading Group. Texts: Genesis, Andreas, Old English wisdom poetry, Christ, Beowulf, The Phoenix, Judgment Day II, Cynewulf’s Elene, poems of the Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry.

  • 2013–2014: Organizer, Medieval Graduate Student Colloquium

  • 2011: Guest instructor for Professor Robert Bjork, ENG 531 (Old English Literature). Responsible for leading class translation and reading of Beowulf.

  • 2010–2019: Support, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies annual conference

  • 2007: Research Assistant to Professor Darryl Dickson-Carr (Southern Methodist University)

  • 2005–2006: Research Assistant to Professor Bonnie Wheeler (Southern Methodist University). Responsible for editorial work for journal Arthuriana.

Professional Affiliations

Medieval Academy of America, New Chaucer Society, Modern Language Association, Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies, The Hagiography Society.

Languages

  • Old Norse-Icelandic: Command for scholarship. Understanding of grammar appropriate for teaching

  • Modern Icelandic: Some knowledge appropriate for reading scholarship in the field

  • Old English: Command for scholarship. Understanding of grammar appropriate for teaching

  • Middle English: Command for scholarship. Understanding of history and dialects appropriate for teaching

  • Latin: Some knowledge for reading

References available upon request