Skip to main content
Carl Phelpstead BA (Sheffield), MPhil, DPhil (Oxon)

Professor Carl Phelpstead

(he/him)

BA (Sheffield), MPhil, DPhil (Oxon)

Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Teams and roles for Carl Phelpstead

Overview

I teach and research medieval literature and twentieth-century medievalism. 

In addition to numerous articles and chapters on Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, Old English literature, Chaucer, and modern British medievalism, my publications include the following books:

  • The Medieval North and Its Afterlife: Essays in Honor of Heather O'Donoghue (2024), co-ed. with Sian Gronlie
  • An Introduction to the Sagas of Icelanders (2020)
  • Tolkien and Wales: Language, Literature and Identity (2011), winner of the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies in 2012
  • Holy Vikings: Saints’ Lives in the Old Icelandic Kings’ Sagas (2007)
  • Old Norse Made New: Essays on the Post-Medieval Reception of Old Norse Literature and Culture (2007), co-ed. with David Clark
  • ed., A History of Norway and the Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Óláfr trans. Devra Kunin (2001).

My current research interests include ecocritical and environmental approaches to Old Norse and Old English literature; literature and the 'global Middle Ages'; and the relationship between place and the medieval past in twentieth-century literature and culture.

I have been a member of the Council of the Viking Society for Northern  Research ('the world’s leading scholarly organization dedicated to the study of medieval Scandinavia and the wider Viking world') since 2001 and served as President from 2018 to 2020. I am co-editor of the publications of the  Viking Society and was an editor of its journal Saga-Book from 2004 to 2023. I have been one of the editors of the Viking Collection book series published by the University Press of Southern Denmark since 2020. 

Publication

2024

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

  • Phelpstead, C. L. 2017. Time. In: Jakobsson, ?. and Jakobsson, S. eds. The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 187-197.

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2001

2000

Articles

Book sections

Books

Conferences

  • Phelpstead, C. L. 2009. Hair loss, the tonsure, and masculinity in medieval Iceland. Presented at: 14th International Saga Conference, Uppsala, Sweden, 9-15 August 2009. Institutionen för nordiska språk
  • Phelpstead, C. 2006. Historicizing plausibility: the anticipation of disbelief in Oddr Snorrason’s Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar. Presented at: 13th International Saga Conference, Durham, UK and York, UK, 6-12 August 2006 Presented at McKinnell, J., Ashurst, D. and Kick, D. eds.The Fantastic in Old Norse/Icelandic Literature – Sagas and the British Isles: Preprint Papers of the 13th International Saga Conference, Durham and York, 6th–12th August, 2006, Vol. 2. Durham: Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies pp. 759-768.
  • Phelpstead, C. 2003. Masculinity and sexuality in sagas of Scandinavian royal saints. Presented at: Scandinavian and Christian Europe in the Middle Ages. Papers of the 12th International Saga Conference, Bonn, 28th July - 2 August 2003 Presented at Simek, R. and Meurer, J. eds.Scandinavia and Christian Europe in the Middle Ages: Papers of the 12th International Saga Conference Bonn/Germany, 28th July – 2nd August 2003. Bonn: Hausdruckerei der Universität Bonn pp. 421-428.

Other

  • Phelpstead, C. L. 2010. Men in Anglo-Saxon England.. The English Parish Church Through the Centuries: Daily Life & Spirituality, Art & Architecture, Literature & Music Culture and Christianity Project.
  • Phelpstead, C. L. 2010. Old English verse saints’ lives. The English Parish Church Through the Centuries: Daily Life & Spirituality, Art & Architecture, Literature & Music Culture and Christianity Project.

Websites

  • Phelpstead, C. L. 2017. Time. In: Jakobsson, ?. and Jakobsson, S. eds. The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 187-197.

Research

My research is mainly in two areas:

  • medieval literature (especially Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English)
  • twentieth-century British medievalism 

My expertise and interests in medieval English and Norse literature include: medieval literature and the environment, hagiography, medieval gender and sexuality, and the place of Old Norse literature in World Literature and global medieval studies. 

My research on modern medievalism has included a couple of publications on the Victorian period but has mainly focused on twentieth-century authors. Besides a book and several articles on J. R. R. Tolkien, I have also published on the following  writers: W. H. Auden, George Mackay Brown, Margaret Elphinstone, David Jones, and David Rudkin.

With Timothy Bourns (University of Washington), I am co-editing a collection of essays on ecocriticism and Old Norse-Icelandic literature. My main current project is writing a book-length study of early medieval England in twentieth-century literature, film, and culture.

There is strong public interest in medieval culture and in modern medievalist writers such as Tolkien, and I am committed to sharing my research with audiences outside academia. I've served the Viking Society for Northern Research, which has a membership embracing both academics and the wider public, in various roles across the last quarter century, including as President. I have also given talks for organisations such as the Welsh Norwegian Society and Bede's World Museum (Jarrow) and organised a public event with guest speakers for the launch of my book on Tolkien and Wales. I was the Guest of Honour and speaker at the annual dinner of the Tolkien Society in 2025.

I am a member of Cardiff's interdisciplinary Centre for Medieval Studies, and of the Cardiff Environmental Cultures group: Cardiff Environmental Cultures – Cardiff ScienceHumanities

Teaching

I have taught a variety of different modules at BA and MA level on Old English, Old Norse, and Middle English literature. I have also taught some twentieth-century literature most years throughout my time at Cardiff (including whole modules on W. H. Auden or J. R. R. Tolkien in the past).

I currently teach a Year 2 module on Epic and Saga, which focuses on Beowulf and Old Norse-Icelandic legendary sagas,  and contribute to the Year 1 module Transgressive Bodies in Medieval Literature. My final-year optional module Island Stories: Literatures of the North Atlantic is due to run again in 2025-26: that module combines study of medieval Icelandic sagas and twentieth- and twenty-first-century fiction from Orkney, Shetland, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland.

Biography

I was the first in my family to go to university. After studying at the Universities of Sheffield and Oxford, I was appointed to Cardiff University in 1999. Alongside my research and teaching, I have served in many different leadership roles, including as Director of Studies for English Literature and Creative Writing, School Director of Teaching and Learning, and Head of English Literature and Creative Writing and Co-Deputy Head of School.

  • 2012 Promoted to Professor
  • 2010 Promoted to Reader
  • 2007 Promoted to Senior Lecturer
  • 1999 Appointed as Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University
  • 1999 DPhil in Old Norse literature, University of Oxford (British Academy Studentship)
  • 1995 MPhil in English Medieval Studies 1100–1500, University of Oxford (British Academy Studentship)
  • 1992 BA in English Language with Medieval Literature, University of Sheffield, First class honours

Honours and awards

  • Guest of Honour at the Tolkien Society Annual Dinner (2025)
  • Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies (2012)

Professional memberships

2018-2020: President of the Viking Society for Northern  Research

2001-present: Council Member of the  Viking Society for Northern  Research

2007-2014: Committee Member of Teachers of  Old English in Britain and Ireland

Member of:

  • Early English Text Society
  • Hagiography Society
  • Norse Hagiography Network
  • Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland
  • Viking Society for Northern Research.

Committees and reviewing

2020-present: One of four editors of the Viking Collection book series, published by the University Press of Southern Denmark.

2007-present: Joint editor of publications for the Viking Society for Northern  Research

2004-2023: Co-Editor of the journal Saga-Book

Supervisions

I have supervised PhDs on topics as varied as the literary history of elves and answers to prayer in Chaucer, as well as co-supervising two Creative Writing PhDs that engaged with medieval material. I am particularly interested in supervising postgraduate research in the areas of:

  • Old Norse-Icelandic literature
  • Old English literature
  • Ecocriticism, the environmental humanities, and medieval literature
  • Gender and sexuality in medieval literature
  • Hagiography
  • The 'global Middle Ages,' World Literature, and medieval texts
  • Twentieth-century British medievalism

Contact Details

Email PhelpsteadC@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone +44 29208 74245
Campuses John Percival Building, Room 2.45, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU

Research themes

Specialisms

  • Medieval literature
  • Old Norse literature
  • Ecocriticism
  • Medievalism
  • 20th Century

External profiles