Professor Gareth Lloyd Evans

My primary field of research is Old Norse-Icelandic literature, and I have secondary research interests in Old and Middle English literature. I am particularly interested in questions of gender, sexuality, and emotion, and of identity more broadly. I am also interested in questions of poetics and style. I am author of Men and Masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders (Oxford University Press, 2019) and co-editor of Masculinities in Old Norse Literature (D. S. Brewer, 2020), Saga Emotions (Manchester University Press, 2025), and New Studies on Emotion in Old Norse Literature (Brepols, 2026). 

My current research focuses on the representation of emotion in Old Norse literature. I am working on a monograph entitled The Poetics of Emotion in Old Norse Saga Narrative (under contract with Boydell and Brewer). I am also convenor and Principal Investigator  'Old Norse Emotion Network', which was funded by the AHRC from 2024 to 2026.

During the 2026-27 academic year, I will hold a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to work on my next book project, Karlkona: Trans Lives of the Viking World.

I am one of the editors of Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research. I am a steering committee member and treasurer of the Gender and Medieval Studies Group, and am a member of the editorial board for the Brepols book series, Gender and Sexuality in the Global Middle Ages. I am also co-convenor of the Old Norse in Oxford Research Seminar.

I welcome enquiries from prospective doctoral students wishing to work on any aspect of Old Norse-Icelandic literature.  For further information about studying Old Norse at graduate level at Oxford, click here.