Sadomasochistic Beowulf

This anthology brings together articles by several scholars all engaged in the study of the many manifestations of the paranormal in the Middle Ages. The guiding principles of the collection are a clear focus on the parnormal experiences themselves, and, essentially, how they are defined by the sources. The authors work with a variety of medieval Icelandic sources, including family sagas, legendary sagas, romances, poetry, hagiography and miracles, exploring the variedness of paranormal activity in the medieval North.
This volume questions all previous definitions of the subject matter, most decisively the idera of saga realism and will open up new avenues in saga research.

Christopher Vaccaro is Senior Lecturer of English language and literature, gender studies, and medieval studies at the University of Vermont, where he has taught since 1999. Professor Vaccaro has two books, Tolkien and Alterity (Palgrave-Springer, 2017) and The Body in Tolkien's Legendarium (McFarland, 2013), and has published articles in Mythlore, the Journal of Tolkien Research, Mallorn, and a review in Speculum. He referees submissions for the Journal of Tolkien Research and for Mythlore, the journal of the Mythopoeic Society, for which he sits on the editorial board. He is the organizer for the Tolkien at UVM conference and co-organizer for Tolkien at Kalamazoo.