A portrait of Dr George Manning wearing a shirt, tie, and knitted vesy. He has long hair in a ponytail and is smiling in front of his bookshelves

Dr George Manning

Subject: English

Academic position: Lecturer in Medieval Literature

Background

I am a lecturer in medieval literature at Magdalen College, Oxford, and St Anne’s College, Oxford. I hold a BA in English Literature from Durham University, an MSt in Medieval English from Mansfield College, Oxford, and a DPhil (PhD) in Old Norse literature from St Anne’s College, Oxford. I have taught Old Norse, Old English, Middle English, and the history of the English language at several Oxford colleges, including St Anne’s, St Hilda’s, University College, Worcester, Exeter, and Pembroke. In 2021-22, I was Departmental Lecturer in Old Norse at the University of Oxford’s English Faculty.

Research

My research hitherto has mostly focused on the construction and portrayal of gender and emotion, especially masculinity and anger, in Old Norse literature. Based on my doctoral thesis, my forthcoming monograph Anger in the Sagas of Icelanders (OUP) shows, among other things, how anger’s mode of expression institutes and upholds gender configurations. Other publications include the chapter ‘Anger – reiði’ in Saga Emotions, edited by Carolyne Larrington, Gareth Lloyd Evans, and Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir, and the chapter ‘Anger’ in Emotion, Illness, and Medicine in the Medieval North, edited by Caroline R. Batten and Sif Rikhardsdottir. I have also published on Middle English lyric poetry. My current research project, ‘Neuro-Norse’, draws on the still-developing discipline of literary neurodiversity studies to examine the presentation of neurodivergent characters in Old Norse literature.

Research Interests

Old Norse literature and culture; the Íslendingasögur; emotion theory; sexuality and gender studies; literary neurodiversity studies; and Old Norse mythic tradition.