Paper short abstract:

As a folklorist working within Old Norse Studies, I feel myself in between fields. As a neuroqueer, disabled scholar I feel I work on the periphery of academia. Negotiating these liminal spaces feels like making a patchwork of found objects, which would lend itself well to this experimental panel.

Paper long abstract:

As a folklorist working with elements of textual studies, archaeology and performance studies, mostly within Old Norse Studies, it sometimes feels like I exist in a liminal intersection between the fields. As a neuroqueer (autistic and with attention differences) and disabled scholar dealing with long-term mental and physical illnesses, I additionally experience myself as being on the periphery of academia, not able to fully participate and engage in an academic career, but neither able to fully tear myself away, and thus hanging on the edges of the academic world, still working on my master’s thesis after more than ten years, but also having an article published in a peer-reviewed journal, as well as having presented at myriad conferences.

Negotiating these betwixt-and-between spaces often carries with it a feeling of making a patchwork of found objects, an assemblage from diverse and perhaps at times seemingly incompatible elements. This feeling is enhanced even further by my enduring interest and (admittedly somewhat haphazard) experience in practices that employ recycling, in making things out of discarded and at first glance, useless objects.

Knitting those two things even tighter together, the academic patchwork as well as bringing new life to unwanted objects, within the setting of an academic folklorist conference, would, I believe, lend itself well to the fabulous experiment proposed in this panel.