Affiliation: School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester
Keywords: archaeology, prehistoric Scandinavia, prehistoric architecture, archaeologies of the body
Websites:
www.mariannehemeriksen.com & https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/people/academics/dr-marianne-eriksen/dr-m-hem-eriksen
ORCID: https://orcid.org/ 0000-0001-5894-7713
Full profile:
Marianne is Associate Professor at the University of Leicester, alumna of the Young Academy of Norway, and PI of ERC Starting Grant Body-Politics: Personhood, Sexuality and Death in Iron and Viking Age Scandinavia (www.body-politics.com).
She was previously Research Fellow at the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research & Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, through a postdoctoral grant funded by the Research Council of Norway/Marie Skłodowska Curie. Subsequently she was Associate professor at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. Marianne’s PhD thesis (Oslo, 2015) was awarded H.M. The King of Norway’s gold medal for younger researchers of excellence.
Marianne’s research investigates the politics of the body (in life and death) as well as the entwinement between bodies and architecture in Scandinavian later prehistory. Elements of this research are included in her monograph, Architecture, Society and Ritual in Viking Age Scandinavia (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and in her forthcoming short book, Ritual Violence and the Vikings (Cambridge University Press), as well as in a number of articles and book chapters. Marianne is additionally involved in networks around both architecture and the body, and has a long-running, geeky interest in academic writing practice.
Marianne is passionate about shedding light on ‘invisible’ populations of the past, including children, unfree people, marginalized populations, and often, women; and in tandem, to make academia a more inclusive, generous place to be. One of her favourite academic quotes is this:
‘One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time… The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries.’ (Schwartz, 2008, ‘The Importance of Stupidity in Academic Research’, which hangs on Marianne’s office door).