Katarzyna Anna Kapitan

Katarzyna Anna Kapitan is manuscript scholar and digital humanist specialising in Old Norse-Icelandic literature and culture. Her research interests include the transmission and circulation history of literary works in the intellectual networks of pre-modern Scandinavia, digital scholarly editing of pre-modern texts and digital cataloguing of manuscripts, as well as the application of computational approaches to estimating the loss rates of medieval works and manuscripts. 

Her recent monograph, Lost but not forgotten: the Saga of Hrómundur and its manuscript transmission (Oxford 2024), examined the transmission history of the post-medieval adaptations of the lost medieval saga of Hrómundur, a legendary great-grandfather of the first settlers of Iceland, Ingólfur and Leifur. The study includes text-critical editions of three versions of the story, which are also available online as interactive digital editions. 

Before joining the ENC-PSL, Dr Kapitan held postdoctoral positions at various international institutions including a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Digital Scholarship at the Division of Humanities and Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford, the Carlsberg Foundation Junior Research Fellowship at Linacre College, and HM Queen Margrethe II Distinguished Research Fellowship at the University of Iceland, the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle, and the National Museum of Iceland. 

Focusing on Old Norse-Icelandic manuscripts, book history, and textual criticism, she previously taught a broad array of courses in digital humanities and beyond in the UK, Iceland, Denmark, Germany, Canada, and Poland, covering topics such as elements of DH, TEI-XML, digital scholarly editing and cataloguing, as well as palaeography and textual criticism. 

Her most recent publications include: 

• Lost but not forgotten: the Saga of Hrómundur and its manuscript transmission (Oxford: Taylor Institution Library). ​
• 'Forgotten books: the application of unseen species models to the survival of culture'. Science 375:6582, pp. 765-769.
• 'Sagas and genre: A case for application of network analysis to manuscripts preserving Old Norse-Icelandic saga literature'. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 38:3, pp. 1130–1144.
• 'The Prose Summary as Antiquarian Tool and Literary Springboard: An Edition and Translation of Ormars þáttur Framarsonar'. Opuscula 20, pp. 101-160.
• 'When a King of Norway Became a King of Russia: Danish Historiography and Early Transmission and Reception of Hrómundar saga Greipssonar'. Scandinavian Studies 94:3, pp. 316-351.