Reading BEOWULF: A Seminar with TOM SHIPPEY and LEONARD NEIDORF

Seize the opportunity to study BEOWULF with Professors Tom Shippey and Leonard Neidorf, two of the world's foremost experts on the poem.

During the first half of the seminar, Professors Shippey and Neidorf will share their latest thoughts on various fascinating passages in Beowulf . During the second half, attendees will be free to ask the professors questions about Beowulf (and all other topics).

Don't miss this unique opportunity to learn from and interact with two legendary scholars. Reserve your spot now!

Venue: Live on Zoom on May 10th at 1300 BST (1pm in UK). The Zoom link will be sent to registrants an hour before the event begins. If the email containing the Zoom link does not reach you, please send an email to us (uppsalabooks@gmail.com) and we will provide you with the link before the event begins.

Recording: a recording of the complete event will be sent to all registered participants. Clips from the event will circulate publicly, but the recording of the complete event will be privately shared only with individuals who register for the event on Eventbrite. Please note: even if you cannot attend the live event, you can gain access to the recording by registering for it.

Recommended Reading: Beowulf: Translation and Commentary, trans. Tom Shippey, ed. Leonard Neidorf (Uppsala Books, 2023) (https://uppsalabooks.com/beowulf)

TOM SHIPPEY received his PhD from the University of Cambridge. In an academic teaching career lasting 43 years (1965-2008), he taught at six universities, including Oxford and Harvard. His first published article, more than fifty years ago, was “The Fairy-Tale Structure of Beowulf” (1969), while his first published book was Old English Verse (1972). Since then, he has published well over a hundred academic articles, and more than twenty monographs and edited collections, notably The Critical Heritage: Beowulf (1998), and most recently, Beowulf and the North before the Vikings (2022). He is well known for books that have reached a wider community of readers outside academia, such as Laughing Shall I Die (2018) and his much-reprinted and often-translated books on Tolkien, The Road to Middle-earth (1981) and J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (2000).

LEONARD NEIDORF received his PhD from Harvard University. He is Distinguished Professor of English at Shenzhen University. Neidorf is the author of two monographs: The Transmission of Beowulf (2017) and The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet (2022), both published by Cornell University Press. He is the editor of The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment (2014) and co-editor of Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R.D. Fulk (2016). Neidorf has published more than 100 papers, which have appeared in a wide range of prominent journals, including ELH, Folklore, Traditio, and Journal of Germanic Linguistics. For his research on Beowulf, Neidorf was awarded the Beatrice White Prize from the English Association in 2020. Most recently, Neidorf collaborated with Brian Murdoch on Waltharius: The Latin Epic of Walther of Aquitaine (Uppsala Books, 2025).