Valdimar Tr. Hafstein (born 12 October 1972) is a professor of

folkloristics Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

and

ethnology Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...

at the

University of Iceland The University of Iceland ( is, Háskóli Íslands ) is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servants' s ...

. He received his MA in folklore in 1999 and his Ph.D. in 2004 from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he studied with

Alan Dundes Alan Dundes (September 8, 1934 – March 30, 2005) was an American folklorist. He spent much of his career as a professional academic at the University of California, Berkeley and published his ideas in a wide range of books and articles. H ...

and

John Lindow John Frederick Lindow (born July 23, 1946) is an American philologist who is Professor Emeritus of Old Norse and Folklore at University of California, Berkeley. He is a well known authority on Old Norse religion and literature. Biography John Lin ...

. He completed the BA degree in folkloristics and ethnology at the University of Iceland in 1995 under the guidance of professor

Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson (29 March 1927 – 2 March 2010) was an Icelandic folklorist, philologist, and theologian. He was the first professor of folklore at the University of Iceland and published extensively, particularly on Old Norse religi ...

. He has been a visiting professor at the

, the

University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs universitet) is a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current Swedish universities and with 37,000 students and 6000 st ...

, the

Meertens Institute The Meertens Institute (Dutch ''Meertens Instituut'') in Amsterdam is a research institute for Dutch language and culture within the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (''Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen'' or KNAW). ...

of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

and the Georg-August Universität Göttingen, and a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. Valdimar chaired the Icelandic Commission for

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

from 2011-2012. He was president of the

International Society for Ethnology and Folklore The International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (French: ''Société Internationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore'' or SIEF) is a professional association of scholars in the fields of ethnology, folklore studies, and cultural anthropology bas ...

from 2013-2017. He helped found the

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

journal ''

Cultural Analysis As a discipline, cultural analysis is based on using qualitative research methods of the arts, humanities, social sciences, in particular ethnography and anthropology, to collect data on cultural phenomena and to interpret cultural representatio ...

'' in 2000 and served as its co-editor until 2007. He serves on the editorial boards for '' Ethnologia Europaea'', the

Journal of American Folklore The ''Journal of American Folklore'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Folklore Society. Since 2003, this has been done on its behalf by the University of Illinois Press. The journal has been published since the society' ...

and ''Cultural Analysis''."Editorial Board"
Retrieved 7 June 2013. He has published widely in English and Icelandic on topics ranging from

cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

, from

to contemporary and medieval legends, and from traditional

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly t ...

surveillance. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Portuguese, Croatian, and Danish.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hafstein, Valdimar Tr. 1972 births Icelandic scholars Icelandic folklorists Living people 20th-century Icelandic writers 21st-century Icelandic writers