Keith Ruiter Ph.D.
Researcher, Author, Public Historian
I am a medieval historian whose work connects history, law, literature, and archaeology. Specializing in the Viking Age, I have a broad range of experience in research leadership roles, academic positions, public and digital heritage practice, and consultation work.
Publications
The main thrust of my work connects history, law, literature, and archaeology, and my research has been published in top-tier journals like Viking and Medieval Scandinavia and leading book series like De Gruyter’s Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Ergänzungsbände. These publications connect history, literature, law, human-animal studies, and archaeology, and explore topics like personhood, human-animal relations, legalism, and punishment in multicultural and multilingual spaces, problematizing (neo)colonial narratives of the medieval past.
