Keith Ruiter Ph.D.
Research
The main thrust of my work connects history, literature, law, human-animal studies, and archaeology, and my research – published in top-tier journals like Viking and Medieval Scandinavia and leading book series like De Gruyter’s Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Ergänzungsbände – and explores topics like personhood, human-animal relations, legalism, and punishment in multicultural and multilingual spaces, problematizing (neo)colonial narratives of the medieval past which permeate public consciousness and pop-cultural productions.
My academic publications have been cited by colleagues in world-leading journals, such as Speculum, and highlighted in the Economic History Review as an "illuminating" key contribution to recent research.
As Academic Lead of the Vikings for Schools public outreach program at the University of Nottingham, we partnered with local schools to guide pupils through student-led, academically curated workshops, exploring local and global history and sparking passion in and ownership of the complex, international, multilingual, and multicultural milieu in Viking-Age Britain.
Public History Projects
Central to my research are the community-centred, public engagement, and dissemination projects which have formed a core of my practice for more than ten years. To date I have received over $350,000 in funding as principle- or co-applicant for research, public engagement, and dissemination activities. Collaborating with museums and archives (e.g. The Collection, Lincoln), heritage groups (e.g. The British Council), and other community members and stakeholders (e.g. The British Library), I have endeavoured to engage with multi-scalar histories of people and place to explore – in accessible, and immersive ways – how concepts of personhood, normativity, otherness, and transgression were navigated in the medieval world, as well as the ways they have been appropriated and changed under colonialist influences in the 18th to 21st centuries. These projects include the creation of digital humanities projects, like Richard III: Rumour and Reality, and ongoing work on digital heritage trails connecting people and place and playable exhibits of buildings and environments produced through photogrammetry.