Isobel Boles

Job title: 
Graduate Student
Bio/CV: 

Isobel Boles is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Scandinavian Department, where she also completed her master’s degree. She earned dual Bachelor of the Arts degrees in Classics, and German and Scandinavian Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2015. While there, she studied Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Norse, Swedish, Icelandic, and Old Irish languages and literature. Her undergraduate thesis was titled “Courtly Romance in Cold Lands: Ívens sagaParcevals saga, and Erex saga,” and explored how thirteenth-century Old Norse adaptations of the romances of Chrétien de Troyes are reflective of Scandinavian cultural and literary values. Her current academic interests include skaldic and eddic poetry, ecocriticism, and the novels and stories of Selma Lagerlöf. At Berkeley, she has taught the first and second levels of Old Norse language courses multiple times, in addition to Reading and Composition courses that encompass both medieval and modern literature.