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

folkloristics Folklore studies (also known as folkloristics, tradition studies or folk life studies in the UK) is the academic discipline devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the ac ...

and

ethnology Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Sci ...

at the

University of Iceland The University of Iceland ( ) 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' school to a modern co ...

. 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 university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, 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. He ...

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 reli ...

. He has been a visiting professor at the

, the

University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg () is a List of universities in Sweden, university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current List of universities in Sweden#Public universities, S ...

, the

Meertens Institute The Meertens Institute (Dutch ''Meertens Instituut'') in Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of ...

of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. In addition to various advisory a ...

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 university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. Valdimar chaired the Icelandic Commission for

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

from 2011-2012. He was president of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore from 2013-2017. He helped found the

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

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. The journal has been published since the society's founding in 1888. Since 2003, this has been published at the University of I ...

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 socie ...

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal 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, ...

, from

to contemporary and medieval legends, and from traditional

wrestling Wrestling is a martial art, combat sport, and form of entertainment that involves grappling with an opponent and striving to obtain a position of advantage through different throws or techniques, within a given ruleset. Wrestling involves di ...

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...

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 male writers 21st-century Icelandic male writers