Kit Richards is an early career researcher completing the final year of his Midlands4Cities-funded PhD at the University of Birmingham. His thesis, titled '"Practically people": The (De)Humanisation of Dwarf Characters in Old Norse Medievalist Fantasy', tracks the adoption of the Old Norse dwarf figure and its adaptation in the works of William Morris, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Terry Pratchett. Using the cultural model of disability, Kit explores the ways in which the personhood of short-statured characters is denied or affirmed in fantasy worlds and how this reflects real-world attitudes towards people with dwarfism.
Kit completed his MRes in Medieval Studies at the University of Birmingham in 2019 and his BA in English Literature from the same institution in 2015. Between 2016 and 2021, Kit worked as a teaching assistant for students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in secondary schools around Birmingham. His research interests include representations of disability, race, and trans+ identities in medieval and fantasy literature.
Publications:
(In press), 'Review of David Clark (2023), Children's Literature and Old Norse Medievalism (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press)', Saga-Book.
(2022) '"[V]ar hann svartr ok ljótr eftir skapan sinni": Disabled and Racialised Bodies in the Fourteenth-century Göngu-Hrólfs saga', Quaestio Insularis23: 42-63.
