Kendra Willson
Department
of Icelandic
Office: Room 444
Telephone: 204.474.7092
Fax: 204.474-7591
E-mail address: willsonk@cc.umanitoba.ca
Kendra Willson comes to the U. of M. from the Scandinavian Department
at the University of California at Berkeley, where she has focused on Scandinavian
linguistics and Old Norse literature. Kendra completed an B.A. in
Germanic languages and literatures at Harvard University in 1993 and an
M.A. in Scandinavian languages and literatures at Berkeley in 1999.
She studied at the University of Iceland in 1993-1995 and at Helsinki University
2000-2002. As a graduate student at Berkeley, she taught Swedish
language, Icelandic sagas and a course on Vikings. This year, while
teaching first-, second- and third-year Modern Icelandic, she is working
on finishing her dissertation, which treats nickname formation and use
in Old and Modern Icelandic from linguistic, ethnographic and literary
angles. She has also written on Icelandic personal name policy.
In addition to names, Kendra has worked on grammatical changes in the history
of Icelandic, Swedish and Finnish.