Mahel Hamroun

Doctoral Candidate

Medieval Europe


Research Interests

I am broadly interested in identity, community formation, and the construction of human and divine law in medieval and early modern Europe. My current research focuses more specifically on sin, penance, and the legal significance of remorse in medieval Iceland. Additional interests include conceptualizations of religious orthodoxy and deviance, the history of emotions, and the history of the book.


Publications & Presentations

“‘If He Should Ask’: Bound Community in Medieval Icelandic Law.” American Society for Legal History Pre-Conference Symposium, Philadelphia, USA, 2023

“Cultures and Customs of Accountability in Thirteenth-Century Iceland.” Stanford-Berkeley Medieval Studies Symposium, Berkeley, USA, 2023

“‘Was It Such a Terrible Sin to Eat the Apple?’: Reconciling the Guilty Soul in Medieval Icelandic Homiletic Literature.” Stanford-Berkeley Medieval Studies Symposium, Stanford, USA, 2022

"God's Law and Ours: Delineating Divine Community in Medieval Icelandic Law." International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, 2022

Review of Benjamin A. Saltzman, Bonds of Secrecy: Law, Spirituality, and the Literature of Concealment in Early Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019) in Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies 51 (2020): 297-299

“Registers of Guilt: legal and moral discourses in the medieval North, 1200-1400.” Medieval Nordic Laws Workshop, Stockholm, Sweden, 2020

"On the Destruction of Sin: elements of moral and religious accountability in thirteenth-century Iceland.” Invited guest lecture, University College London Department of Scandinavian Studies, London, UK, 2019

“Tainted Roots: racial nationalism in contemporary American Norse-inspired neopaganism.” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK, 2019

“Navigating Narratives of History: managing historical presumptions in the classroom.” Teaching History Conference, Los Angeles, LA, USA, 2019

“Time Goes On: constructing historical moments in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla.” The 111th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, Santa Clara, CA, USA, 2018


Awards & Fellowships

UC Dissertation Year Fellowship, 2022

Berkeley Summer Dissertation Writing Grant, 2022

Fernström Fellowship, 2021

Leifur Eiríksson Foundation Fellowship, 2020–2021

Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant for Research in European, African, or Asian History, 2020

Fernström Fellowship, 2019

Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, 2018

Berkeley Fellowship for Graduate Study, 2014–2018

Edward H. Rosenberry Writing Award for paper, entitled “Western Society and Perceptions of the Middle East as Told by The One Thousand and One Nights,” 2013


Teaching

2023       AGRSR44: Classics of the Ancient Mediterranean World

2020       HIST4A: The Ancient Mediterranean World, GSI

2019       HIST5: European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present, GSI

2017       HIST4B: Medieval Europe, GSI

2016       HIST4B: Medieval Europe, GSI

2016       HIST162A: Europe and the World, 1648–1914, GSR

2015       HIST4A: The Ancient Mediterranean World, GSI