by Autumn Shelton
As an anthropology major, I have recently been working with the idea of fictional ethnography, how great anthropologists like Saidiya Hartman utilize facts and storytelling to reimagine the gaps in the historical record. Thus, my project has evolved into the digital humanities in two parts. Firstly, I created a “Choose Your Own Adventure” online exhibit where children and adults alike can go on a fictional Viking adventure that I can only describe as a combination of The Northman (2022), Edward Packard’s Choose Your Own Adventure: Viking Raiders (1992), and Viking Age myth. The second part of the project is a Buzzfeed quiz I created—with a Viking twist. Although both lighthearted in nature, the two projects reveal how by purposely connecting fact and fiction into a narrative, we can create another way to explore the Viking Age academic canon.
