Helen Damico, littérateur
Helen Damico ‑ a scholar of Old English and Old English literature – passed away on April 14, 2020 after suffering from Covid-19.
Damico was a professor emerita at the University of New Mexico, where she began teaching in 1981 and founded the Institute for Medieval Studies. She was previously on the faculty of Brooklyn College and the University of Minnesota. She earned her B.A. from the University of Iowa in 1952, and received her Ph.D. from New York University in 1980.
The author of Beowulf's Wealhtheow and the Valkyrie Tradition, Damico made important contributions to the study of women in Old English and Old Norse literature, and her work on Wealhþeow is frequently cited. She saw representations of the valkyrie in both Wealhþeow and Grendel's Mothe...