Jennifer Snook (Skadi)
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
P.O. Box 1848
University, MS  38677-1848

Phone: 662-915-6533
Leavell Hall 316
Email: jsnook@olemiss.edu  


Biography:
I was born and grew up in Germany as an Army brat. I spent most of my childhood there, but after traveling the U.S., I consider Colorado my home. I received my B.A. from the University of Augusta, in Georgia while my dad was stationed at Fort Gordon. I moved to Colorado and received my Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2008. While there, I developed a love and a passion for teaching. In 2005, I moved to Oxford, MS (where I currently live) to teach at the University of Mississippi.

Living in Colorado helped me develop an intense appreciation for the outdoors. I have spent the last few summers backpacking in places like Iceland and Alaska. Next time I'll go somewhere warm!

Research:
In graduate school, my dissertation took me into the field to study "Heathenry", pre-Christian Northern European paganism. I spent a great few years hanging out with Heathens in their homes, at rituals, in interviews, at coffee shops, and at retreats in the mountains, collecting data and making friends. My resulting work is a study of the relationship between individual and collective identity. At one level, it examines the meaning of gender, race, and ethnicity within Heathenry. At the same time, I explores how heathens interpret, take on, and modify these meanings in the everyday practice of their chosen beliefs. I investigate how individual practitioners accommodate to and resist the lore of an ancient religion that has no living authority, and how practitioners negotiate and struggle to maintain collective identity in the face of structural pressures and both mainstream and alternative religious definitions. In addition, I examined the essential role of the internet in reviving and popularizing Heathenry. Thus, at the broadest level, my project sheds important light on the co-constitutive relationships between people and culture, self and society. It examines the strain between distinctiveness and sociocultural influences that are both vital aspects of a person’s identity.