Taryn DeLeon Mendiola

Teaching Assistant

(she/they)

Photo of Taryn DeLeon Mendiola

Taryn DeLeon Mendiola

Contact

Stokes Hall South 315-B

Office Hours:

Tuesdays, 12:30-2:30

Email: taryn.deleonmendiola@bc.edu

Education

  • Castles in Communities Archaeological Field School, 2025
  • M.A. Medieval History, Fordham University, 2024
  • B.A., History, New York University, 2019
  • B.F.A. Studio Art, New York University, 2019

Courses

Globalization I, Dr. Saidykhan, Fall 2026
Globalization II, Dr. Pendarvis, Spring 2026
Global Environmental History, Dr. Brody, Fall 2025

Research Interests

Taryn researches the intersection of gender, class, and labor in the Viking Age North Atlantic. They are interested in exploring how the gender/sex system operated, specifically the role that labor played in defining gender boundaries, and the trans and queer possibilities afforded by performing specific labors or by attaining certain class statuses.

Advisor

Robin Fleming

Curriculum Vitae

Department

History

Biography

Taryn received their dual B.F.A. in 2019 from New York University where they studied Studio Art and History with a specialty in historical textile techniques. They continued their research into these techniques at the Textile Museum of Iceland where there were in residence in 2020. There they investigated historical methods of wool processing.

When they began her M.A. at Fordham University, she expanded her research interests to include not only textile production techniques but also wider economic questions of production, standardization, labor, and resource extraction. They focused their questions on the medieval Icelandic woolen industry, recentering textiles and women's labor in the wider history of the Icelandic Commonwealth, arguing that the wealth generated by women at the loom fueled the processes of class stratification and political consolidation.

At Boston College, Taryn has focused in on the Viking Age Norse colonies of the North Atlantic. They incorporate material, archaeological, and textual sources to get at an understanding of Norse people across and between gender and class status lines, insisting that these systems can only be understood as a whole.

Conference Presentations

“Weaving Women, Measuring Men: Production and Control in the Medieval Icelandic Cloth Industry. ” Biennial Conference of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Barnard College, December 2026.
“Keeping the Pot Boiling: Maintenance of Soapstone-based Foodways in Viking-Age Orkney and Shetland.” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 2026.
“Viking Melting Pot: Foodways and Acculturation in Viking-Age and Late Norse Orkney.” Graduate Student Voices, Boston College, March 2026.
“The Hand that Stirred the Pot: A Gendered Political History of Foodways in Migration in Viking-Age Orkney and Shetland.” Medieval Academy of America, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Amherst College, March 2026.
“Cloth Production in Medieval Iceland: Gendered Labor and Systems of Extraction and Regulation.” Women and Gender History Symposium, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, February 2025.
“Weaving Wealth and the Politics of Measures: Woven Currency in Iceland, 12th to 14th centuries.” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 2024.

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