William I. Miller, the Thomas G. Long Professor of Law, has been a member of the Michigan Law faculty since 1984. Originally, his research centered on saga Iceland, from whence the materials studied in his blood feuds class and his book, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland (1990). He has also written about emotions, mostly unpleasant ones involving self-assessment, and select vices and virtues. Thus his books: The Mystery of Courage (2000), The Anatomy of Disgust (1997), Humiliation (1993), and Faking It (2003), the last of which deals with anxieties of role, identity, and posturings of authenticity. The Anatomy of Disgust was named the best book of 1997 in anthropology/sociology by the Association of American Publishers. In Eye for an Eye (2006), he returns to matters of revenge and retribution in an extended treatment of the law of the talion. Audun and the Polar Bear: Luck, Law, and Largesse in a Medieval Tale of Risky Business (2008) is an extended treatment of a superbly crafted short Icelandic tale. His most recent book, Losing It (2011), about aging and decline, was named by the Chicago Tribune to its best books of the year list; Macleans magazine of Canada listed it in their top 10 non-fiction books of 2011. Presently Prof. Miller is writing a book on Njáls saga. He earned his BA from the University of Wisconsin and received both a PhD in English and a JD from Yale. He has also been a visiting professor at Yale, the University of Chicago, the University of Bergen, the University of Tel Aviv, and Harvard, and in 2008 was the Carnegie Centenary Trust Professor at the University of St. Andrews. He is now honorary professor of history at the University of St. Andrews.

Video: Professor Miller discusses his latest book Losing It.

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