CANR
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CITY: Aberdeen
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COUNTRY: United Kingdom
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LAST VOLUME: CA 299
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PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:Attended St. John’s College, Cambridge.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, educator. St. John’s College, Cambridge, former fellow; current Professor of the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland, and Iceland, University of Aberdeen
AWARDS:Leverhulme Research Fellowship, 2015-17; Research Book of the Year Award, Saltire Society, 2023, for coediting Hugh Miller’s The Old Red Sandstone or New Walks in an Old Field.
WRITINGS
Contributor to Kings and Warriors in Early North-West Europe, 2016.
SIDELIGHTS
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Ralph O’Connor, Professor in the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland & Iceland at the University of Aberdeen, is the author of numerous works on the literature and culture of his areas of expertise. These works include, among others, Icelandic Histories and Romances; The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856; and The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel: Kingship and Narrative Artistry in a Mediaeval Irish Saga.
O’Connor is also the co-author for the new edition of and critical monograph about The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field. His work on that new edition won the Research Book of the Year prize at the 2023 Saltire Literary Award, Scotland’s facsimile of the National Book Award.
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O’Connor’s debut text, Icelandic Histories and Romances, was released in 2002 by Stroud. The text presents a collection of Icelandic literature, primarily representing the saga and romance genres, whose authorship spans medieval through contemporary eras. The text’s content spans several centuries and includes such stories as “The Saga of Hjalmther and Olvir,” a story about an unfortunate marriage involving a medieval hero and a bride in disguise, as well as “The Saga of Bard the Snowfell God,” a fantasy narrative that includes mythical monsters and a displaced god. These stories present the human condition in a variety of frameworks wherein stock characters like the spurned lover and the hero are presented in a manner unique to Icelandic literature, a unification of verse, language, and a setting featuring unmitigated possibility. Magnus Magnusson, in a review for the Guardian Online, remarked that Icelandic stories, regardless of the genre, share one primary purpose and that they were created “essentially to please the reader or listener with what can properly be called serious entertainment.” O’Connor’s collection, according to Magnusson, is “production, easily accessible to the general reader but with a critical apparatus to satisfy the most stringent academic demands.”
O’Connor’s subsequent publication, The Earth on Show, provides an insight into the process of authoring mediated content. O’Connor chronicles the translation and explicatory efforts of scientific writers within England during the early nineteenth century. Michael Freeman, in an article for Victorian Studies, noted that the text “bears all the familiar hallmarks of painstaking scholarship and reveals a wide body of primary investigation. In turn, and following the pattern of many of the University of Chicago Press’s publications, the book is extensively illustrated with numerous half-tones, together with a small selection of colour plates.” In particular, O’Connor discusses the intellectual disturbance created by scientists who defined the Earth’s age through empirical evidence, such as fossilized remains, rather than biblical precedent. In an article for Natural History, Laurence A. Marschall remarked, “What stirred up public interest in the geologic past was not just the new discovery of old bones, as O’Connor shows, but the efforts of gifted science popularizers to spin the latest research findings in ways that appealed to public sensibilities.”
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The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel, from 2015, is an explication and elucidation of this old Irish saga which tells of the life and death of a legendary High King of Ireland, Conaire Mor. The epic details how this legendary king was raised from the otherworld to become king of Tara, but then how a fatal flaw and error in judgment led to Conair being chased by ghosts and specters to Da Drega’s Hostel, where he is killed by his own foster brothers. In his systematic literary analysis of this native Irish tale, O’Connor points out the richness of the narrative and its dramatic intensity. He also draws parallels between the narrative symmetry of the saga and the visual patterning of illuminated manuscripts.
Reviewing The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Kevin Murray noted: “The analysis presented by O’Connor contextualizes the tale clearly within broader scholarship on medieval Ireland and is written in a way that is sure to appeal to scholars without the field and within.” Murray added:
“The major achievement of this volume is in its sustained analysis of the saga and the close reading of the text that this entails. … It is to be hoped that this fine Oxford University Press volume will inspire further such studies.”
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
BJHS: The British Journal for the History of Science, December 1, 2008, Nicolaas A. Rupke, review of The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856, p. 614.
Journal of English and Germanic Philology, January 1, 2005, Robert Cook, review of Icelandic Histories and Romances, p. 141; July 1, 2015, Kevin Murray, review of The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel: Kingship and Narrative Artistry in a Mediaeval Irish Saga, pp. 451+.
Natural History, June 1, 2008, Laurence A. Marschall, review of The Earth on Show, p. 35.
Victorian Studies, January 1, 2009, Michael Freeman, review of The Earth on Show, p. 384.
ONLINE
Guardian Online, http: //www.guardian.co.uk/ (August 24, 2002), Magnus Magnusson, review of Icelandic Histories and Romances.
Natural History Online, http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/ (June 1, 2008), Laurence A. Marschall, review of The Earth on Show.
University of Aberdeen website, http://www.abdn.ac.uk/ (October 31, 2023), “Monograph Co-authored by Aberdeen Academic Shortlisted for Scottish Research Book of the Year”; (December 11, 2023), “Three Wins for University of Aberdeen at 2023 National Book Awards”; (April 9, 2024), “Professor Ralph O’Connor: Professor in the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland & Iceland.”
Ralph O'Connor studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic and English Literature at the University of Cambridge before becoming a Junior Research Fellow in Irish and Icelandic Literature at St John's College, Cambridge. He is currently Professor of the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland, and Iceland at the University of Aberdeen, where he teaches in the departments of Celtic, History, and English. He has published widely on mediaeval Irish and Icelandic and modern British literature. His previous books are Icelandic Histories and Romances (Tempus, 2002), The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science (Chicago, 2007), which won two international book prizes in 2008, and Science as Romance (Pickering & Chatto, 2012).
Professor Ralph O'Connor
Professor in the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland & Iceland
Research Overview
My research currently falls into four linked areas: mediaeval Celtic literature, mediaeval Icelandic and Scandinavian literature, modern history of science, and literary history c. 1750-1920. My specific interests within these fields are:
Science and literature, and the literary study of science-writing, 1750-1950 (mainly in Britain and America)
The prehistory of science fiction, 1850-1950 (Britain, America, France)
The history of popular science and science communication, 1750-present
Myth, religion and the physical sciences since 1800
Mediaeval Irish legendary, historical and mythological narrative, 700-1700
Mediaeval Icelandic legendary, historical, mythological and chivalric narrative, 1200-1900
Fictionality and genre in mediaeval narrative
Kingship ideology and inauguration rituals in mediaeval and early modern Ireland and Scotland
Mediaeval and modern monsters and their functions
Literature, art and music of the Celtic Revival and its aftermath in Ireland, Scotland and England, c. 1880-1950
Current Research
I am currently completing my seventh and eighth books: a monograph on perceptions of historicity and fictionality in the writing and rewriting of Icelandic sagas, 1200-1900 (funded by a two-year Leverhulme Research Fellowship), and a new edition of Hugh Miller's much-loved masterpiece of Victorian science and landscape writing, The Old Red Sandstone (co-edited with Dr. Michael A. Taylor). I am also engaged in ongoing studies of secular inauguration-rituals in mediaeval and early modern Ireland and Gaelic Scotland, the symbolic linkages between dragons and dinosaurs in modern science and its communication, and a comparison of Irish and Icelandic versions of the Phaidra-Hippolytos story-pattern. The comparative study of frenzied warriors and shapeshifters in mediaeval Irish and Icelandic sagas which I produced during my year as Research Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study, Oslo (2012-13) has recently been published in Kings and Warriors in Early North-West Europe, ed. Jan Erik Rekdal and Charles Doherty (Dublin: Four Courts, 2016).
Funding and Grants
2009-10: my research was supported by the AHRC-funded Research Leave Scheme. This award was made via the Modern Languages panel in order to enable me to finish my book The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel, published by Oxford University Press in 2013.
2012-13: teaching cover grant and stipend from the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo (at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters) where I was resident Research Fellow for the year.
2015-17: Leverhulme Research Fellowship (teaching cover and research travel award)
Monograph co-authored by Aberdeen academic shortlisted for Scottish Research Book of the Year
31 October 2023
2023-10-31
University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen
Professor Ralph O’Connor
Professor Ralph O’Connor
A new edition and study of one of north-east Scotland's best-loved works of literature and science has been shortlisted for the Scottish Research Book of the Year 2023.
The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field was written in 1841 by the Cromarty-born stonemason, self-taught geologist and literary genius Hugh Miller. It is a deep history of the Scottish landscape viewed through a blend of scientific, scenic, historical, folkloric and poetic perspectives.
It became a literary classic, staying in print until the Aberdeen University Press edition of 1922. 101 years on, it has just been reissued in two volumes, published by National Museums Scotland Enterprises.
The first volume is a monograph by the University of Aberdeen’s Professor Ralph O’Connor, Professor in the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland & Iceland and Dr Michael A. Taylor, former Principal Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at National Museums Scotland.
As they show, The Old Red Sandstone decisively changed the way people in Scotland and beyond thought, and felt, about the earth’s deep history. It made Miller a household name: he did for Scotland’s geology what his idol Walter Scott did for Scotland’s history.
The shortlisting is part of Scotland’s National Book Awards 2023, awarded by the Saltire Society in conjunction with the National Library of Scotland.
Professor O’Connor, who works across Gaelic, History and English at the University, said: “Mike and I are honoured that our work, 15 years in the making, has been recognized in this way. This is a real testament to the value of ‘slow research’, and to the interdisciplinary environment fostered by this University.
“A monograph like this would barely have been possible without all the expert advice and feedback that I received from fellow researchers at Aberdeen in disciplines spanning English, French, Gaelic, Spanish and the Elphinstone Institute to History, Religious Studies, Divinity and of course Geology. This level of interdisciplinarity is only possible at an ‘A to Z’ university like Aberdeen, and I am very grateful to have benefited from it.”
Sarah Mason, Executive Director of the Saltire Society, said: “The 2023 shortlists ... show the outstanding talent, scale, diversity and excellence that we are so lucky to have in Scotland today. These Awards have a proud history of celebrating the extraordinary richness in the work of our authors, publishers and designers and we congratulate everyone who has been shortlisted this year.”
Three wins for University of Aberdeen at 2023 National Book Awards
11 December 2023
2023-12-11
University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen
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University of Aberdeen staff and graduates took home three of the twelve 2023 Saltire Literary Awards, widely known as Scotland's National Book Awards.
The Saltire Society presents these prizes each year ‘to highlight Scotland’s outstanding talent, raise the profile of writers and introduce audiences to exceptional new works’. This year Aberdeen can count wins in the PhD thesis, Emerging Publisher and Research Book of the Year categories.
The Ross Roy Medal, awarded for the best PhD thesis on Scottish literature, was presented to Dr Paula Sledzinska (RIISS and RGU) for her thesis ‘Stories That Need to be Told: Identity Discourse in the Repertoire of the National Theatre of Scotland’ (2023). The judges called it ‘impressively comprehensive, not only in scale and ambition, but also in achievement and clarity … with a finely tuned literary sensibility’. It explores how National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) productions help to shape ‘the narrative of Scotland’. It argues that the NTS challenges outdated grand narratives of the nation and embraces a ‘polyphony of voices,’ contributing to a discursive construction of Scotland as a country informed by the contemporary spirit of linguistic and cultural diversity, social justice and democratic engagement.
Commenting on the award, Dr Sledzinska said: “It is a great honour to receive the Ross Roy Medal. I am immensely grateful to my supervisor, Professor Shane Alcobia-Murphy, whose support was vital for the success of this thesis. I am also greatly thankful to all the academics at the LLMVC and RIISS who have been a source of scholarly expertise, advice and support over the years. I came to Aberdeen in 2006 to study English and Gaelic and I will always be obliged to both departments and their researchers for their profound insights into the powerful connection between language, culture and identity and their crucial role in the development and wellbeing of local, national and international communities.”
The Emerging Publisher of the Year prize was jointly won by University of Aberdeen alumna Grace Balfour-Harle, who graduated with an MA in English Literature and Legal Studies in 2017, in recognition of her outstanding work at Edinburgh University Press. The judges commented, ‘Grace’s breadth of experience, commitment to good practice, diversity and inclusion … make her a stand-out emerging publisher.’
The Research Book of the Year prize was won by Professor Ralph O’Connor (Schools of LLMVC and DHPA) and his coauthor Dr. Michael A. Taylor (National Museums Scotland) for their new edition of, and critical monograph about, Victorian bestseller The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field. Written in 1841 by Ross-shire stonemason, folklore collector and geologist Hugh Miller, this book draws on his roots in Gaelic, Scots and English traditions to produce a compelling meditation on Scotland’s deep history.
Professor O’Connor said: “I’m enormously grateful to all the colleagues and students across numerous science and humanities disciplines at Aberdeen who provided Mike and me with feedback and advice during the 15 years of this project.”
Their monograph tracks the global reach of Miller’s book, which changed hearts and minds in diverse languages and cultures for over a century, including French, German, Gaelic and Welsh.
Professor O’Connor added: “We couldn’t have made sense of all this without my wonderful fellow-researchers in Modern Languages at Aberdeen. I honestly don’t think we’d have won the prize without their input.”
He and Dr. Sledzinska commented: “Our work has shown, time and again, is that it’s not possible to understand Scottish culture without taking full account of its Gaelic component and its international crosscurrents. This university’s position as a world leader in Scottish studies depends on researchers in Gaelic, and in languages generally, every bit as much as on English, history, philosophy and ethnology.”
At the awards ceremony Professor O’Connor and Dr Sledzinska urged the University to reconsider plans for modern languages, which include a significant restructuring of teaching and ending research submissions in modern languages in REF – the UK's system for assessing the excellence of research in UK higher education providers. These plans are currently in a consultation period.
The Saltire award ceremony, held in Glasgow on 7 December 2023, can be viewed here (at 35, 46 and 1 hour 40 minutes).
QUOTE: The analysis presented by O’Connor contextualizes the tale clearly within broader scholarship on medieval Ireland and is written in a way that is sure to appeal to scholars without the field and within.” “The major achievement of this volume is in its sustained analysis of the saga and the close reading of the text that this entails. … It is to be hoped that this fine Oxford University Press volume will inspire further such studies.” [this is 75 words in length of 1200-word review--under 10% fair use)
THE DESTRUCTION OF DA DERGA'S HOSTEL: KINGSHIP AND NARRATIVE ARTISTRY IN A MEDIAEVAL IRISH SAGA. By Ralph O'Connor. Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. xii + 386; 10 b/w illustrations, $ 125.
Full-length studies of individual medieval Irish texts are a rarity. Consequently, the publication of Ralph O'Connor's monograph on the Middle Irish tale Togail Bruidne Da Derga (The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel) is greatly to be welcomed, representing as it does a fresh and exciting development within the discipline of medieval Irish literature. Outside of lain Bo Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), no other Irish-language text from medieval Ireland is better known, and it is a staple of most undergraduate courses in the discipline. Therefore, the production of this detailed monograph on the Togail responds to a great need in the field, one only surpassed by the fact that we have as yet no fully satisfactory edition and translation of the text (although one is being readied for publication currently).
The Togail is concerned with tracing the rise of Conaire Mar to the kingship of Tara; the legacy of his youthful relationships with his foster brothers and with the Other world; the initial prosperity of the land under his rule; the disintegration of social stability after his issuing of a false judgement; the subsequent breaking of his taboos at the instigation of the Other world; and his death in Da Derga's hostel. The work under review here deals with these topics among others in a large volume comprising an Introduction, ten chapters, and an After word, with substantial space devoted to Conaire Mar's relationship with the Other world, the practice of diberg (plundering), the role of the "watchman device," and the demands and pitfalls of sovereignty. These studies are incorporated within a broadly chronological literary analysis that maintains a sustained focus on the extant tale with comparanda drawn from Classical sources, the Bible, and other medieval Irish texts.
The analysis presented by O'Connor contextualizes the tale clearly within broader scholarship on medieval Ireland and is written in a way that is sure to appeal to scholars without the field and within. Building on "the long-established Anglo-American critical tradition of interpreting and ascribing value to a text in terms of its formal attributes" (p. 7), the author extends this approach to incorporate detailed analysis of the minutiae of the tale, alongside investigation of its wider social and historical contexts. He makes a compelling case for the overall literary coherence of the Togail, notwithstanding its many inconsistencies of detail. Occasionally, however, such arguments may be overly deterministic, such as the claim that "most of its apparent inconsistencies turn out to be conscious compositional strategies" (p. 49). While such may be the case, we must be wary (in the words of John Dagenais) of choosing "'coherence' or 'intelligibility' as the sine qua non for undertaking work on medieval texts." Dagenais argues forcefully (in The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture: Glossing the Libro de buen amor[1994] p. 111) that academic medievalism is misguided in taking "as its mission the restoration of coherence." The issue of coherence extends in particular to the editing of texts and the subsequent creation of critical editions. However, Ralph O'Connor is well aware of this dilemma, noting that "we need not be always waiting for the perfect edition before getting down to the business of literary analysis" (p. 50).
This volume is very carefully produced (apart from a small bit of bleed with the print on pp. 15 and 227), and is generally free from errors and misprints. A few small slips might be noted: Eterscel (recteEterscele [p. 64]); Jili, pl. filid (recte fili, pl. filid [p. 341]); miniscule (recte minuscule [p. 342]); and O Riain (recteO Riain [p. 363]). Locating Bri Leith alongside "the adjacent plain of Brega" (p. 67) is incorrect; the territory of Brega is mainly in Meath, and in the adjoining parts of Louth and Dublin (north of the Liffey), while Bri Leith is near the village of Ardagh, in the barony of Moydow in Longford (for details see Historical Dictionary of Gaelic Placenames, fase. 2 [Names in B-] [2005] s.nn.). In his discussion of De Sil Chonairi Moir; O'Connor is necessarily reliant on Lucius Gwynn's edition of 1912 and is reluctant to commit himself to a date for the text other than to say it predates the Togail (p. 36), the composition of which he places in the tenth or eleventh century (p. 20). Access to the printed (though unpublished) edition of Michael A. O'Brien (Irish Origin Legends [1954]) would, I'm sure, have inclined him toward the eighth-century date proposed by Thurneysen. Finally, the statement that the name Da Derga "which if spelt Da, may be derived from dia, 'god'" (p. 35, n. 75) ignores the argument put forward by T. F. O'Rahilly (Early Irish History and Mythology [1946], pp. 128-29) and tentatively endorsed by Kim McCone (Leachtai Cholm Cille, 14 [1983], 12) and Gregory Toner (Bruiden Da Choca [2007], p. 150) that Da (without the length mark) represents "a shortening, in pretonic position, of dea, dia 'god, goddess', so that Da Derga would mean 'the god Derga' and Da Reo 'the god Reo'." These, however, are only minor quibbles.
The major achievement of this volume is in its sustained analysis of the saga and the close reading of the text that this entails. For instance, the author's insistence on the repetitive and forceful significance of the word innocht (tonight) in his section on the "chronological tightening" of the narrative (pp. 106-10) is a particularly apt example to use in arguing for the careful construction of the Togail. Similarly, O'Connor's focus on the Old Testament kingship of Saul shows many interesting parallels with the rule of Conaire Mar; however, it is his section on "explaining the parallels" (pp. 259-66), with his determination not to draw any facile conclusions from the presence of such similarities, that inspires confidence in his opinion that "the biblical text may have inspired the shaping of some aspects of the Togail" (p. 261). Finally, one might instance the nuanced demonstration throughout of how the text repeatedly builds toward a crescendo; such analysis helps highlight the sophisticated strategies employed in its construction.
In this volume, O'Connor wisely decides to use Eleanor Knott's 1936 "best-text" edition (in the Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series) as the basis for all his quotations, though he checks all readings against the source manuscript, the Yellow Book of Lecan. He also provides his own translations of all passages cited; such attention to detail is both welcome and necessary. A full translation (perhaps as an appendix) would have been useful, but one is readily available in Jacqueline Borsje's The Celtic Evil Eye ([2012], pp. 269-339). Apart from the demonstrated literary sophistication of the Togail, perhaps the clearest thing to emerge from this volume is the great need for Maire West's forthcoming edition and translation of the saga. It is anticipated that this edition, when published, will highlight further the textual problems associated with the tale and will go some way toward clearing the ground for all engaged in study of this important narrative. Such aims have already been partly met by O'Connor's detailed study, and all those who work on the text in the future will turn with gratitude to his monograph for opinion, argument, analysis, and guidance. It is to be hoped that this fine Oxford University Press volume will inspire further such studies.
KEVIN MURRAY
University College Cork
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 University of Illinois Press
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/jegp.html
Source Citation
Source Citation
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Murray, Kevin. "The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel: Kingship and Narrative Artistry in a Mediaeval Irish Saga." The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 114, no. 3, July 2015, pp. 451+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A421846278/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=1f2b37e6. Accessed 6 Apr. 2024.