Professor in the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland & Iceland
- About
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- Email Address
- r.oconnor@abdn.ac.uk
- Telephone Number
- +44 (0)1224 272467
- Office Address
School of Divinity, History and Philosophy,
Crombie Annexe,
Meston Walk,
King's College,
University of Aberdeen,
Old Aberdeen,
AB24 3FX
Room: 215- School/Department
- School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture
- School/Department
- School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History
- Research
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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)
- Teaching
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Teaching Responsibilities
- HI 1518 Vikings!
- CE 1028 Romans, Celts, Druids, and Warriors
- CE 2027 Arthur in Medieval Welsh and Gaelic Literature
- CE 2028 The Vikings in Scotland AD 795-1266
- CE 2529 History of the Celtic Languages
- CU 2507 Brains, Breeding and the Bomb: From Enlightenment to Scepticism
- CU 3011 Science and Religion: From Galileo to Creationism
- CE 3585/4585 Tales of Vengeance and Enchantment: Mediaeval Irish Sagas
- CE 3575/4575 Celtic Myth in the Modern World: From Ossian to the New Age
- EL 40BL Frankenstein to Einstein: Literature and Science
- CU 4029 Aspects of Culture
- HA 4057 Critical Perspectives in Art History
- HI 5029 Mediaeval Texts and Manuscripts
- CU 5510 Trolls, Druids and the Walking Dead: Visions of the Pagan Past in Mediaeval Ireland and Iceland
I am currently supervising the following PhD projects:
- The Circulation of Phrenological Knowledge and the British Phrenological Periodical Press in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (Liz Neesam, History)
- Adam Ferguson’s Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic: Passions, Epistemology, and Politics in the Late Scottish Enlightenment (Xandra Bello, Irish and Scottish Studies)
- An Aesthetic of Seasonal Variation in the Landscape Art of Baltic Germany and Scandinavia, 1800-1920 (Sophie Dietrich, History or Art)
- Authority and the Archetype of the Liminal Wise Man in the Sagas of Icelanders (Barrett Sink, Scandinavian Studies)
I have supervised the following completed PhD projects:
- Understanding the Content, Form and Purpose of Hero Myths as Symbolic Resources of Nation and Insurgency: The Case of the Provisional IRA in the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1969-1998 (Lawrence Butler Perks, Politics & International Relations)
- Madness and Deception in Medieval Irish and Norse-Icelandic Sagas (Laura Matheson, Celtic)
- 'Let each man show his manhood': Masculinity and Status in Old Norse and Medieval Irish Literature (Lisa Wotherspoon, Scandinavian Studies)
- Publications
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Page 1 of 2 Results 1 to 25 of 48
Hugh Miller, The Old Red Sandstone; or, New Walks in an Old Field
Vol. 1-2, National Museums Scotland Publishing, Edinburgh. 624 pagesBooks and Reports: Scholarly EditionsReconstructing Recension 2 of Mágus saga jarls, ca. 1400: AM 590 a 4to, AM 152 fol. and the earliest fragments
Opuscula, vol. 20, pp. 1-99Contributions to Journals: ArticlesThe Music of What Happens: Narrative Terminology and the Norse-Icelandic Saga
Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge, Cambridge. 84 pagesBooks and Reports: BooksThe Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field: Volume 1: Critical Study
National Museums Scotland Publishing, Edinburgh. 303 pagesBooks and Reports: BooksThe Ulster Cycle: History, Fiction, or Literature?
Ulidia 5. Ní Mhaoláin, L., Stifter, D., Boyle, E. (eds.). curach bhán, pp. 1-35, 35 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersIntroduction: 'Vera Lex Historiae'?
'Vera Lex Historiae'?: Constructions of Truth in Medieval Historical Narrative. Taranu, C., Kelly, M. (eds.). Gracchi Books, pp. 35-81, 47 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.53288/0369.1.00
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/23739/1/OConnor_VivaLex_VOR.pdf
Romance, Legend and the Remote Past: Historical Framing in Late Medieval Icelandic Sagas
'Vera Lex Historiae'?: Constructions of Truth in Medieval Historical Narrative. Taranu, C., Kelly, M. J. (eds.). Gracchi Books, pp. 251-306, 56 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersDating the publication of Hugh Miller’s Testimony of the Rocks (1857)
Archives of Natural History, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 310-324Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2021.0724
Science
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion. Segal, R. A., Roubekas, N. P. (eds.). Second Edition edition. Wiley, pp. 400-413, 14 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119092797.ch28
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Geology and paleontology
The Routledge Companion to Victorian Literature. Denisoff, D., Schaffer, T. (eds.). Routledge, pp. 401-413, 13 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersPutrid fables and true histories: Perceptions of authenticity and the management of scepticism in Northern humanist fornaldarsaga scholarship
The Legendary Legacy: Transmission and reception of the Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda. Driscoll, M., Hufnagel, S., Lavender, P., Stegmann, B. (eds.). University Press of Southern Denmark, pp. 117-159, 43 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersThe meanings of “literature” and the place of modern scientific nonfiction in Literature and Science
Journal of Literature and Science, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 37-45Contributions to Journals: ArticlesScience for the General Reader
The Routledge Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Science. Holmes, J., Ruston, S. (eds.). Routledge, pp. 155-171, 17 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersHistory and Fiction
The Routledge Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Saga. Jakobsson, A., Jakobsson, S. (eds.). Routledge, pp. 88-110, 24 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersMonsters of the tribe: berserk fury, shapeshifting and social dysfunction in Táin Bó Cúailnge, Egils saga and Hrólfs saga kraka
Kings and Warriors in Early North-West Europe. Rekdal, J. E., Doherty, C. (eds.). Four Courts Press, pp. 180-236, 57 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersFabulous Content, Historical Purpose and Scribal Strategy in Irish and Icelandic Saga Narrative: Some Comparative Perspectives on the Colophon to the Book of Leinster Táin
Adapting Texts and Styles in a Celtic Context: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Processes of Literary Transfer in the Middle Ages : Studies in Honour of Erich Poppe. Harlos, A., Harlos, N. (eds.). Nodus, pp. 305-330, 26 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersBárðar saga between orality and literacy
Folklore in Old Norse: Old Norse in Folklore. Bek-Pedersen, K., Sävborg, D. (eds.). Tartu University Press, pp. 139-169, 31 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersClassical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Narrative
D. S. Brewer, Cambridge. 254 pagesBooks and Reports: BooksIrish narrative literature and the Classical tradition, 900-1300
Classical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Narrative. O'Connor, R. (ed.). D. S. Brewer, pp. 1-24, 24 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersWas Classical imitation necessary for the writing of large-scale Irish sagas?: Reflections on Táin Bó Cúailnge and the “Watchman Device”
Classical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Narrative. O'Connor, R. (ed.). D. S. Brewer, pp. 165-195, 31 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersHyena-Hunting and Byron-Bashing in the Old North: William Buckland, Geological Verse and the Radical Threat
Uncommon Contexts: Encounters between Science and Literature, 1800-1914. Marsden, B., Hutchison, H., O'Connor, R. (eds.). Pickering & Chatto, pp. 55-82, 28 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersUncommon Contexts: Encounters between Science and Literature, 1800-1914
Pickering & Chatto, London. 239 pagesBooks and Reports: BooksThe Place of Myth in Modern Science: Some Theoretical Considerations
Science, Fables and Chimeras: Cultural Encounters. Rousillon-Constanty, L., Murillo, P. (eds.). Cambridge Scholars Press, pp. 19-36, 18 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersCompilation as Creative Artistry: A Reassessment of ‘Narrative Inconsistency’ in Togail Bruidne Da Derga
Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, vol. 65, no. -, pp. 1-48Contributions to Journals: ArticlesThe Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel: Kingship and Narrative Artistry in a Mediaeval Irish Saga
Oxford University Press, Oxford. 386 pagesBooks and Reports: Books