CIARAN ARTHUR

Ciaran comes to the Department of Classics at NUIG for his second postdoctoral project on Intentional Obscurity and Divine Speech in Early English Texts, funded by the Irish Research Council Individual Postdoctoral Research Fellowship scheme. His first project, Obscurity and Textual Concealment in Early Medieval England (2017-2020), was funded by The Leverhulme Trusts Early Career Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, and was hosted by Queens University Belfast In this time, Ciaran has published his first monograph Charms, Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England (Boydell, 2018), and is now working on publishing a second, provisionally entitled O Ineffabile: Intentional Obscurity in Early Medieval England . His second book seeks to reconsider the nature of early medieval gibberish writing in the context of biblical, Patristic, and medieval hermeneutic and exegetical traditions and interests in obscurity. He is also co-editing a collection of essays, entitled Creating Knowledge in the Early Medieval Book: Practices of Collecting and Concealing , with Dr Sinead OSullivan (QUB), and he has published on various aspects of early medieval history, literature, and manuscript studies. Having obtained BA Hons (English amp; Philosophy) and MA (Medieval Studies) degrees at Queens University Belfast, Ciaran completed his PhD in the University of Kent (Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies) in 2015 on The Liturgy of Charms in Anglo-Saxon England (supervised by Dr Helen Gittos), which formed the basis of his first book.

Ciarans main research interests lie in medieval manuscript studies, monastic culture, liturgy, medical and remedial practices, constructions of magic and paganism, theologies of language and translation, and hermeneutic traditions from England, Ireland, and the Continent.

Ciarans teaching experience has spanned English and History departments in both the University of Kent and QUB at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His teaching interests include early medieval intellectual, cultural, and religious history, medieval understandings of identity, nations, and nationalism, biblical history, and medieval vernacular languages and literatures.