Dr John Shaw
Qualifications
BA, MA, PhD Harvard University
Background
- Training in Linguistics and Celtic Studies
- extensive fieldwork on Gaelic oral tradition/folklore on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
- Gaelic language instructor
- civil servant and Gaelic Development Officer in the Highlands and Islands
- Lecturer in Celtic, King's College, University of Aberdeen.
Research interests
- Gaelic ethnology (oral narrative, song and traditional music)
- social contexts of storytelling and song
- native taxonomies
- emigrant Scottish traditions
- the interface between academic research and language/culture maintenance and development.
Research projects
Principle Investigator for The Calum Maclean Collection Online Catalogue Project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), which aims to make a major collection of material central to Scottish Ethnology available in digital form as an accessible and flexible research resource.
The project is based at the School of Scottish Studies in the Department of Scottish and Celtic Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and is partnered with University College, Dublin.
Selected publications
- Joe Neil MacNeil, Tales until Dawn/Sgeul gu Latha: The World of a Cape Breton Gaelic Story-Teller. Edited and translated by John Shaw. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; Montreal: McGill-queen's University Press 1987. pp. 483.
- "The Ethnography of Speaking and Verbal Taxonomies: Some Applications to Gaelic" in Celtic Connections. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of Celtic Studies. Ed. Ronald Black, William Gillies and Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh. East Linton, East Lothian: Tuckwell Press 1997; 308-23.
- "The Loathly Lady among the Féinn and her North Atlantic Travels". In Islanders and Water-Dwellers. Proceedings of the Celtic-Nordic-Baltic Folklore Symposium. Ed. Patricia Lysaght, Séamas Ó Catháin, Dáthi Ó hOgáin. Dublin: DBA Publications for the Department of Irish Folklore 1999: 299-316.
- Editor 'Scottish Studies' (2000-)
- MacLellan, Lauchie. Brìgh an Òrain/A Story in Every Song. The Songs and Tales of Lauchie MacLellan. Edited and translated by John Shaw. McGill Queen's University Press 2000. xvii + 432 pp.
- ''Sa Chomann Ghrinn: Sùil air Seinn, Sluagh agus Coimhearsnachd' in Téada Dúchais. Aistí in ómós don Ollamh Breandán Ó Madagáin. In eagar aig Máirtín Ó Briain agus Pádraig Ó Héalaí. Indreabhán: Cló Iar-Chonnachta 2002: 499-520.
- 'What Alexander Carmichael Did Not Print: The Cliar Sheanchain, 'Clanranald's Fool' and Related Traditions'. Béaloideas 70 (2002): 99-126.
- 'Gaelic Cultural Maintenance and the Contribution of Ethnography'. SCOTIA. Interdisciplinary Journal of Scottish Studies 27 (2003): 35-48. ISSN 0273-0693.
- 'Indo-European Dragon-Slayers and Healers, and the Irish Account of Dian Cécht and Méiche.' Journal of Indo-European Studies 34 (2006): 153-82.
- 'Storytellers in Scotland: Context and Function'. Oral Literature and Performance Culture. A Compendium of Scottish Ethnology. Vol 9 Ed. John Beech et al. Edinburgh: John Donald 2007: 28-41.
- 'Between Two Waves: The Mythological Origins of the Kantele and How Music First Came to the Western Isles'. In Emily Lyle: The Persistent Scholar. Ed. Francis J. Fischer and Sigrid Rieuwerts. Trier: Wissenschftlicher Verlag Trier 2007: 258-67.
- The Blue Mountains and Other Gaelic Stories from Cape Breton. McGill - Queen's University Press, 2007.
Recent conference papers
- 'Gaelic/Norse Folklore Contacts' and Oral Traditions from the West of Scotland* Fifth Celtic-Nordic-Baltic Folklore Symposium, University of Iceland in Reykjavik. 2005
- '(E)migrating Legends and Sea-Change' 14th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research, Tartu, Estonia 2005
- 'Perspectives on Orality in Gaelic Narrative' Colloquium on Orality, University College Cork 2006.
- Variants of a Gaelic Eschatological Folktale, Celtic Cosmology and Dumézil's "Three Realms" Conference on The Deep History of Stories University of Edinburgh 2007
- 'Gaelic Oral Poetry in Scotland: Its Nature, Collection and Dissemination'. Folklore Fellows Summer School, Koumo, Finland 2007
- 'Scottish Gaelic in North America' Welsh Diaspora Conference, University of Bangor 2007
This article was published on Sep 13, 2012