Aled Ll Jones

(MENAFN- The Conversation)

• Head of School & Reader in Welsh & Medieval Literature, Bangor University

Profile Articles

I studied at Leeds, Cardiff and Harvard Universities, gaining degrees in Philosophy and English (BA), Welsh (MPhil) and Celtic Studies (PhD). I have been Lecturer, Senior Lecturer or Associate Professor at universities in Poland (Lublin), Ireland (Galway), USA (Harvard) and Wales (Bangor), and lectured or taught on summer schools in many other organizations across Europe and North America.

Research

I work across a number of periods and disciplines, bringing philosophy and literary theory into dialogue with the modern and medieval literatures of Wales and Ireland. Theories of translation theory and multilingualism are central here. See especially my monograph, Darogan: Prophecy, Lament and Absent Heroes in Medieval Welsh Literature (2013), and also my article in Translation Studies, 9.

Recently, my research has been moving in two main areas: the philosophy of the twentieth century (especially figures such as Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot, Martin Buber, Jacques Derrida, J.R. Jones) and medieval Welsh literature. A central event that brings these threads together is Martin Buber's translation of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi (Die vier Zweige des Mabinogi) in 1914, and I have been looking at conceptual cross-fertilization between the Welsh legends and humanist-Hasidic traditions: see my article in Ysgrifau Beirniadol 34.

I am also looking at concepts of time, temporality and historiography in medieval Welsh and Irish literature. This project explores not only features such as the deictic but also the ways in which literary forms and rhetorical tropes express conceptual (and aconceptual) experiences of time, place, timelessness and the utopian. See my article in Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloqium, 38.

Presentations and Public Speaking

I have delivered a range of papers in conferences from western Romania to southern California (and most countries in-between): I speak mainly on Welsh and Irish literature (medieval and modern), but also on philosophy and wider cultural studies.

I enjoy presenting at public events, from village halls and arts centres to national broadcast media or the National Eisteddfod, and my work as a language teacher (Welsh, Polish, Irish) is also a means of engaging with the local and wider community. I speak and lecture in a number of languages ​​(mainly Welsh but also English and Polish).

Literary Translation

I have been commissioned regularly by the North Wales International Poetry Festival to translate, read and discuss poetry in Polish and other Eastern European languages. I have also been commissioned by the Welsh Literature Exchange to translate Polish prose, and I have published a number of translations from Irish to Welsh.

Teaching

On BA modules, I teach language and literacy skills (Welsh and Irish) as well as literature, literary history and philosophy. I also contribute regularly to co-taught modules, ranging from early medieval and medieval literature to linguistics, sociolinguistics and language-planning. I am the co-ordinator of 'The Celts' MA, and I contribute to the teaching on other MA courses across the School and the College. I am happy to discuss PhD proposals in suitable fields.

Experience

• –present Head of School & Reader in Welsh & Medieval Literature, Bangor University

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