- Visiting Associate Professor (Bangor University) Fall Term 2020
- Aled Llion Jones
Education and Employment
I studied at Leeds, Cardiff and Harvard Universities, gaining degrees in Philosophy and English (BA), Welsh (MPhil) and Celtic Studies (PhD). I have worked longer-term at universities in Poland (Lublin), Ireland (Galway), USA (Harvard) and Wales (Bangor), and occasionally lectured or taught on summer schools in many other organizations.
Research
I have published widely since being employed at Bangor (2011): I work across a number of periods and disciplines, and my research brings recent philosophy and literary theory (especially from France and Germany) into dialogue with the modern and medieval literatures of Wales and Ireland. Translation theory and that of multilingualism are central here.
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.
I am currently looking specifically at concepts of time, temporality and historiography in medieval Welsh and Irish literature. This latest 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.
I aim to soon publish an accessible introduction to the Philosophy of Literature. This will be written in Welsh and focussed on the literature of Wales.
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 (medieval and modern) literature, but also on philosophy, and wider cultural studies.
I am often invited to present at a variety of public events, from universities to village halls, and my work as a language teacher (Welsh, Polish, Irish) is also a means of engaging with the local and wider community. I speak frequently on national radio (cultural discussion and current affairs). I speak and lecture in a number of languages (mainly Welsh but also English and Polish).
Literary Translation
Since being at Bangor, I have been commissioned almost annually 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.