Program Schedule for the 45th Annual Harvard Celtic Colloquium
John V. Kelleher Memorial Lecture
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8th, 2026. 5:00pm, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy Street
The 22nd John V. Kelleher Lecture will be given this year by Professor Barry J. Lewis of the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
The John V. Kelleher Lecture commemorates the fondly remembered Professor of Irish Studies, John Kelleher.
The 45th Harvard Celtic Colloquium
October 9-11, 2026.
Barker Center 110, Thompson Room, Harvard University, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge MA
Colloquium Schedule
Friday October 9, 2026
8:15 Registration and Refreshments
8:45 Opening Remarks (Katherine Scheidt and Tony Vitt, Harvard University)
9:00-10:30 Session One: Revitalization and Resistance
Chair: Dolan Wells Gallagher (Harvard University)
- Madeleine Adkins (Université Rennes-II Haute-Bretagne). “We’re all on this ship together”: Autonomy, Community, and Commitment in an Adult Breton Language Immersion Program
- Shawn McDaniel (University of Southern California). From Rancor to Revitalization: A Boston Sequel to An Té a Chaill a’ Ghàidhlig
- Hammad Rind (Bangor University). Elegy as Resistance: Colonial and National Struggle in Welsh and Urdu Poetry
10:30-10:45 Tea and Coffee Break
10:45-12:15 Session Two: Phonetics and Phonology
Chair: Harry Saunders (Harvard University)
- Jo D’Ambrosio Wolf (University College Cork) and Joseph Eska (Virginia Tech). Remarks on [θ] ~ [ɸ/f] and [ð] ~ [v] Variation in Early Insular Celtic
- Oisín Ó Muirthile (University of Galway). Fatal Attraction: Phonetic-based Analogical Change in the Gaelic Languages
- Piotr Szczepankiewicz (Adam Mickiewicz University). Post-tonic Unstressed Vowels in Present-day Cornish
12:15-2:00 Lunch Break
2:00-3:30 Session Three: Poetry, Lyric and Sound
Chair: Tannaz Nabavi Toyserkani (Harvard University)
- Lorena Alessandrini (Harvard University). “Give us the song of other years”: Sonic Hauntology and Dreamlike Spectrality in The Poems of Ossian and their Musical Resonances
- Séamus Ó Fianghusa (Donegal Association of New York). The Musicality of a “Very Odd Sound”: The Long, High, Back, Unrounded Vowel in Ulster Irish Vernacular Song
- Austin J. Benson (Colgate University). Intermediality and Interglossia in Early Celtic and English Lyrics
3:30-3:45 Tea and Coffee Break
3:45-5:00 Keynote
Introduction, Catherine McKenna (Harvard University)
Joey McMullen (Indiana University)
Early Irish “Hermit Poetry” and the Landscape of Paradise
5:00-6:00 Reception (Warren House, Kates Room)
Saturday October 10, 2026
8:30-9:00 Coffee, Tea, and Pastries
9:00-10:30 Session Four: Literacy and Manuscripts
Chair: Samuel Puopolo (Harvard University)
- Michael Meckler (Ohio State University). Gaulish Literacy
- Caitlin Powell (Sabhal Mòr Ostaig). Fil súil nglais: Colour through Gaelic Eyes
- Greg Williams (Cardiff University). Maligned and Neglected: David Powel’s Edition of Giraldus Cambrensis
10:30-10:45 Tea and Coffee Break
10:45-12:15 Session Five: Latin Learning and the Vernacular
Chair: Katherine Scheidt (Harvard University)
- Fangzhe Qiu and Héléna D. M. Lagréou (University College Dublin). The Composition of Digest B11 and Capital Punishment in Early Irish Law
- Robyn MacLeod Stewart (University of York). The Old Irish Expansions in Eriugena’s Biblical Glosses: Imagining the Old Testament in Ninth Century Ireland
- Jesse Patrick Harrington (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies). Roof-beams and Pipe Dreams: Honorius Augustodunensis, Diarmait mac Cerbaill, and Clonmacnoise
12:15-1:45 Lunch Break
1:45-3:15 Session Six: The Body and Gender in Irish Literature
Chair: Rory Yarter (Harvard University)
- Zoe Pailes (New York University). Transness as Method: The Gendered and Sexual Politics of Shapeshifting in Aided Derbforgaill and Tochmarc Étaíne
- Michael Wolfe (University of Houston). Gael’s Anatomy: Corporeal Imagery and Poetic Authority in Oisín’s Lament
- Cara Roberge (Indiana University). Against the Body: Paradigms for the Transmission of Knowledge and Poetic Authority in Macgnímartha Finn
3:15-3:30 Tea and Coffee Break
3:30-5:00 Session Seven: (Inter)Textuality
Chair: Saskia Behrens (Harvard University)
- Charlene M. Eska (Virginia Tech). Fróech’s Many Women
- Benjamin N. Yusen (Indiana University). Laughing With the Dagda: Parody and Hospitality in Cath Maige Tuired
- Deborah Hayden (Maynooth University). A Medieval Irish Collection of Remedies for Gynaecological and Obstetrical Conditions
5:30-7:30 Conference Dinner
Dumpling House, 950 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge MA
Sunday October 11, 2026
8:30-9:00 Coffee, Tea, and Pastries
9:00-10:30 Session Eight: Medieval Welsh Literature
Chair: Tony Vitt (Harvard University)
- Joseph Shack (University of Central Florida). Siôn Tudur’s “Gnomic” Englynion: The Afterlife of a Medieval Genre in Early Modern Wales
- Georgia Henley (Saint Anselm College). The Emergence of Middle Welsh Prose Style: Evidence from Brut y Brenhinedd
- Rhys Madog Jones (Bangor University). The Awdl Yr Haf and Medieval Literature at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
10:30-10:45 Tea and Coffee Break
10:45-11:45 Session Nine: Language Change and Language Loss
Chair: Dylan R. Cooper (Harvard University)
- Oisín Uíbh Eachach (Dublin City University). The Severed Head of Language Loss: An Examination of Diametric and Concentric Spatial Frames in John Montague’s The Rough Field and Colm Breathnach’s An Fearann Breac and Chiaroscuro
- Zander Lynch (Cornell University). Is is ocus? Two Old Irish Coordinators
11:45-12:45 Lunch (Provided)
12:45-2:15 Session Ten: Literary Studies
Chair: Graham O’Toole (Harvard University)
- Johanna Alden (Boston College). Mythologizing Untranslatability: Lebor Gabála Érenn and Medieval Irish Imaginations of the Cosmopolitan
- Joshua Pontillo (Indiana University). Reading the Aneothau in Culhwch ac Olwen: Arthur’s Conquest of Ysbaddaden’s Kingdom
- Cillian Ó Díomasaigh (Trinity College Dublin). Four Birds with One Poem: A Seventeenth-Century Elegy on Four Members of Clann Domhnaill
Closing Remarks: Katherine Scheidt and Tony Vitt