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Dr Sinead O'Sullivan

BA, MA (NUI), DPhil (Oxford) FRHistS

Senior Lecturer in Medieval History

Erasmus exchange co-ordinator

Tel: +44 (0) 28 9097 3430
E-mail: s.osullivan@qub.ac.uk

Office: 15UQ.201A

Sinéad O’Sullivan was an undergraduate at University College Cork and postgraduate there and at Universität Konstanz and Oxford University. She was a Rhodes Scholar at St Anne’s College, Oxford, completing a D.Phil on Carolingian and Ottonian intellectual history. She joined the School of History and Anthropology at Queen’s in 2005.

Research Interests

Her research focuses on the transmission of learning in the early Middle Ages. Her main focus is on early medieval glosses and their importance.  She has published two books on the reception of Late Antique authors: the first on Prudentius (Brill), the second on Martianus Capella in the series Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis (Brepols). She has also co-edited a book on Martianus Capella and Carolingian Scholarship (Brepols) and worked on a digital edition as part of an international collaborative effort. Her current work investigates the significance of glosses for mainstream cultural and intellectual history. 

Select Publications

Books  

Articles and papers

  • 'The sacred and the obscure: Greek in the Carolingian reception of Martianus Capella’, The Journal of Medieval Latin 22 (2012), pp. 67-94
  • ‘The Corpus Martianus Capella: Continental Gloss Traditions on De Nuptiis in Wales and Anglo-Saxon England’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies  62 (Winter 2011), pp. 33-56.
  • ‘Martianus Capella and the Carolingians: Some observations based on the glosses on books I-II from the oldest gloss tradition’, in E. Mullins, D. Scully (eds), Listen, O Isles, unto me: Studies in Medieval Word and Image in honour of Jennifer O’Reilly  (Cork, 2010).
  • 'Obscurity, pagan lore and secrecy in glosses to Books I-II from the  oldest gloss tradition’, in Carolingian scholarship and Martianus Capella (see above), pp. 99-121
  • ‘The image of adornment in Aldhelm’s De uirginitate: Cyprian and his influence’, Peritia 15 (Turnhout, Brepols, 2001) pp. 48-57.
  • ‘Aldhelm’s De uirginiate and the Psychomachian tradition’, in K.L. Boardman et al. (eds), Framing the text: reading tradition and image in medieval Europe, Mediaevalia 20 (Binghamton, N.Y., 2001) pp. 313-3.
  • ‘Aldhelm’s De uirginitate: patristic pastiche or innovative exposition’, Peritia 12 (Turnhout, Brepols, 1998) pp. 271-95. 

Digital edition

Teaching

Dr Sinead O'Sullivan teaches on the following programmes / modules:

Undergraduate

HIS1002 Power, Politics and Religion in Medieval Germany, 900-1250
HIS2047 The Expansion of Medieval Europe, 1000-1300
HIS2049 The Roman Origins of the East and West, 400-800
HIS3079 Kings, Courts and Cultures in Carolingian Europe, 750-900

 
Postgraduate Taught

MHY7020

Medieval Latin Palaeography and Codicology
MHY7078

 John Scottus Eriugena and his World

Recent PhD Supervision:

  • Metin Berke, 'An annotated critical edition of Euthymios Zigabenos, Panoplia Dogmatike, Chapters 23-28', PhD 2011

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