Professor Katherine Forsyth
- Professor of Celtic Studies (Celtic & Gaelic)
telephone:
01413305803
email:
Katherine.Forsyth@glasgow.ac.uk
Celtic & Gaelic, School of Humanities, 3 University Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9057-3616Biography
I was born in Glasgow but grew up in the North-East of Scotland, attending the local school. I have an undergraduate degree from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, and a Masters and PhD from Harvard University in Celtic Languages and Literatures. I had a Rhys studentship at Jesus College, Oxford, and a Junior Research Fellowship from St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and a British Academy Institutional Research Fellowship from University College London. Since 1998 I have been teaching at the University of Glasgow. I am half-time.
Research interests
My interests lie in the history and culture of the Celtic-speaking peoples in the first millennium AD, with a particular focus on text as material culture. My interest in the uses of literacy and in the technology of writing led to a collaborative project on the Book of Deer, Scotland’s oldest manuscript (published 2008). Although I have also published on aspects of Pictish studies and on sculpture in Scotland, the main focus of my research has always been epigraphy, particularly inscriptions in the ogham alphabet. I have conducted field-work on inscriptions in Scotland, Northern Ireland, south-west Ireland, south-west England, the Isle of Man and Brittany. I have acted as consultant to Historic Environment Scotland advising them on new displays of sculpture at Whithorn, Kirkmadrine, and Iona. For many years a member (and Chair) of the National Committee for Carved Stones in Scotland, I am co-author of the Scottish Archaeological Framework Future Thinking on Carved Stones in Scotland.
Other interests include the Gaelic history of Glasgow (see the Glaschu website, and the book Glasgow’s Gaelic Placenames). Through the projects Mapping Gaelic Glasgow and Spoken Here, and elsewhere, I have collaborated with Glaschu Beo (Gaelic Life) on various activities which formed the basis of a REF Impact Case Study Transforming Glasgow’s relationship with the Gaelic language of which I was the Principal Investigator. I have a number of publications about board-games in ancient and medieval Celtic society, including several in collaboration with Mark Hall (Perth Museum).
I am the UK Principal Investigator of a UK–Ireland Collaboration in Digital Humanities with Maynooth University colleagues: OG(H)AM: Harnessing digital technologies to transform understanding of ogham writing, from the 4th century to the 21st (funded by UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Irish Research Council, 2021-24), and Co-Investigator for the AHRC-funded project Iona’s Namescapes: Placenames and their dynamics in Iona and its environs (2020-2023).
From 2016 until its end in 2023 I was Director of the AHRC’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Celtic Languages.
Grants
Current
Principal Investigator: OG(H)AM: Harnessing digital technologies to transform understanding of ogham writing, from the 4th century to the 21st (UK–Ireland Collaboration in Digital Humanities, funded by UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Irish Research Council, UK £320k; Ireland €270k, 2021-24)
Principal Investigator: OPal+ (Ogham Palaeography+) AHRC Follow-On Funding for Impact and Engagement, £110k, 2023-24.
Co-Investigator: Iona's Namescape: place-names and their dynamics in Iona and its environs (AHRC-funded, 2020-23)
Completed
Co-Investigator: Future Thinking on Carved Stones in Scotland, Royal Society of Edinburgh (2015-16). Output: Scottish Archaeological Research Framework
Co-Investigator: Sgeul na Gàidhlig: The Gaelic Story of the University of Glasgow project 2013–2014, £65k. Output: Sgeul na Gàidhlig website
£18k of internal funding from Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Flexible Fund and College of Arts which supported various aspects of Mapping Gaelic Glasgow and Spoken Here projects.
Raised £17.5k for the International Congress of Celtic Studies, Glasgow, 2015
AHRC Research Leave (Whithorn Project, 2008)
Centre for Manx Studies (support for fieldwork, summer 2006)
Consultant to Historic Environment Scotland, Headland Archaeology, GUARD, Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation, National Museums of Scotland
Supervision
I welcome approaches from potential students in any of my research areas, especially Pictish Studies, epigraphy, literacy and sculpture.
Current
Heather Ford, Appealing to the Past in Uncertain Times: an interdisciplinary study of the evocation and reuse of prehistoric standing stones in the monumental epigraphy of early medieval Scotland (SGSAH-funded)
Elena Orpianesi, The lost manuscript culture of early medieval Scotland and Man: the evidence of Early Medieval Manx and Scottish Latinate Inscriptions (EMMSLI)
David Bain, The Early Medieval Carved Stones of Renfrewshire
Alexa Blankenship, Visuality and Identity in Viking artefacts from Scotland and Ireland
Completed
Wallace, Jenn (2022) The Dupplin Cross: An interdisciplinary examination of a Pictish sculptured stone monument (MPhil Research)
McNamara, Carolyn Jeanette (2021) Tracing the Community of Comgall across the North Channel: an interdisciplinary investigation of Early Medieval monasteries at Bangor, Applecross, Lismore, and Tiree.
Johnson, Catherine Estelle (2020) A comparative study of portable inscribed objects from Britain and Ireland, c. 400-1100 AD.
Thickpenny, Cynthia Rose (2019) Making key pattern in Insular art: AD 600-1100.
Rhys, Guto (2015) Approaching the Pictish language: historiography, early evidence and the question of Pritenic (AHRC-funded)
Teaching
- Celtic Civilisation 1A: The Ancient Celts (Level 1 – Convener)
- Celtic Civilisation 1B: The Celts in the Early Middle Ages (Level 1 - Contributor)
- Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies (Honours – Convener)
- Celtic Art in Context (Honours - Convener)
- Kingdoms and societies in northern Britain AD 400-800 (Honours – Contributor)
- Dissertation course (Honours – Supervisor)
- MLitt in Celtic Studies (Contributor)
