Emeritus Professor Dafydd Johnston BA, PhD, FLSW

Professor Dafydd Johnston was Director of CAWCS for twelve years from October 2008 until his retirement at the end of 2020. 

He has published extensively on Welsh literature of all periods, including some of the English-language writers of Wales.

His main research interest is medieval Welsh poetry, and he has specialized in textual editing, including three major editions, Gwaith Iolo Goch (1988), Gwaith Lewys Glyn Cothi (1995) and Gwaith Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen (1998), as well as two groundbreaking thematic collections, Medieval Welsh Erotic Poetry (1991) and Poets’ Grief (1993). In 2005 he published a comprehensive study of late-medieval Welsh literature, Llên yr Uchelwyr: Hanes Beirniadol Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg 1300–1525, a volume which was short-listed for the Welsh Book of the Year Prize. His most recent publication is ‘Iaith Oleulawn’: Geirfa Dafydd ap Gwilym (2020).

Professor Johnston was director of an interdepartmental research project funded by the AHRC (2001–6) which produced a new edition of the poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym in electronic format, dafyddapgwilym.net.

He was co-investigator on the Guto’r Glyn Project (2008–12) at the Centre, and joint-editor with Mary-Ann Constantine of the ‘Wales and the French Revolution’ series. He was one of the editors of the journal Studia Celtica from 2002 to 2020, and since 2014 he has been editor of The Dictionary of Welsh Biography.

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