Kevin Kiernan

Professor of English Emeritus
T. Marshall Hahn Sr. Professor of Arts and Sciences Emeritus
University of Kentucky

e-mail: kiernan at uky dot edu
Résumé - 2024

Hall of Fame Professor of Arts & Sciences, University of Kentucky, 2015.
Professor of English, University of Kentucky, 1981-2005
Associate Professor, 1975-81; Assistant Professor, 1970-75
Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences, elected by College, 1998
Chair, Department of English, University of Kentucky, 1986-90
Founding Director, Collaboratory for Research in Computing for Humanities
University Research Professor, 1982-83
PhD, Case Western Reserve University, 1970

Visiting Scholar, Columbia University, 2021-22
Visiting Fellow, Yale University, 2022-23
Visiting Fellow, Yale University, 2023-24

Selected Publications:

Electronic Edition
Fifth Edition of Electronic Beowulf (5..0), a major revision, sponsored by The British Library and The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences. Free online edition newly designed for research scholars, students, and general readers. Forthcoming 2024.

Fourth Edition of Electronic Beowulf 4.0 (Sponsored by The British Library and The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences). Free online edition redesigned for research scholars, students, and general readers. 2015.

Books
Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript, revised paperback edition, with Foreword by Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (British Library Publications and University of Michigan Press, 1996); Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1981)

The Thorkelin Transcripts of Beowulf (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1986)

Studies in the Age of Beowulf, book-in-progress (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, forthcoming 2024).

Some Chapters and Articles
"Square Minuscule in the Age of Cnut the Great," Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies 6.1 (Spring 2021), 33-73.

“Ælfric of Eynsham's Oldest Manuscript of the Sermones Catholici,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 15 (2021), 1-35.

"The reformed Nowell Codex and the Beowulf manuscript," Anglo-Saxon England 46 (2019), 73-95.

“Beowulf Manuscript,” The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, ed. Siân Echard and Robert Rouse (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2017), 1-5.

“Alternating Currents in the Electrifying Classroom,” Teaching Beowulf in the Twenty-first Century, ed. H. D. Chickering, A. J. Frantzen, and R. F. Yeager (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Arizona State University, Tempe, 2014), pp. 55-66.

“The nathwylc Scribe and the nathwylc Text of Beowulf.” Poetry, Place and Gender: Studies in Medieval Culture in Honor of Helen Damico, ed. Catherine E. Karkov (Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, 2009), pp. 98-131.

“Introduction,” with Antonette diPaolo Healey, Making Sense: Constructing Meaning in Early English, eds. Antonette diPaolo Healey and Kevin Kiernan. Publications of the Dictionary of Old English 7, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto 2007), vii-x.

“Remodeling Alfred’s Boethius with the tol ond andweorc of Edition Production Technology (EPT),” Making Sense: Constructing Meaning in Early English, eds. Antonette diPaolo Healey and Kevin Kiernan. Publications of the Dictionary of Old English 7, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto 2007), 72-115.

“Digital Facsimiles in Editing: Some Guidelines for Editors of Image-based Electronic Editions.” Electronic Textual Editing, ed. John Unsworth, Lou Burnard, and Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (New York: Modern Language Association, 2006), pp. 256-262.

“The Source of the Napier Fragment of Alfred’s Boethius,” Inaugural issue of the Digital Medievalist 1.1. Spring 2005.

“The ARCHway Project: Architecture for Research in Computing for Humanities through Research, Teaching, and Learning,” with Jerzy W. Jaromczyk, Alex Dekhtyar, and Dorothy Carr Porter, with assistance of Kenneth Hawley, Sandeep Bodapati, and Ionut Emil Iacob. Literary and Linguistic Computing, (2005), pp. 1-20.

“Odd Couples in Ælfric’s Julian and Basilissa in British Library Cotton MS Otho B. x.” Beatus vir: Studies in Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse Manuscripts in Memory of Phillip Pulsiano. eds. Kirsten Wolf and A.N. Doane. Tempe, AZ: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies (MRTS), 2005, 85-106.

“The Reappearances of St. Basil the Great in British Library MS Cotton Otho B. x.” With Brent Seales and James Griffioen. Computers and the Humanities 36:1 (February 2002), 7-26.

“N.R. Ker, 1908-1982,” Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline, Vol. 2, Literature and Philology, ed. Helen Damico (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1998), pp. 425-437.

“Re-Visions [Preface].” Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript, revised paperback edition, with Foreword by Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (British Library Publications and University of Michigan Press, 1996), pp. xv-xxviii.

“The Legacy of Wiglaf: Saving a Wounded Beowulf.” The Beowulf Reader (formerly Beowulf: Basic Readings, 1995), ed. Peter S. Baker. Basic Readings in Anglo-Saxon England I. New York: Garland 2000, 195-218.

“King Alfred’s Burnt Boethius,” The Iconic Page in Manuscript, Print, and Digital Culture, eds. George Bornstein and Theresa Lynn Tinkle (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1998), 7-32.

“A Long Footnote for J. Gerritsen’s ‘Supplementary’ Description of BL Cotton MS Vitellius A. xv,” English Studies (1991), 489-496.

“Reading Cædmon’s Hymn with Someone Else’s Glosses,” Old English Literature: Critical Essays (Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 103-124. Edited by Roy Liuzza. Reprinted from Representations 32 (Fall 1990), 157-174.

“The Conybeare-Madden Collation of Thorkelin's Beowulf,” Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and Their Heritage, eds. Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine M. Treharne (Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1998), 117-136.

“Madden, Thorkelin, and MS Vitellius/Vespasian A XV,” The Library: The Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, VI, 8.2 (1986), pp. 127-32.

“The State of the Beowulf Manuscript 1882-1983,” Anglo-Saxon England 13 (1984), 23-42.

“Grendel’s Heroic Mother,” In Geardagum 6 (1984), 13-33 (revised 2010).

“Old English Manuscripts: The Scribal Deconstruction of ‘Early’ Northumbrian,” in Old English Studies: Current State and Future Prospects, ed. Nicholas Howe, ANQ 3.2 (1990), 48-55.


Georgia History and Archaeology

Publications

Books-in-Progress
The Education of Enslaved People and Freemen on St Simons Island
A New Look at Georgia's Disputed Tabby Ruins

Articles
“The Lost Library of Georgia History Better than De Renne’s,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 102.2 (2018), 147-182.

“Digging Deeper into Sapelo's Past: The Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project,” Preservation Posts: The online journal of the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, December 2016 (Guest Article).

“The Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project,” University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences, September 2016.

“Preston Holder's WPA Excavations in Glynn and Chatham Counties, Georgia, 1936-1938,” Shovel Ready: Archaeology and Roosevelt's New Deal for America, ed. Bernard K. Means (The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 2013), 202-223.

“Preston Holder on the Georgia Coast, 1936-1938,” The Society for American Archaeology Archaeological Record, Special Forum: New Deal Archaeology, Part II, 11:5 (2011), 30-33. Online digital edition.

Reviews
Life Among the Tides: Recent Archaeology on the Georgia Bight, ed. Victor D. Thompson and David Hurst Thomas. Proceedings of the Sixth Caldwell Conference, St. Catherines Island, Georgia, May 20-22, 2011. American Museum of Natural History Anthropological Papers 98 (2013). Early Georgia 42.1 (Spring 2014), 107-113.

Neill J. Wallis, The Swift Creek Gift: Vessel Exchange on the Atlantic Coast. The University of Alabama Press, 2011. Southeastern Archaeolology 33.2 (Winter 2014), 279-280.

J. Michael Francis and Kathleen M. Kole, Murder and Martyrdom in Spanish Florida: Don Juan and the Guale Uprising of 1597. American Museum of Natural History Anthropological Papers, Number 95, 2011. Southeastern Archaeology 34.2 (Summer 2015), 165-167.

Research Interests
The History and Archaeology of Coastal Georgia: Pre-contact cultures, WPA Archaeology, Spanish and Colonial cultures, Slaves to Freedmen in the nineteenth century, the history of Georgia's histories.


Presentations on History and History of Archaeology
“The Harrington School on St. Simons Island in the Late Nineteenth Century,” The Clarence Thomas Center for Historic Preservation, Savannah College of Art and Design, 20 February 2018.

“Historical Archaeology at Cannon's Point,” SOGART 2018, Symposium on Southeastern Coastal Plain Archaeology, South Georgia College, Douglas, Georgia, 10 February 2018.

“Francis Louis Abreu's Little Tabby Cloister,” Sandra Colhard & Miriam Lancaster, St. Simons Island Land Trust Conference Room, 26 January 2018.

“The Education of African Americans on St. Simons Island around Reconstruction, 1865-1885,” Historic Harrington School Cultural Center, St. Simons Island, Georgia, 16 January 2018.

“Sea Island and The Cloister at the Visitor's Club,” John A. Tuten, Architects, Brunswick, GA, 23 June 2017.

“Francis Louis Abreu: Brunswick and Sea Island Architect of the Tabby Visitor's Club,” John A. Tuten, Architects, Brunswick, GA, 12 June 2017.

“The Education of Blacks on St. Simons Island After the Civil War,” Golden Isles Archaeological Society, St. Simons Island, 1 March 2016.

“Hidden Bits of Black History in the Golden Isles During the Late Nineteenth Century,” The Ashantilly Center, 21 February 2016.

“The Site of the Lost Tabby Foundations of the Elizafield Plantation House,” SOGART 2013, Symposium on Southeastern Coastal Plain Archaeology, South Georgia College, Douglas, Georgia, 17 August 2013.

“Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Digging the Elizafield and Evelyn Sites,” The Glynn County Master Gardeners, University of Georgia College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences. St. Simons Island Casino, 24 May 2013.

“Learning History from Archaeology at Cannon's Point,” The Brunswick-Golden Isles Christian Women's Coalition, Epworth-by-the-Sea, St. Simons Island, 21 May 2013.

With Keith Stephenson and Karen Y. Smith. “Preston Holder's WPA Excavation of the Truncated Mound at the Evelyn Site in Glynn County,” Spring 2013 Meeting of the Society for Georgia Archaeology, Macon, Georgia, 18 May 2013.

“Archaeology on the Lower Altamaha: The Elizafield and Evelyn Plantation Sites,” The Lower Altamaha Historical Society, Fort King George, Darien, Georgia, 21 March 2013.

“Archaeology on the Lower Altamaha: The Elizafield and Evelyn Plantation Sites,” The Ashantilly Center, Darien, Georgia, 21 October 2012.

“The Tabby Ruins of the Evelyn Plantation House in Glynn County, Georgia,” SOGART 2012, Symposium on Southeastern Coastal Plain Archaeology, South Georgia College, Douglas, Georgia, 18 August 2012.

With Keith Stephenson and Karen Y. Smith. “Preston Holder's WPA Excavations of the Evelyn Plantation Mounds in Glynn County, Georgia,” 68th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC), Jacksonville, Florida, 2-5 November 2011.

“Archaeological Estimations and Excavations at the Evelyn Plantation House Tabby Ruins in Glynn County, Georgia,” Fall 2011 Meeting of the Society for Georgia Archaeology, University of Georgia, Athens, 22 October 2011.

“The WPA Archaeology of St. Simons Island during the Great Depression,” The Ashantilly Center, Darien, Georgia, 18 September 2011.

“New Deal Archaeology: Preston Holder on the Georgia Coast, 1936-1938,” Poster Session: Shovel Ready: Archaeology and Roosevelt's New Deal for America. 76th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Sacramento, California, 31 March 2011. Also presented at SOGART 2011, Symposium on Southeastern Coastal Plain Archaeology, South Georgia College, Douglas, Georgia, 20 August 2011.

“Archaeology and the Visitor's Club of the Brunswick Board of Trade in the Late 1930s,” Meeting of the Golden Isles Archaeological Society, St. Simons Island, Georgia, 1 March 2011.

“Ruby Wilson Berrie and the WPA Exhibits at the Brunswick Board of Trade,” Guale Historical Society, St. Marys, Georgia, 8 February 2011.

“A Newly Discovered and Restored WPA Map of the Sea Island Mound,” SOGART 2010 Symposium on Southeastern Coastal Plain Archaeology, South Georgia College, Douglas, Georgia, 14 August 2010.

“The Charlie King Mound: A Little-Known Prehistoric Indian Mound on Saint Simons Island,” Fall 2009 Meeting of the Golden Isles Archaeological Society, St. Simons Island, Georgia, 9 September 2009.

“A Little-Known Prehistoric Indian Mound on Saint Simons Island,” Spring 2009 Meeting of the Society for Georgia Archaeology, Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia, 16 May 2009.

“IBX (Image-Based Encoding) for SGA Online,” Spring 2009 Board Meeting of the Society for Georgia Archaeology, Lizella, Georgia, 23 January 2009.

“Polynomial Texture Mapping and Image-Based Encoding for Archaeological Projects,” Fall 2008 Meeting of the Society for Georgia Archaeology, The Forum, Rome, Georgia, 18 October 2008.

“Polynomial Texture Mapping and Image-Based Encoding for Archaeological Projects,” SOGART (South Georgia Archaeological Research Team) 2008 Symposium on Southeastern Coastal Plain Archaeology, South Georgia College, Douglas, Georgia, 9 August 2008.

“Edition Production & Presentation Technology (EPPT) Applied to Preston Holder's WPA Archaeology on the Georgia Coast,” Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, 31 March 2008.

Field Work
Richard Jefferies, Archaeologist. Helped with excavation, screening, and geophysical analysis of the Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project (SIMPAP), August 2016.

Keith Ashley, Archaeologist. Helped with excavation and screening of Kinsey's Knoll in the Mill Cove complex on the St. Johns River, 2015 (see Kiernan, "The Ocmulgee Big Bend and the Mill Cove Complex," The Antiquarian [Newsletter of the Golden Isles Archaeological Society, 2015], 2-3).

Keith Ashley, Archaeologist and Coordinator of Research, University of North Florida Archaeology Laboratory. Sorting and analyzing St. Johns II (900-1250) artifacts and shells from Kinzey's Knoll, 2014-2015.

Keith Ashley, archaeologist in charge. Shovel testing at Neptune Park on southern tip of St. Simons Island, Georgia, in search of evidence of the Mocama Spanish mission, San Buenaventura de Guadalquini (1606-1684). 2012

Fred Cook, archaeologist in charge. Helped with field work, excavation of Kelvin Grove site on St. Simons Island, Georgia. 2012

With Fred Cook. Archaeological survey, layout and shovel testing at the Harrington Graded School, the last segregated school on St. Simons Island, Georgia. 2012

With Ray Crook, An Archaeological Reconnaissance of Cannon's Point, Saint Simons Island, Georgia, for the History Task Force, Cannon's Point Preservation Project, February-March 2011.

With Keith Stephenson. Archaeological survey and layout of the plantation house at the Evelyn site, Glynn County, Georgia (9GN6). 2010.

Dennis Blanton, archaeologist; helped trowel previously excavated Glass Site (9TF145) for overhead photography of probable Hernando de Soto site, Points of Contact Project, FMNH, 2010.

Dennis Blanton, Chief Archaeologist, Fernbank Museum of Natural History; Participant, Archaeology Education Program, FMNH, Evaluation of Sand Ridge Site (9CF17) as candidate for the 17th-century Spanish mission of Santa Isabel de Utinahic, 2008.

Fred Cook Archaeological Services: Cook-Thompson Prehistoric Indian site, 2000 BC - 1500 AD, Brunswick, GA (9GN343); Shadman Swift Creek site, St. Simons Island, GA (9GN271); helped delineate the perimeter of the Ceylon Slave Cemetery in McIntosh County.

Steven Kidd, National Park Service; Oglethorpe's Fort St. Andrews (9CM113), Cumberland Island, GA; screening.

Morgan Ray Crook, Jr., PhD, participated in manual excavation of midden site at Hawkins Island, St. Simons Island, GA.

Ryan Sipe, The Redbird Creek Village (9BN9); participated in manual excavation and the documentation of cultural features.

Southeastern Horizons, Inc. Assisted with the delineation of the abandoned Hand Plantation Cemetery in Hazelhurst, GA.

Consulting on History of Archaeology
Member, History Task Force, Cannon's Point Preservation Project, St. Simons Island; St. Simons Land Trust, Coastal Georgia Historical Society, 2010-2011.

Consultant on New Deal archaeology of Evelyn Plantation site (9GN6), Glynn County, Georgia, for Keith Stephenson, PhD, RPA, South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA), Savannah River Archaeological Research Program (SRARP), University of South Carolina (USC) under grant contract DE-FC09-98SR18931 with the U. S. Department of Energy-Savannah River Site, Aiken, SC (US DOE-SRS).

Research Associate for Fred Cook Archaeological Services; history of archaeology and polynomial texture mapping of decorated ceramics.

Consultant on history of archaeology for Brunswick Altamaha Canal Revitalization Committee, Glynn County Government.

Administration
Board of Directors, Society for Georgia Archaeology (SGA), 2008-2012

Chair, Fall 2010 Meeting of SGA, "Historic Preservation of Prehistoric, Colonial and Plantation Structures on the Coast."

Coordinator, Archaeological Booth at CoastFest, 2009-2012

Host and Organizer, Winter 2010 Board Meeting at Ashantilly Center, Darien, GA, and Excursion on Sapelo Island, GA.

Host and Organizer, Fall 2010 Meeting, 15-17 October, on St. Simons Island and Vicinity, on "Historic Preservation of Prehistoric, Colonial and Plantation Structures on the Coast.”

Memberships
Society for American Archaeology (SAA); Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC); Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA); Society for Georgia Archaeology (SGA, Board of Directors); South Georgia Archaeological Research Team (SOGART); Golden Isles Archaeological Society (GIAS, Executive Committee); Friends of Harrington Graded School (Secretary).