Welsh studies is an interdisciplinary field of research devoted to the study of Wales, History of Wales, Geography of Wales, Politics of Wales, Economy of Wales, Culture of Wales, Welsh language, Welsh-language literature, Welsh literature in English, and of Welsh people in Wales and elsewhere. It is sometimes subsumed within the category of Celtic studies and European studies. An alternative term is Wales Studies which is preferred by the Learned Society of Wales. [1]
All of the universities in Wales offer expertise in aspects of Welsh studies. These include:
There is also a centre in the United States:
The University of Wales is a confederal university based in Cardiff, Wales. Founded by royal charter in 1893 as a federal university with three constituent colleges – Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff – the university was the first university established in Wales, one of the four countries in the United Kingdom. The university was, prior to the break up of the federation, the second largest university in the UK.
Swansea University is a public research university located in Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom.
Robert Geraint Gruffydd FLSW FBA was a scholar of Welsh language and literature. From 1970 to 1979, he was Professor of Welsh Language and Literature at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and was made Emeritus Professor in 1993.
Celtic studies or Celtology is the academic discipline occupied with the study of any sort of cultural output relating to the Celtic-speaking peoples. This ranges from linguistics, literature and art history, archaeology and history, the focus lying on the study of the various Celtic languages, living and extinct. The primary areas of focus are the six Celtic languages currently in use: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.
Thomas Mowbray Charles-Edwards is an emeritus academic at the University of Oxford. He formerly held the post of Jesus Professor of Celtic and is a Professorial Fellow at Jesus College.
Prys Morgan FRHistS FSA FLSW is a Welsh historian.
Colin H. Williams FLSW is a senior research associate at the VHI, l St Edmund's College, the University of Cambridge, UK. He was formerly a research professor in sociolinguistics, and later an honorary professor in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University.
Brynley Francis Roberts, known as Bryn Roberts, was a Welsh scholar and critic, who wrote significantly on the Welsh language and Celtic history. He was Professor of Welsh Language and Literature at the University of Wales, Swansea 1978–1985 and Librarian of the National Library of Wales in 1985–1994, then made editor of the Dictionary of Welsh Biography in 1987 and of Y Traethodydd in 1999. He was on the council of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion and involved in the Morfa Chapel, Aberystwyth, part of the Presbyterian Church of Wales. In 2011, he was elected as a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
Peredur Ionor Lynch, FLSW is a Welsh academic who serves as professor of Welsh & Medieval Literature in the School of Welsh and Celtic Studies at Bangor University.
John T. Koch is an American academic, historian, and linguist who specializes in Celtic studies, especially prehistory, and the early Middle Ages. He is the editor of the five-volume Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. He is perhaps best known as the leading proponent of the Celtic from the West hypothesis.
Peter Lord is an English sculptor and art historian based in Wales. He is best known for his books and television programmes about the history of Welsh art, and is regarded as a leading authority on the subject. Critic Andrew Green has said that The Visual Culture of Wales, Lord's three-volume series published by University of Wales Press, "restored to Wales a narrative of visual art that had been lost or denied for decades".
Sarah Helen Prescott FLSW is Professor of English Literature at Aberystwyth University and a non-fiction writer, specializing in the history of Welsh literature in English. She is also the director of the university's Institute of Literature, Languages and Creative Arts (ILLCA).
Mary Williams (1883-1977) was a distinguished Welsh academic of modern languages. She was one of the first woman appointed to a professorial title at a British university.
Geraint Huw Jenkins, FBA, FLSW is a historian of Wales and a retired academic. He was Professor of Welsh History at the Aberystwyth University from 1990 to 1993, when he became Director of the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. In 2009, he retired from academia and was appointed Professor Emeritus of Welsh History at the University of Wales.
Proinsias Mac Cana was an academic and Celtic scholar. He held professorships at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and University College Dublin.
Rhiannon Ifans, FLSW is a Welsh academic specialising in English, Medieval and Welsh literature. She was an Anthony Dyson Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, in University of Wales Trinity St. David. She twice won a Tir na-n-Og prize for her work and won the literary medal competition at the Welsh Eisteddfod, for her 2019 debut novel, Ingrid, which was chosen for the Welsh Literature Exchange Bookshelf. In 2020, Ifans was elected as a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
"The Mirror" is a poem in the form of a cywydd by the 14th-century bard Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets. The poem describes how Dafydd, languishing with lovesickness for an unnamed Gwynedd woman, is appalled by the wasted appearance of his face in the mirror. "The Mirror" can be grouped with several other of Dafydd's poems, possibly early ones, set in Gwynedd, or alternatively with the many poems in which he expresses his love for a woman he calls Morfudd. It has been called "perhaps Dafydd's greatest masterpiece in the genre of self-deprecation".
Alwyn David Rees was a Welsh geographer, social anthropologist and Welsh nationalist, who wrote as Alwyn D. Rees. After studying geography and anthropology at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, he was a tutor in the College's External Department from 1936 to 1946. He was a lecturer in the Department of Geography and Anthropology until 1949, when he was appointed Director of the External Studies Department. Rees pioneered the rural sociology of Britain with Life in a Welsh countryside (1950), a community study of the Welsh village of Llanfihangel yng Ngwynfa. From 1966 until his death he edited the Welsh magazine Barn.
Helen Fulton is currently professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol.
The Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies is a research institute located in Aberystwyth, Wales. The centre was established by the University of Wales in 1985, and works under the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.