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Dr Dylan Foster Evans MA (Cantab), PhD (Cymru)

Dr Dylan Foster Evans

MA (Cantab), PhD (Cymru)

Head of School

Email
fosterevansd@caerdydd.ac.uk
Telephone
+44 (0)29 2087 4951
Campuses
1.71, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU
Welsh speaking
Comment
Media commentator
Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Overview

My main area of expertise is the poetry of the late Middle Ages. I have been a member of projects that have edited and studied the works of two of Wales’s greatest poets, Dafydd ap Gwilym and Guto’r Glyn, and have edited the works of several other poets. I am particularly interested in the relationship between poetry, identity, material culture and the environment and have published a number of critical studies in these fields.

My interest in language and place extends into the modern period and I have a particular interest in the Welsh language in Cardiff. My work in this area covers the history of the language, its culture and literature and also its role in the formation of identity in a varied and multi-ethnic city. Place names form another related field of interest.

My teaching focuses primarily on medieval literature and the relationship between language and heritage. More generally, I am interested in the role of Welsh in the education system and the different types of Welsh used in contemporary Wales.

Biography

I was born and raised in Tywyn, Meirionnydd, and educated in the town's schools. After that I went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, to study Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.

Having graduated, I spent three years at Aberystwyth as a research fellow at the University of Wales Center for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. There I worked on editing the work of the Poets of the Nobility. I studied for a doctorate at the University of Wales Aberystwyth and completed a dissertation on the work of the fifteenth poet Rhys Goch Eryri. I published an edition of his work in 2007.

I came to Cardiff in 1998 as a lecturer and am now head of the School of Welsh.

Based on my interest in place names I am a member of the Welsh Language Commissioner's Place Names Standardization Panel and also chair of the Welsh Place-Name Society.

Professional memberships

Academic positions

  • 2017–          Head of School, School of Welsh, Cardiff University
  • 2015–          Reader, School of Welsh, Cardiff University
  • 2008–2015  Senior Lecturer, School of Welsh, Cardiff University
  • 1998–2008  Lecturer, School of Welsh, Cardiff University
  • 1995–1998  Research Fellow, University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth

Speaking engagements

  • ‘“Llanw a thrai" (“ebb and flow"): place-names and language shift on the Gwent Levels’, Living Levels Landscape Partnership, 25 March 2021
  • 'John Davies, Mallwyd a Rhyddiaith Anglicanaidd yr Ail Ganrif ar Bymtheg [John Davies, Mallwyd and Anglican Prose of the Seventeenth Century]', 'Gofal ein Gwinllan' Weminar, St Padarn's Institute, The Church in Wales, 20 March 2021
  • ‘Dr John Davies, Mallwyd a Beibl 1620’(‘Dr John Davies, Mallwyd and the 1620 Bible’), 1620 Bible Symposium, National Library of Wales, 11 November 2020
  • '"'Pedair Cainc y Mabinogi" ("The Four Branches of the Mabinogi"): the greatest medieval Welsh tales?', Tywyn and District History Society, 15 February 2021
  • ‘“Croywiaith Ceredigion”': hanes llenyddiaeth Ceredigion hyd at c. 1700 (‘“Croywiaith Ceredigion”: the history of literature in Ceredigion until c. 1700’), National Eisteddfod of Wales, 5 August 2020
  • ‘Cecru, Celtiaid a'r crachach: hanesion o hen eisteddfodau Caerdydd’ (‘Quarrels, Celts and the crachach: tales from old Cardiff eisteddfods’), National Eisteddfod of Wales, 1 June 2020
  • ‘Enwau Cymraeg Strydoedd Caerdydd: ddoe, heddiw ac yfory’ (‘Welsh-language Street Names in Cardiff: yesterday, today and tomorrow'), Menter Caerdydd, Menter Bro Morgannwg and Cardiff Bilingual Forum, 7 May 2020
  • ‘“Ni wn ymadrawdd o ffrawdd Ffrangeg” (“I don’t know a phrase of passionate French”): multilingualism, humour and narratives of language in medieval Wales’, Cardiff Centre for Medieval Studies, 18 February 2020
  • ‘Hiwmor a hunaniaeth yn Llyfr Amrywiaeth Syr Siôn Prys' (‘Humour and identity in Sir John Prise's Commonplace Book'), The XVIth International Congress of Celtic Studies, Bangor University, 26 July 2019
  • ‘Patrons and poets in and around medieval Tywyn’, Tywyn and District History Society, 17 June 2019
  • ‘Cyfieithu, cyfaddasu a disodli: y berthynas rhwng enwau lleoedd Cymraeg a Saesneg yng Nghaerdydd’ (‘Translation, adaptation and displacement: the relationship between Welsh and English place names in Cardiff’), The Hedley Gibbard Memorial Lecture, Cymdeithas Cyfieithwyr Cymru, 9 August 2018
  • ‘Cofiannu Caerdydd: bywgraffiadau’r brifddinas’ (‘Commemorating Cardiff: the city’s biographies’), The Annual Literary Lecture, National Eisteddfod of Wales, 8 August 2018
  • ‘“Y Cwt Gwyddau” gan Dafydd ap Gwilym’ (‘Dafydd ap Gwilym’s “The Goose Shed”’), Poets of the Nobility Forum, University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth, 19 May 2018

Committees and reviewing

Publications

We are currently unable to retrieve the list of publications. Visit our institutional repository.

Teaching

BA in Welsh

  • Herio’r Traddodiad Llenyddol [Challenging the Literary Tradition]
  • Dafydd ap Gwilym
  • Treftadaeth a Thwristiaeth [Heritage and Tourism]
  • Blas ar Ymchwil [An Introduction to Research]
  • Ymchwilio Estynedig [Extended Research Project]

MA in Welsh and Celtic Studies

  • Academic and Professional Research
  • Exploring Welsh and Celtic Studies
  • Extended Research Project

Supervision

I am interested in supervising PhD students in the areas of:

  • medieval Welsh literature
  • language and heritage
  • place names

Past projects

Areas of expertise

External profiles