Our People
Dr Anthony Harris
Dean of Degrees, Research Member of Common Room
Graduate Research Assistant, A Consolidated Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry (CLASP)
Faculty of English
MA (Oxon), MA (Res) Reading, PhD (Cantab)
Anthony (Tony) Harris is a Graduate Research Assistant on the Consolidated Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry project (CLASP) under Professor Andy Orchard (Principal Investigator). CLASP is considering all the surviving verse of Anglo-Saxon England, composed in Old English and Anglo-Latin, over more than four centuries (c. 670–1100 CE). Output from the project will be a comprehensive online and interactive library to facilitate the identification of idiosyncratic features of sound, metre, spellings, diction, syntax, formulas, themes, and genres across the corpus.
Originally Tony studied at the Oxford Department for Continuing Education as a mature student, subsequently completed an Oxford MA in English, an MA (Res) in medieval studies, and his PhD from the University of Cambridge (ASNaC). His doctoral thesis considered the mathematical ‘lexis’ of tables of computus (the calculation of the date of Easter). Prior to entering academia Tony was a computer scientist and during his doctoral research he developed a number of software tools to validate and construct Easter tables of which one can be found here. Tony is interested in the connections between different languages, and the use of the natural sciences as tools to help us interpret early texts. He is currently working on a book proposal on aspects of the medieval calendar and various other forthcoming publications for peer review.