John O'Brien

[email protected]

Location

Waterford

Campus

Cork Road campus

Room name or number FTG 16A
Phone +353 51 302271

Biography

Research interests

Alcohol and other psychoactive substances, consumption, sociological theory, classical philosophy, Irish society, memory and commemoration

Education

2011 PhD from the Department of Sociology, University College Cork, Ireland. Title: 'Intoxication and Civilization: Drinking Culture in the Process of State Formation'.

2002 MSocSci (sociology) from the Department of Sociology, University College Dublin. First class honours.

2001 BSocSci (sociology and social policy) from the School of Philosophy, Sociology and Social Work, University College Dublin. First class honours.

PhD Students Currently Supervised

Irena Loveikaite (Year 4). Thesis title: How can I become a woman?' Media discourses and the formation of feminine identity among teenage girls in Ireland: a qualitative study.PhD Students Currently Supervised

Kirsty Doyle (Year 3). Thesis title: Alcohol Related Public Order Offences in the Night Time Economy. WIT Scholarship

Kelly Fitzgerald (Year 1). Thesis title: Exploration of Site-Specific Engagement and Cultural Heritage Produce of Difficult Past Remembrances in Ireland through Cultural Memory.

Pat Coughlan (commencing September 2018) IRC Postgraduate Scholar

Teaching Positions

2008- present: Lecturer in sociology, Department of Applied Arts, Waterford Institute of Technology.

2003-8: Tutor in sociology, Oscail National Distance Education Centre, Dublin City University.

2003-6: Tutor in sociology, Department of Sociology, University College Cork.

2001-2: Tutor in sociology, Department of Sociology, University College Dublin.

BOOKS

O’Brien, John (2018) States of Intoxication. London: Routledge.

O'Brien, John & Horvath, Agnes (2013) The Statesman as the Politics of Limits and the Liminal. Cork: Tivoli Press.

CHAPTERS/JOURNAL ARTICLES

O'Brien, John (2018) 'The Subversion of Worldviews and Possibility of ‘Virtuous Drinking’ through Public Health Policy', in Horvath, A. & Roman, C (eds.) Divinisation and Technology. London: Routledge.

O’Brien, John, Doyle, K. and Maguire, N. (2017) ‘Precarity in the Night-Time Economy’, Irish Journal of Anthropology, 19(1), 19-30.

O’Brien, John (2015) ‘Commemoration in the Civilizing Process: Reconciliation, Melancholy and Abstraction in Contemporary Memorializing’, International Political Anthropology, 2(14), 99-116.

O’Brien, John (2015) ‘The Battle of the Clarence Hotel’, Irish Journal of Anthropology (in press).

O’Brien, John (2015) Graceful Living: The Experience of Unemployment and the Built Environment, in Boland, Tom & Griffin, Ray (eds.) The Sociology of Unemployment. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

O’Brien, John and Griffin, Ray (2015) ‘On the Statistical Composition of Unemployment’, Boland, Tom & Griffin, Ray (eds.) The Sociology of Unemployment. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

O’Brien, J., Doyle, K. and Maguire, N. (2014) ‘Trends in Public Order Offences’, Irish Journal of Sociology 22(2), 138-142.

O’Brien, John (2009) ‘Intoxication and Civilization: Drinking Culture and the Politicization of Everyday Life’, in International Political Anthropology 2 (2) 221-238.

RESEARCH FUNDING

Current applications under assessment

EU COST Action. Vice Chair of proposed management committee. Moral Foundations of Economy and Society

Leverhulme Trust. Co-Investigator. An ethno-mimetic deep mapping of the NI-ROI border in the context of UKexit

Funding Secured

2016. IRC New Foundations Research Funding. Value €9,800; 2015. IRC Enterprise Partnership Scheme. Value €48,000; 2015. IRC New Foundations Research Funding. Value €5,140; 2014. Commissioned Research. Evaluation Study of 12-Step programme. Value €22,250; 2013. WIT PhD Scholarship. Value €50,000.

I have experience in applying for European funding also.

2014 HERA: The Uses of the Past, leading the application: ‘Dealing with Difficult Pasts: The Politics of Memory & the Legacies of Unequal International Relations’. Unsuccessful

2014 Horizon 2020: The Cultural Legacy of War in Contemporary Europe, leading the application: ‘Marking War: Power and Meaning in Ritual Practices Commemorating Political Violence and War’. Unsuccessful.

2017. Horizon 2020: Interpreting Border Traumas through Creative Educational Methodologies. Unsuccessful.

Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of the Moral Foundations of Economy and Society

Member of the Sociological Association of Ireland. Former Committee Member

Member of the British Sociological Association

Member of the Drinking Studies Network

I have worked with the office of the President of Ireland on the Ethics Initiative, in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of the Moral Foundations of Economy and Society.

I have acted as a peer reviewer for the following journals: Memory Studies, Capital and ClassEditorial board member of the journal International Political Anthropology

On 13th November 2015, I was interviewed on the Moncrieff Show, Newstalk, on the topic ‘What are the Moral Foundations of the Irish State’, which was focused on my research on commemoration.

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/Moncrieff/Highlights_from_Moncrieff/113121/What_were_the_moral_foundations_of_the_Irish_state

Conferences Organised

Commemoration: Improving Mutual Understanding Among Europeans by Working Through Troubled Pasts. 8th-9th June, at Ghan House, Carlingford. Funded by an IRC New Foundations Award.

Commemoration: Contexts and Concepts. 3rd-4th September 2015, at University College Cork. Organised under the auspices of the President of Ireland’s Ethics Initiative. Funded by an IRC New Foundations Award.

Commemoration: Contexts and Concepts. 10th October 2014, at University College Cork. Organised under the auspices of the President of Ireland’s Ethics Initiative.

PhD Summer Schools I am teaching staff on

Cultural Trauma PhD Summer Schol, Lesvos, Greece. July 2017, 2018

Economy and Society PhD Summer School, Blackwater Castle, Cork. May 2014-18.

International Political Anthropology Summer School, Acquapendente, Italy. June 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018

Theory and Philosophy Summer School, Blackwater Castle, Cork. May 2013

Conference Papers

Drinking Studies Conference. Leicester

‘States of Intoxication: Understanding Pathological Alcohol Use through ‘Big Structures, Large Processes and Huge Comparisons’’, presented at Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization, Frankfurt, October 2017.

‘Commemoration: Improving Mutual Understanding Among Europeans by Working Through Troubled Pasts?’, presented at Commemoration: Improving Mutual Understanding Among Europeans by Working Through Troubled Pasts?, Carlingford, June 2016.

‘Commemoration in the Civilising Process: Reconciliation, Melancholy and abstraction, in contemporary memorialising’, presented at Commemoration, Contexts and Concepts, University College Cork, October 2015.

‘Contradictory Humours: Ecstasy, Vitality and Suffering in the Night-Time Economy’, presented at the Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization Conference. Aalborg, Denmark. October 2015

‘The Battle of the Clarence Hotel’, presented at the Anthropology Association of Ireland Annual Conference. University College Cork. March 2015.

‘Between Enchantment and Sacrifice: Harnessing the in Dionsyian the Night-Time Economy’, presented at the Economy and Society Summer School, October 2014.

‘Forgetting, Remembering and Re-Remembering in the Night-Time Economy’, presented at the Anthropology Association of Ireland Annual Conference. Sligo Institute of Technology. February 2014.

'Alcohol-Related Public Order Offences in the Night Time Economy in Contemporary Ireland', presented at British Sociological Association, Alcohol Study Group- Drinking Dilemmas: Space, Culture and Identity. Cardiff Metropolitan University. December 2013.

'Austere Beauty: The Aesthetics of Privilege and Underprivilege in the Built Environment in Contemporary Ireland', presented at International Political Anthropology Symposium. Waterford Institute of Technology. November 2013.

International Social Theory Consortium Conference. June 2012. St. Augustine, Florida. Paper: Philosophers and Statesmen: Intellectual Integrity and Good Order.

International Social Theory Consortium. June 2011. Cork, Ireland. Paper: Recovering Ideals for the Present through the Ancient Greeks

Beyond the Buzz Word: Contemporary Drugs Problems Conference. June 2011. Prato, Italy. Paper: Booming and Crashing: Psychoactive Substances in Ireland 1995-2010

Sociological Association of Ireland Conference. May 2011. Cork, Ireland. Paper: The Irish and Intoxication.

Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization. October 2010. Aalborg, Denmark. Paper: 'Going Beyond Biology: Cultural and Historical Explanations for Alcohol Related Problems'

Alcoholism: Historical and Social Issues, International Conference, Alba Iulia, Romania 2009. Paper: The Irish and Intoxication

International Political Anthropology Symposium 2009. Paper: Dionysus and Apollo: On Some Tensions between Integration at the Community and State Level.

Sociological Association of Ireland Annual Conference 2008. Paper: Intoxication and Civilization.

International Political Anthropology Symposium 2008. Paper: Theoretical Perspectives on Drinking Culture: Play, Liminality and Gift-Exchange.

Sociological Association of Ireland Postgraduate Conference 2007. Paper: Drinking Culture and the Politicization of Everyday Life.

Sociological Association of Ireland Postgraduate Conference 2006. Paper: Anthropological Perspectives on Drinking Culture.

Allihies Workshop on Planning, Environment and Quality of Life 2006. Paper: Play, Nihilism and Modernity.

Allihies Workshop on Health, Holism and Sustainable Development 2005: Civilizational Crises and Cultural Change. Paper: Is Guinness Good For You? Advertising and the Shift from a Noble to Trickster Ethic in Management.

Allihies Workshop on Interpretive Political Sociology 2004. Paper: The Foundational Myth of Dionysus: Liminality, Tricksters and Sacrifice.

Sociological Association of Ireland Annual Conference 2003. Paper: The Civilising of the European Garden.