Education

D.Phil., Christ Church, Oxford University
Viva held and passed, no corrections, 23/06/2006
[download summary here (pdf, 78kb)]

M.St. in English, Christ Church, Oxford University, 1998
with Distinction

M.A. in English, Warwick University, 1995

B.A. in English and American Literature, Warwick University, 1994
First Class Honours

Publications

Books & edited works

• Extreme Metaphors: Selected Interviews with J. G. Ballard, 1967–2008, co-edited with Simon Sellars (London: Fourth Estate, 2012) - please see the 'contact' section for enquiries.
• A Concordance to Anti-Oedipus (2012)
• A Concordance to A Thousand Plateaus (2009)
• Thomas Pynchon: Schizophrenia & Social Control, co-edited with Eric Cassidy. Special edition of Pynchon Notes 34-35 (1994) [review] [review]

Articles

• "Skeuomorphology and Quotation", in Creativity of Finding: Figurations of the Quotation, eds. Martin Roussel and Christina Borkenhagen (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2012)
• "A Formula of Fear", (forthcoming) in Facets of Fear, ed. Marion Gymnich (2012)
• "Traumatic Irony: A Model of Unintentional Disclosure", (forthcoming) in Narrating Violence, Trauma and Loss, eds. Anja Muller-Wood and Ulrike Tancke (2012)
• [with Alex Burghart] "From Ramesses to Liberty: a genealogy of apocalyptic imagery in Anglo-American literature and film", (forthcoming) in Fear and Endings, eds. Susan Cahill and John O'Neill (UCD, 2010)
• "The Metronome of Consciousness", Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 22 (2010), 435-48.
• "Reading Posture and Gesture in Ballard’s Fictions", (forthcoming) in J. G. Ballard: Visions and Revisions, eds. Jeannette Baxter and Rowland Wymer (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
• "Deleuze and the Art of Psychosis", in Deleuzian Events: Writing|History, ed. Hanjo Berressem & Leyla Haferkamp (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2009), pp. 270-85.
• "'You are Hochhaus!': Ballard in Berlin. An Interview with Paul Plamper and Niklas Goldbach" Ballardian 9 Jan 2008.
• "What Goes 'Ping' in Beckett's Ping?", Notes & Queries 54.2 (June 2007), 184-86.
• "On The Phrase 'Ass Backwards'", Pynchon Notes 50-51 (2002), 158-165.
• "Capitalism and Culture: Bourdieu's Field Theory", Amerikastudien/American Studies 45.1, (2000), 43-53.
• - repr. in Chaos/Control:Complexity CD Rom (ZiF:University of Bielefeld, 2000)
• - repr. in Chaos/Control: Complexity [Chaos Theory & Cultural Production] CD Rom + book, ed. Philip Hofmann (Hamburg: Lit Verlag, 2002)
• "On The Line Of Flight: Pynchon's Entropy Machine", Pynchon Notes 34-35: Thomas Pynchon: Schizophrenia & Social Control, eds. Dan O'Hara & Eric Cassidy (1994), 56-69.
• [with Eric Cassidy] "Thomas Pynchon: Schizophrenia & Social Control", Pynchon Notes 34-35 (1994), 7-10.

Translation articles

• "Nous vivons l’ère des réalismes imaginaires". Translated from the French, from Univers (1977) (forthcoming) Ballardian.
• "The Odyssey of a Young Ulysses". Translated from the French, from Le Nouvel Observateur (1988) (forthcoming) Ballardian.
• "Living with Ballard: Claire Walsh at Kosmopolis". Translated from the Spanish, from El Periódico and El País Cataluña (forthcoming) Ballardian.
• "‘Le passé composé de J. G. Ballard’: JGB on Empire of the Sun". Translated from the French, from Magazine Littéraire 219 (1985). Ballardian 11 March 2009.
• "'Content in their little prisons': J. G. Ballard on 'The Towers'". Translated from the French, from Magazine Littéraire 96 (1975). Ballardian 21 November 2008.
• "'Violence without end': An Interview with J. G. Ballard". Translated from the German, from Die Zeit, 8 September 2005. Ballardian 24 June 2008.
• "'I really would not want to fuck George W. Bush!': A Conversation with J. G. Ballard". Translated from the German, from Das Science Fiction Jahr 2007, eds. Sascha Mamczak and Wolfgang Jeschke (2007). Ballardian 17 May 2008.
• "'Der Visionär des Phantastischen': An Interview with J. G. Ballard". Translated from the German, from J. G. Ballard: Der Visionär des Phantastischen, ed. Joachim Körber (1985). Ballardian 4 May 2008.
• "'It would be a mistake to write about the future': J. G. Ballard in Conversation with Jörg Krichbaum and Rein A. Zondergeld". Translated from the German, from Quarber Merkur (1976/79). Ballardian 23 March 2008.
• "Munich Round-Up: Interview with J. G. Ballard". Translated from the German, from Munich Round Up (1968). Ballardian 15 March 2008.

There's also the matter of the O(rphan)d(rift>) book, Cyberpositive (London: Cabinet Press, 1995), which was probably the first Deleuzean technotheory novel, and for which I was fortunate enough, as a member of that collective, to be one of the catalysts/vectors/author-functions.

Lectures, Conference Papers, Media Work

Guest Lectures

• "Emergence and the Synthetic Aesthetic", at Lincoln Social Computing Research Centre, University of Lincoln, 6 June 2012
• "Emergent Design: How the Skeuomorph helps us to think about Non-Human Agency", at NEXT Berlin 2012, 8-9 May 2012
• "Skeuomorphs, evolution, and technology", at TEDx Manchester, 13 February 2012
• "Robot Futures: beyond the valley". Lirec event at the Science Museum, London, 1 December 2011
• "The Machine", at USC, Los Angeles, 29-30 September 2011 [postponed]
• "Non-Human Agencies: A Skeuomorphological Account of Virtual Futures". Keynote welcome address at Virtual Futures, University of Warwick, 18-19 June 2011
• "From Skeuomorph to Schizomorph". Special Guest address at l'Haute école d'art et de design, Genève (Geneva University of Art and Design), 2 March 2011
• "Skeuomorphology and the Evolution of Literary Quotation", at Creativity of Finding: Figurations of the Quotation, Universität zu Köln, 4-6 November 2010
• Workshop on key concepts in Deleuze for researchers in the humanities, UCD/Humanities Institute of Ireland, 5 April 2007
• "Deleuze and the Machine in Schizophrenic Art", University College Dublin, 4 April 2007
• "How to Perceive an Abstract Machine" (Lecture and workshop), University of Cologne, 1 February 2007 [poster]
• "Deleuze & Literature: Some Types of Abstract Machine", University of Cologne, 14 December 2006 [poster]
• "The Recent History of the Sound Machine", at New Technologies 95: Technoculture, Nottingham Media Centre, November 1995

Conference papers

• "Deleuze, Diagrams, and Art Brut", at Colóquio Deleuze & Guattari: Filosofia Prática, Palácio Gustavo Capanema, Rio de Janeiro, 30 August - 2 September 2011
• "A Formula of Fear: Hollywood’s Return to Romanticism", at Who's afraid of...? Facets of Fear in Anglophone Literature and Media, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, 24-5 September 2010
• "Traumatic Irony: A Model of Unintentional Disclosure", at Contemporary British Fiction: Narrating Violence, Trauma and Loss, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, 17-18 September 2010
• "Ruins of statues and the dystopian landscape", with Alex Burghart, at «Utopie, ville et paysage dans le monde anglophone», l'Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, 11-12 June 2010
• "The Machinery Underground: Subterranean Space and Modernist Utopias", at Modernism and Utopia: Convergences in the Arts, University of Birmingham, April 2010
• Launch of "A Concordance to Deleuze & Guattari", at ConnectDeleuze, University of Cologne, 10-11 August 2009
• "Reading Posture and Gesture in Ballard's Novels", at From Shanghai to Shepperton: An International Conference on J. G. Ballard, University of East Anglia, 5-6 May 2007
• "Deleuze and the Art of Psychosis", at Deleuzian Events: Writing|History, University of Cologne, June 2005
• "Antihumanism and the Machine", at the Faculty of English, University of Oxford, October 1998
• "Science and Blindness", at Chaos/Control: Complexity, ZiF, University of Bielefeld, June 1998
• "Pynchon's Entropy Machine", at Postfaction: The Step Beyond Postmodernism and its Fictions, University of Warwick, November 1995
• "The Anatomy of the Zone", at Thomas Pynchon: Schizophrenia & Social Control, University of Warwick, November 1994

Video, radio, media, podcasts, interviews

• First Five: Dan O'Hara, 28 August 2012
• "Virtual Futures 2011 - Dr. Dan O'Hara. Non-Human Agencies: A Skeuomorphological Account of Virtual Futures", video at Virtual Futures on Vimeo, 8 September 2011
• "Dan O'Hara on Skeuomorphs, JG Ballard, Transhumanism, and the "eradication of individual identity" Through Technology", Rhizome.org, 5 July 2011
• "Understanding the Virtual", live chat for Warwick Knowledge, transcription at Warwick Knowledge, 29 June 2011
• "Virtual Futures 2.0'11: How Did We Get Here?: Amy McLeod interviews Dan O'Hara", podcast at Warwick Knowledge, June 2011
• "Can You Live Without The Internet?", interviewed by Annie Othen, BBC Radio, 17 June 2011
• "The History of Virtual Futures", video at Virtual Futures, Warwick Knowledge, July 2011
• "Reading Posture and Gesture in Ballard's Novels", audio at J. G. Ballard: The Terminal Tapes, May 2007
• "Virtual Futures '95", BBC radio, May 1995

Other lectures, media work

• "How bots are taking over the world", The Guardian, with Luke Robert Mason, 30 March 2012
• "O. Henry", Zeitzeichen, WDR, 5 June 2010
• "Elite - ein Begriff mit vielen Facetten", Podiumsdiskussion, Katholische Hochschulgemeinde Köln, 9 June 2009
• "Oxford u. Köln", Unitas, 9 January 2009
• [with O(rphan)d(rift>)] "Death Simstim", at Virtual Futures '95, University of Warwick, May 1995
• [with Fredd Evans] "Sub-Apocrypha" (spoken word and sound performance) at Virtual Futures '95, University of Warwick, May 1995

Conference Organization

Virtual Futures '95. University of Warwick, May 1995. Conference co-producer.

Thomas Pynchon: Schizophrenia & Social Control. University of Warwick, November 1994. Conference co-producer.

Virtual Futures '94. University of Warwick, May 1994

Awards

British Academy AHRB major award, 1998-2000

Hugh Pilkington Scholar, Christ Church, Oxford, 1997-1998

British Academy AHRB major award, 1996-1997

Research Interests

Materialism in art and literature

Mechanism & vitalism

Skeuomorphism

Gilles Deleuze

J.G. Ballard

Samuel Beckett

Art Brut, understood to include both fine art and first-person narratives

Irony

Ruin-sentiment and Apocalypse

Teaching

American Literature, 1800-present

British Literature, 1789-present

Genre fiction, particularly science fiction and crime fiction

Philosophy and literature

Previous positions

Tutor in English Literature, Oxford University:

2005 Fiction in English (Lady Margaret Hall)
2004 American Poetry & Fiction (Lady Margaret Hall)
2004 American Literature (St. Hilda's College)
2003 Modern British Novel
--"--The Gothic Novel
--"--Victorian Fiction (Wadham College)
2001 20th Century American Novel (seminar series, Christ Church)
1998 Modernism (Corpus Christi College)
1997 Science Fiction (Wadham College)

Other teaching:

2004 Modern British Fiction (Oakland University/Brasenose College)
2003 Postmodern fiction
--"--Detective Fiction (Stanford University, Oxford Programme)
2003 Tolkien, Lewis, Williams (Gordon College, Oxford Programme)
2001-06 Expository Writing (ASA/Lady Margaret Hall)
2000 Detective fiction (Oakland University/Corpus Christi College)
1997 Thomas Pynchon (guest leader, graduate seminar, King's College, London)