Maurice J. O'Sullivan


Maurice J. "Socky" O'Sullivan is a historian and literary scholar who specialises in the history of Florida. As the Kenneth Curry Professor of Literature at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. Professor O'Sullivan has lectured and published extensively on the state's art and history, religion and politics, literature and culture.
He and Rollins History Professor Jack Lane have been recognized as founders of the interdisciplinary Florida Studies movement with their book The Florida Reader, the first comprehensive collection of writings about Florida, and through teachers' workshops for the Florida Endowment for the Humanities and the Florida Humanities Council.

Early life

Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Maurice and Agnes O'Sullivan, Professor O'Sullivan attended St. Peter's Prep before receiving his bachelor's degree from Fairfield University and his Master's and Doctoral degrees from Case Western Reserve University.

Career

After several years at Ohio State, he joined the Rollins faculty in 1975. At Rollins he has served as President of the Faculty and Chair of the English Department and Humanities Division.
Director of the Florida Center for the Shakespeare Studies, in 2005, he became publisher of the Angel Alley Press at Rollins and is a senior partner in the Dan McGuinnis Irish Pubs in Nashville. He serves on the board of the Florida Historical Society. Professor O'Sullivan currently lives in Orlando.
O'Sullivan has been featured at FreedomFest in 2007, 2008, and 2009. He is a member of the Catholic Church.
O'Sullivan has modeled himself to be someone who takes pride in getting involved in both educating his community and leading it. Throughout his career, he has given roughly 300 lectures, presentations, and workshops on Florida Studies, Irish culture, popular culture, rhetoric, literature, the Bible, English art, and Shakespeare. His dedication to all of these subjects shows in his achievements and participation within various communities and activities, as well as his written works.

Books

O'Sullivan has worked on numerous books with academic colleagues and on his own pertaining to Florida history and culture, a subject he is most passionate and knowledgeable about.
Below is a list of books that he has published throughout the years.
  • with Jack Lane. The Reader. : Pineapple Press, 1991. Reissued in paperback Winter 1995.
  • with Jane Anderson Jones. Florida in Poetry: A History of the Imagination. Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 1995.
  • Elizabeth Smith's The Book of Job. Delmar, New York: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1996.
  • with Steve Glassman. Crime Fiction and Film in the Sunshine State: Florida Noir. Bowling Green: Popular Culture Press, 1997. --Reissued by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2014.
  • With Jack Lane. A Twentieth Century American Reader 1900 – 1945. Washington, DC. United States Information Agency.1999.
  • Shakespeare's Other Lives. London and Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1997.
  • With Jack Lane. A Twentieth Century American Reader. Washington, D.C.: United States Information Agency, 1999.
  • with Steve Glassman. Orange Pulp: Florida Stories of Mayhem, Murder, and Mystery. Gainseville: University of Florida Press, 2000.
  • With Steve Glassman. Bad Boys and Bad Girls in the Badlands: Crime Fiction and Film in the Southwest. Bowling Green. Popular Culture Press, 2001.
  • with Stuart Omans. Shakespeare Plays the Classroom. Pineapple Press. Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 2003.
  • The Books of Job. Cambridge Scholars Press. 2008.
  • With Wenxian Zhang, eds, A Trip to Florida for Health and Sport: The Lost Florida Novel of Cyrus Parkhurst Condit. Florida Historical Society, 2009.
  • Executive Editor. Florida Studies. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
  • With Wenxian Zhang and Yiqi Yu. A Winter in Sunshine . Shanghai: Shanghai University Press, 2012.
  • With Bruce Stephenson. Florida’s Golden Age 1880-1930. Cocoa, FL: The Florida Historical Society Press, 2018.

Additional Publications

In addition to the books he's published, O'Sullivan has produced many articles and book chapters throughout his professional career. He has also used his expertise to provide context and translation for historical information. As of most recent, he has had a hand in producing and writing within documentary films, all of which will be listed below.

Article/Book Chapters

  1. “An Ecstasy of Delight and Admiration: McCall and Audubon in Florida.” Florida Studies. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2018. 77-87.
  2. “A Rambling Pedigree: The Eclectic Cultural Embrace of Florida’s Golden Age,” Florida’s Golden Age.” Cocoa, FL: The Florida Historical Society Press, 2018. 219-244.
  3. “Florida’s Garbage Inspires Poetic Masterpiece, Forum, 16-17.
  4. “When Languages Collide,” Forum, 32-33.
  5. “Florida’s African Soul and Soil,” Forum, 30-33.
  6. “Theodore Pratt and the Fiction of Nostalgia,” The Journal of Florida Literature. 24, 1-24.
  7. “The Poetry of Bugs,” Forum, 28-30.
  8. "Interpreting Florida: Its Nineteenth Century Literary Heritage." Florida Historical Quarterly. 94.3. 320-365.
  9. “Mining Our Essential Truths,” Forum, 26-28.
  10. “Echoes in the Wind,” Forum 32-34.
  11. “Extegrity, Or the Academic Midway,” European Journal of Educational Sciences. 2.1, 42-54.
  12. “In Memoriam: Patrick Smith,” Florida Historical Quarterly 92.3, 652-660.
  13. “Troublesome Neighbors: The English in Florida,” Florida Studies, ed. Paul D. Reich. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. pp. 61–87.
  14. “Poetry and Pie, Forum: The Magazine of the Florida Humanities Council,” 38.3, 32-34.
  15. “Have You Not Hard of Floryda?,” Forum: The Magazine of the Florida Humanities Council, 38.2
  16. “The Double Helix: The Idea of Spain in Florida’s Literary Imagination 1513-2013”/”La doble hélice: La idea de España en la imaginación literaria de Florida 1513-2013” in Culturally La Florida: Spain’s New World Legacy: Proceedings of the Conference May 3–6, 2012. St. Augustine: Flagler College, 2012.
  17. “El dedo del gigante: La Florida del Inca.” Florida Studies: Proceedings of the 2011 Florida College English Conference. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012.
  19. “La Relación de Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca,” Florida Studies: Proceedings of the 2010 Florida College English Association, ed. Paul D. Reich. Newcastle upon Tyne. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2011.
  20. “Riders of the Purple Surf: Florida’s Cracker Cowboys,” Florida Studies: Proceedings of the 2009 Florida College English Association, ed. Claudia Slate and Carole Policy
  21. “Artes Illiberales: The Four Myths of Liberal Education,” Change Magazine
  22. “Coming of Age in Antebellum Florida,” Florida Studies: Proceedings of the 2008 Annual Meeting for the Florida College English Association. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.
  23. With Jack C. Lane. “My Dear Mrs. Baskin: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Hamilton Holt,” The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal of Literature. Vol XVII, 1-8.
  24. “Florida Picaresque,” Studies: Proceedings of the 2007 English Association 33-43.
  25. “Atala: le premier roman de Floride,” Florida Studies: Proceedings of the 2006 Florida College English Association, 28-34.
  26. “Ecocriticism,” International Journal of the Humanities, 5.6, 119-124.
  27. “Jesus in the Middle Kingdom,” America, 196.6 18-19.
  28. “Bucklin Moon and My Brother Bill,” Faulkner Journal of Japan, 72-86.
  29. “Many Voices Thrive,” Forum 27.3, 22-25.
  30. “His Letters Bear His Mind” Re-Writing Shakespeare,” Shakespeare Plays the Classroom.
  31. “Musing on Waters, Dark and Lively” Forum
  32. “''It’s Later Than You Think: The Memoirs of Bucklin Moon,” Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal of Florida Literature, 11, 71-81.
  33. “''Tony Hillerman and the Navajo Way,” Bad Boys and Bad Girls of the Badlands
  34. "A Bibliography of Southwestern Crime Fiction,” Bad Boys and Bad Girls of the Badlands.
  35. "Ecological Noir," Florida Noir.
  36. "Fairy Tale Noir," Florida Noir.
  37. with Lynne Phillips, "A Bibliography of Mysteries, 1895-1996," Florida Noir.
  38. "'Subtly of Herself Contemplative': The Legends of Lilith," Studies in the Humanities.
  39. "A Stream of Stories," Forum.
  40. with Jane Jones, "Florida Poetry" in The Booklover's Guide to Florida, ed. Kevin McCarthy.
  41. "Florida's Detectives" in The Booklover's Guide to Florida, ed. Kevin McCarthy.
  42. With Jack Lane, "Zora Neale Hurston at Rollins," in Zora in Florida, ed. Kathryn Seidel and Steve Glassman, 130-145.
  43. "Shakespeare, Johnson, and Wolsey: A Community of Mind," Sydney Studies in English, 14, 13-20.
  44. "Postlapsarians: Louis Auchincloss's The Covenant," Dutch Quarterly Review, 18.1, 38-45.
  45. "Shakespeare's Other Lives," Shakespeare Quarterly, 32.2, 133‑153.
  46. "The Group Journal," The Journal of General Education 38.4, 288‑300.
  47. "The Duties of Slaves: The Slave Bible of 1807," International Review of History and Political Science, 24.3, 1-9.
  48. "'How Now! What Means This Passion at His Name?'" American Notes and Queries, 24.9‑10.
  49. "Dutchman's Demons: Lula and Lilith," Notes on Modern American Literature, 10.1.
  50. "Swift's Pedro de Mendez," American Notes and Queries, 22.9-10, .
  51. "Garp Unparadised: Biblical Echoes in John Irving's The World According to Garp," Notes on Modern American Literature,.2,.
  52. "'To His Very Faults': Notes on Dryden, Johnson, and Juvenal's Third Satire," Classical and Modern Literature, 2.3, 161‑69.
  53. Running Division on the Groundwork: Dryden's Theory of Translation," Neophilologus 64.1 144‑59.
  54. "Of Souls and Pottage: James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of Ex-Coloured Man," CLA Journal, 23.1, 60‑70.
  55. "Native Genius for Disunion: Marianne Moore's 'Spenser's Ireland,' Concerning Poetry, 7.1, 42‑47.
  56. "Slaughterhouse-Five: Kurt Vonnegut's Anti‑Memoirs," Essays in Literature, 3.2, 244‑50.
  57. "Ex Alieno Ingenio Poeta: Johnson's Translation of Pope's Messiah," Philological Quarterly, 54.3, 579‑591.
  58. "Up Against the Shambles' Gate: Robert Browning and the Loss of Leaders," Mosaic, 7.2, 101‑108.
  59. "Matthew Arnold: Un Milton jeune et voyageant," Milton Quarterly, 7.3, 82‑84.
  60. "The Mask of Allusion in Robert Hayden's 'The Diver,'" CLA Journal, 17.1, 85‑92.
  61. with Todd M. Leiber, "'Native Sons'? Black Students on Black Literature, Black American Literature Forum, 5.1, 3‑7.

Translations

  1. Jacques le Moyne de Morgues, "Paintings of the Timucua." In The Florida Reader, ed. Maurice O'Sullivan and Jack C. Lane, pp. 83–92.
  2. François-Réne de Chateaubriand, Atala. In The Florida Reader, pp. 92–94.
  3. Nicholas Le Challeux, "Huitain." In Florida in Poetry
  4. Alexandre Duval. Shakespeare Amoreaux. In Shakespeare's Other Lives., pp. 26–43.

Films

  1. Executive Producer and Writer. Have You Not Hard of Floryda?. 2012. Winner of 2012 David C. Brotemarkle Award from the Florida Historical Society for Outstanding Creative Work about Florida History
  2. Executive Producer and Writer. Romeo and Juliet.. 2010.
  3. Executive Producer and Co-Writer, Getting Lear. : 2008.

Miscellaneous Projects

  1. With Carol Frost, editors. The Rollins Book of Verse 1885 – 2010. Winter Park: Angel Alley Press, 2010.
  2. Contributor, Natural Florida in Word, Image and Deed. Florida Humanities Council CD-ROM developed by the Florida Defenders of the Environmenbt, Inc. 2007.
  3. Executive Editor, Fiat Lux: Teaching in Paradise
  4. Executive Producer, World Premiere of Bromo Bombastes. On Common Ground XI: The International Lawrence Durrell Conference, Corfu..
  5. Editor, Re-Englishing: A Workbook for Teachers.

Awards

In 2002, the Rollins Trustees awarded him the William Fremont Blackman Award for distinguished service. While at Rollins, he has received two silver medals in the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education National Teacher of the Year Program, the Bornstein Award for Scholarship, the Arthur Vining Davis Award, the Hamilton Holt Teaching Award, and two Hugh McKean Awards.
He has also served twice as President of the Florida College English Association, which gave him its Distinguished Colleague Award in 2003, and as President of the College English Association in 2006.
Full Table of Awards
AwardYear
NDEA Fellow, Case Western Reserve University1966-69
University Fellow, Case Western Reserve University1966-69
Arthur Vining Davis Fellow 1979-80
Omicron Delta Kappa Award1982
Wilbur Dorsett Fellowship 1983
Distinguished Teaching Award, Rollins College1985
Silver Medal Award, Council for The Advancement and Support of Education National Professor of the Year Award 1986
Silver Medal Award, Council for The Advancement and Support of Education National Professor of the Year Award 1987
Hugh and Jeannette McKean Grant1988
Wildcat Pride Award 1990
Rollins College Commencement Speaker 1990
Florida Historical Society's Charlton Tebeau Award for the Outstanding Book of the Year1992
The Hugh F. McKean Award 1994
Edgar Nominee 1998
Hugh F. McKean Award 2000
Rhea Marsh Smith Winter Park History Research Grant2001
William Fremont Blackman Medal 2002
Distinguished Colleague Award, Florida College English Association 2003
Bornstein Award for Faculty Scholarship2005
Florida Historical Society's Patrick Smith Award2010
Florida Historical Society's David C. Brotemarkle Award for Creative Achievement2012
Florida Magazine Association, Charlie Award for Writing Excellence 2015
Grand Marshal, Winter Park St. Patrick's Day Parade2017

Service

This is a CV.
It has clearly been written and prepared by the subject himself.
O'Sullivan has held various positions within multiple Rollins College Committees, ranging from advising to chair positions. His commitment to service goes beyond these positions, as he often advocates for student-led organizations throughout college semesters. The list below provides specific and official positions and the years held related to Rollins Committees.
Position/CommitteeYear held
Chair/ Orientation Committee1976-77
Faculty Advisor/ Kappa Alpha Theta sorority1977-80,1988-1995
Chair/ Student Life Committee1977-78
Faculty Advisor/ English Association1979-1981
Secretary/ Council on Administration and Budget1980-81
Faculty Advisor/ Off-Campus Student Association Founding Advisor1980-88
College Marshal1980–Present
Chair/ Teaching/Learning Committee1981-85
Faculty Advisor/ Pre-Law Society1982-89
Chair/ Continuing Education Committee1984-86
Chair/ Curriculum Committee1986-87
Chair/ Humanities Division1986-2006
President of the Faculty1980–present
Chair/ Academic Affairs Committee1993-94
Co-Chair, Areas of Distinction Committee, College Planning Committee, Chair/ Curriculum Task Force1996-97
Founding Advisor/ Sigma Tau Delta Honorary Society1998-2008
Faculty Advisor/ Tau Kappa Epsilon2009-2011
Parliamentarian/ Arts and Sciences Faculty2011-15
Chair/ Faculty Evaluation Committee2012-13
Member, Senate Executive Committee, Executive Council, College Senate, Faculty Evaluation Committee?