About
I am an independent scholar researching the social and cultural history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Wales. My research mainly focuses on the cultural history of ideas, including the histories of folklore and folkloristics, the development of national identity, scholarly cultures, and international networks of knowledge exchange. However, I have a wider range of research interests including the connections between the mid-Wales woollen industry and the transatlantic slave economy and the history of leisure culture – particularly salmon fishing. By day, I work at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, and so have an interest in, and knowledge of, the Welsh historical built environment and the wider heritage industry. Education
PhD in History from the University of Wales, Newport – 2012
PGCertHE in Developing Professional Practice in Higher Education from University of Wales, Newport – 2011
BA in History with a Minor in Classics from Westminster College, Fulton, MO – 2008 Publications
Edited Volumes
The Correspondence of Thomas Stephens: Revolutionising Welsh Scholarship in the Mid-Nineteenth Century through Knowledge Exchange. ed by Adam N. Coward. Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications. 2020.
Edmund Jones,
A Spiritual Botanology: Shewing What of God Appears in the Herbs of the Earth; Together with some of their Natural Virtues and Uses. ed. by Adam N. Coward. Newport: South Wales Record Society. 2017.
Research Articles, Chapters, and Introductions
‘
Spiritual Journeys: “Purposeful Travel” and the Writings of the Reverend Edmund Jones (1702–1793)‘,
Studies in Travel Writing, 22: 3 (September 2018), 254–73.
‘Introduction’ to Edmund Jones,
A Spiritual Botanology: Shewing What of God Appears in the Herbs of the Earth; Together with some of their Natural Virtues and Uses. ed. by Adam N. Coward. Newport: South Wales Record Society. 2017. pp. 1–33.
‘The Life and Times of the “Old Prophet”: Saint-like Attributes of the Rev Edmund Jones (1702–1793)’. in Madeline Gray (ed.).
Rewriting Holiness: Reconfiguring Vitae, Re-signifying Cults. London: Kings College London Medieval Studies. 2017. pp. 205–225.
‘Exiled Trojans or the Sons of Gomer: Wales’s Origins in the Long Eighteenth Century’. in Lotte Jensen (ed.).
The Roots of Nationalism: National Identity Formation in Early Modern Europe, 1600–1815. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 2016. pp. 167–181. Open Access Online.
‘
English Anglers, Welsh Salmon, and Social Justice: The Politics of Conservation in Mid-nineteenth-century Wales’.
Welsh History Review. 27: 4 (December 2015). 730–754. Available Online.
‘
Edmund Jones and the Pwcca’r Trwyn’.
Folklore. 126: 2 (July 2015). 177–95. Available Online.
‘
Maintaining the “Ancient British Opinions of Spirits”?: The “Welshness” of Edmund Jones “Yr Hen Broffwyd” (1702–1793)’.
Welsh History Review. 26: 4 (December 2013). 535–59. Available Online.
‘“
When an American is Drunk he Brags; and when a Welshman is Drunk he Sings”: American Identity and the Celebration of Welshness in Wirt Sikes’s British Goblins (1880)’.
North American Journal of Welsh Studies. XIII (2013). 30–49. Open Access Online.
‘Rejecting Mother’s Blessing: The Absence of the Fairy in the Welsh Search for National Identity’.
Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium. XXIX (2009, published 2011). 57–69. Available Online.
Open Access Resources:
With Dr Marion Löffler. Transcriptions of Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MSS 964–5 E, Transcriptions of over four-hundred letters written to the Merthyr Tydfil chemist and scholar, Thomas Stephens (1821–1875). Available through the National Library of Wales catalogue.
https://archives.library.wales/transcripts/NLW_964_i_a_ii.pdf
https://archives.library.wales/transcripts/NLW_965_i_a_ii.pdfMemberships
Higher Education Academy, Fellow – 2012
