Ruth Hilary Finnegan (b. 30 December 1933) is a

Northern Irish Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...

linguistic

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

and Emeritus Professor of the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

Biography

Finnegan was born in 1933 in

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...

. She attended Londonderry High School (now

Foyle College Foyle College is a co-educational non-denominational voluntary grammar school in Derry, Northern Ireland. The school's legal name is Foyle and Londonderry College. In 1976, two local schools, Foyle College and Londonderry High School, merged und ...

and

The Mount School, York , motto_translation = Faithfulness in small things , established = 1785 , closed = , type = Independent day and boarding school , religious_affiliation = Religious Society of Fr ...

after which she studied '' Literae humaniores'' at

the University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

and followed this with her PhD in Anthropology. Her thesis, submitted in 1963 from

Nuffield College, Oxford Nuffield College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is a graduate college and specialises in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. Nuffield is one of Oxford's newer co ...

, was titled "The Limba of Sierra Leone with special reference to their folktales or "oral literature"". After teaching social anthropology at the

University of Zimbabwe The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) is a public university in Harare, Zimbabwe. It opened in 1952 as the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and was initially affiliated with the University of London. It was later renamed the University o ...

in 1963-1964 and sociology at the

University of Ibadan The University of Ibadan (UI) is a public research university in Ibadan, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1948 as University College Ibadan, one of many colleges within the University of London. It became an independent university in 196 ...

in 1965-1967, Finnegan joined the Open University in 1969 as one of the founding members of academic staff. She was a lecturer in sociology there until 1972, became

reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

in comparative social institutes in 1982 and then professor in 1988. Finnegan was a visiting professor in anthropology at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1989. Finnegan was elected as Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

in 1996. She received an OBE in the

2000 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2000 for the United Kingdom and New Zealand were announced on 31 December 1999, to celebrate the year passed and mark the beginning of 2000. The ''Honours list'' is a list of people who have been awarded one of the various or ...

for services to Social Sciences. She is an honorary fellow of

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

. In 2016 she received the

Rivers Memorial Medal The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

from the

Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

Select publications

*Finnegan, R. 2018. "Alternative consciousness", in ''International Encyclopaedia of Anthropology''. Wiley. *Finnegan, R. (ed) 2017. ''Entrancement: The Consciousness of Dreaming, Music and the World''. University of Wales Press. *Finnegan, R. 2015. ''Where is Language?: An Anthropologist's Questions on Language, Literature and Performance''. Bloomsbury. *Finnegan, R. 2014. "Play is serious: children's games, verbal art and creativity in Africa", ''International Journal of Play''. *Finnegan, R. 2012. ''Oral Literature in Africa.'' Cambridge: Open Book Publishers
open access and downloadable for free
*Finnegan, R. (ed) 2005. ''Participating in the Knowledge Society: Researchers Beyond the University Walls''. Palgrave Macmillan. *Finnegan, R. 2002. ''Communicating: The Multiple Modes of Human Interconnection''. Routledge. *Finnegan, R. 1992. ''Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context'', 2nd edn. Bloomington IN, Indiana University Press. *Finnegan, R. 1989. ''The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town''., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. *Finnegan, R. 1970. ''Oral literature in Africa''. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Finnegan, Ruth Living people British women academics 1933 births Fellows of the British Academy Alumni of Nuffield College, Oxford Officers of the Order of the British Empire Academics from Northern Ireland Writers from Derry (city) Academics of the Open University Women anthropologists British women anthropologists