Ph.D., Princeton University
Retired May 2010
David O’Connell taught in the Department from 1988 to 2010. He served as Chair for five years and taught both Medieval and Twentieth Century literature courses as well as all the courses in Business French and Translation. In 1992, the French Government inducted him its Ordre des Palmes Académiques (Order of the Academic Palms), with the rank of “chevalier,” or “knight,” in recognition of his many critical works published to that date as well as for other contributions to the profession. From 1979 until 2001, as Field Editor of Twayne's World Authors Series monographs, an imprint of Macmillan / Simon & Schuster, he edited more than eighty books on various French literary and cultural topics. Among his book publications in more recent years were Michel de Saint Pierre, a Catholic Novelist at the Crossroads and François Mauriac Revisited. Dr. O’Connell is also engaged in a continually developing body of research stemming from his interest in Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, resulting in the publication of The Irish Roots of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind and Furl That Banner: The Life of Abram J. Ryan, the Poet-Priest of the South. His work-in-progress, entitled Wilbur G. Kurtz, Georgia’s Premier Historical Painter, which will appear in 2013, is an extension of that research interest.