Brian O. Murdoch was born in London, England, on 26 June 1944, the son of Cecil O. and Jane A. Murdoch. He gained his B.A. first class honours from the University of Exeter, and his PhD from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1969.
From 1968 to 1970, Murdoch was lecturer in German at the University of Glasgow. From 1970 to 1972 he was Assistant Professor of German at the University of Illinois at Chicago. From 1972 to 2007, he served as lecturer, senior lecturer and from 1991 professor of German at the University of Stirling. He received an A.Mus. from Trinity College London in 1982, was Visiting Fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1989, received a Litt.D. from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1992, and was a Fellow at the University of Oxford in 1994 and 2002.
Murdoch retired from Stirling as Emeritus Professor in 2007, but is still involved with the school. He continues to write and research. Murdoch is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a member of the editorial board of the Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts series, published by Brill.
Murdoch teaches early Germanic and Celtic literature, on which he has authored and edited a number of notable works. He has translated works of medieval literature, such as Kudrun, into the English language.
Murdoch is particularly interested in religious texts.His earliest work is concerned with the Altdeutsche Genesis and other German Adam Books, later exploring the same theme in other vernaculars. In several hundred published works he established the centrality of the “popular” (as opposed to the exegetical) understanding of the “protoplasts” in far wider areas of medieval thought than had hitherto been appreciated. He demonstrated that an awareness of Adam motifs allows an entirely new reading of some of the classics of medieval literature, most notably Hartmann’s Gregorius. The broader impact of these studies has been to raise awareness of vernacular Bible traditions in many aspects of Medieval Studies.
Reference
1) Contemporary Authors. 23 September 2002.
2) The Writers Directory. 2018.
3) University of Stirling.
“All Quiet On The Western Front”. The Southland Times. Fairfax New Zealand. 11 December 2008. Retrieved 8 August 2010