User:Buidhe/Michael Newton (academic)

Michael Newton is a minority language activist and Scottish Gaelic scholar. He was born in 1965 and raised in a bilingual (Spanish and English speaking) community in Southern California. He embarked on a career in computer game design as a teenager, becoming one of the creators of the pioneering game Dungeon Master at FTL Games. After graduating magna cum laude from the University of San Diego in 1990 with a degree in computer science, he switched his focus to Scottish Gaelic studies and in 1998 was awarded a PhD in Celtic Studies from the University of Edinburgh.

Newton has produced a number of scholarly projects regarding Scottish Gaelic, including books, articles, edited volumes, blog posts, a video documentary, and digital humanities multimedia projects exploring Celtic language poets in North America, for which he has received numerous awards, including the Coralys Award in 2002 and 2003 and the inaugural 2014 Saltire Award from St. Andrews University Scottish Heritage Center. He received the International Award at the 2018 Scottish Gaelic Awards in Glasgow for his many contributions to Gaelic.

He is a co-founder and board member of Urras Gàidhlig nan Stàitean Aonaichte (Scottish Gaelic Foundation of the United States).

Much of his work challenges the negative stereotypes that have been projected onto Gaelic society by anglophone authorities and anglocentric sources, drawing on the methods of post-colonial studies. He is one of the only scholars currently studying the legacy of the Scottish Gaelic immigrant communities of the Americas, especially by locating and analyzing the remains of Scottish Gaelic literature.

Seanchaidh na Coille
The author Diana Gabaldon, who wrote the Outlander series, wrote a preface to Seanchaidh na Coille. The book was shortlisted for the 2016 Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing and was selected as one of the Best Scottish Books of 2015 by the Association of Scottish Literary Studies.

Books

 * Seanchaidh na Coille / The Memory-Keeper of the Forest: Anthology of Scottish-Gaelic Literature of Canada (2015)
 * The Naughty Little Book of Gaelic (2014)
 * (ed.) Celts in the Americas (2013)
 * Warriors of the Word: The World of the Scottish Highlanders (2009) — nominated for 2009 Katharine Briggs (the Folklore Society)
 * (ed.) Dùthchas nan Gàidheal: Selected Essays of John MacInnes (2006) — 2006 Research Book of the Year of the Saltire Society
 * We're Indians Sure Enough: The Legacy of the Scottish Highlanders in the United States (2001)