Publications of Robert J. O’Hara

Visit the Collegiate Way blog for news and views on higher education.

In addition to the more traditionally published works listed below, I have also administered major scholarly discussion groups and comprehensive academic websites, authored hundreds of higher education news bulletins and college newsletters, and written newspaper natural history columns and genealogical essays, many of which (I like to think) have some enduring value. For additional information about my professional background please see my curriculum vitae.

Selected Publications

O’Hara, Robert J. 2007.
‘To gather from the air a live tradition.’ Inside Higher Ed (insidehighered.com), 21 December. (Essay on the King’s College Festival of Lessons and Carols and on the value of tradition in education, published online by one of the principal U.S. education news sources. Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 2007.
Against theme halls. Student Affairs Leader, 35(22): 1–2, 15 November. (Invited essay on the importance of residential diversity in higher education. Available in Adobe portable document format.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 2007.
Essay review of On the Origin of Phyla by James W. Valentine. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 21(1): 109–112.

O’Hara, Robert J. 2006.
Hogwarts U. Inside Higher Ed (insidehighered.com), 28 November. (Essay on the residential college movement, published online by one of the principal U.S. education news sources. Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 2006.
Essay review of Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History by David Christian. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 20(1): 117–120.

O’Hara, Robert J. 2004.
Pasta with a side order of philosophy, please. London Times Higher Education Supplement, 20 August 2004. (Invited essay on residential colleges and higher education reform.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 2001.
How to build a residential college. Planning for Higher Education, 30(2): 52–57. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 1999.
Peabody Park: spring and the wild side of campus life. UNCG Magazine, 1(2): 22–23. (Photo essay.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 1997.
Population thinking and tree thinking in systematics. Zoologica Scripta, 26(4): 323–329. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 1996.
Mapping the space of time: temporal representation in the historical sciences. Pp. 7–17 in: New Perspectives on the History of Life: Systematic Biology as Historical Narrative (M.T. Ghiselin & G. Pinna, eds.). Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences, 20. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

Robinson, Peter M.W., & Robert J. O’Hara. 1996.
Cladistic analysis of an Old Norse manuscript tradition. Research in Humanities Computing, 4: 115–137.

O’Hara, Robert J. 1996.
Trees of history in systematics and philology. Memorie della Società Italiana di Scienze Naturali e del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano, 27(1): 81–88. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

Williams, Ernest E., Hugh Rand, A. Stanley Rand, & Robert J. O’Hara. 1995.
A computer approach to the comparison and identification of species in difficult taxonomic groups. Breviora, 502: 1–47.

O’Hara, Robert J. 1994.
Evolutionary history and the species problem. American Zoologist, 34(1): 12–22. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 1994.
Review of Classification, Evolution, and the Nature of Biology by Alec L. Panchen. Isis, 85(1): 182–183.

O’Hara, Robert J. 1994.
Vita: Chauncey Wright. Brief life of an “indolent genius”: 1830–1875. Harvard Magazine, 96(4): 42–43.

O’Hara, Robert J. 1993.
Systematic generalization, historical fate, and the species problem. Systematic Biology, 42(3): 231–246. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

O’Hara, Robert J., & Peter M.W. Robinson. 1993.
Computer-assisted methods of stemmatic analysis. Occasional Papers of the Canterbury Tales Project, 1: 53–74. (Usefulness of cladistic analysis to the study of manuscript traditions.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 1993.
Review of Cognitive Foundations of Natural History: Towards an Anthropology of Science by Scott Atran. Forest and Conservation History, 37(1): 43.

O’Hara, Robert J. 1992.
Telling the tree: narrative representation and the study of evolutionary history. Biology and Philosophy, 7(2): 135–160. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

Richmond, Charles W. 1992.
The Richmond Index to the Genera and Species of Birds (R.J. O’Hara, ed.). Boston: G.K. Hall & Co. (Major collection of 108 microfiche.)

Robinson, Peter M.W., & Robert J. O’Hara. 1992.
Report on the Textual Criticism Challenge 1991. Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 3(4): 331–337. (Report on the application of cladistic analysis to the study of manuscript traditions.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 1991.
Essay review of Phylogeny and Classification of Birds by Charles G. Sibley and Jon E. Ahlquist. Auk, 108(4): 990–994. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 1991.
Review of No Woman Tenderfoot: Florence Merriam Bailey, Pioneer Naturalist by Harriet Kofalk. Archives of Natural History, 18(3): 415.

O’Hara, Robert J. 1991.
Representations of the natural system in the nineteenth century. Biology and Philosophy, 6(2): 255–274. [Reprinted 1996 as pp. 164–183 in: Picturing Knowledge: Historical and Philosophical Problems Concerning the Use of Art in Science (B.S. Baigrie, ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.]

O’Hara, Robert J. 1988.
Diagrammatic classifications of birds, 1819–1901: views of the natural system in 19th-century British ornithology. Pp. 2746–2759 in: Acta XIX Congressus Internationalis Ornithologici (H. Ouellet, ed.). Ottawa: National Museum of Natural Sciences. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

O’Hara, Robert J. 1988.
Homage to Clio, or, toward an historical philosophy for evolutionary biology. Systematic Zoology, 37(2): 142–155. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)

O’Hara, Robert J., David R. Maddison, & Peter F. Stevens. 1988.
Crisis in systematics. Science, 241(4863): 275–276. (Letter to the editor.)

Mayr, Ernst, & Robert J. O’Hara. 1986.
The biogeographic evidence supporting the Pleistocene forest refuge hypothesis. Evolution, 40(1): 55–67. (Also available in Adobe portable document format.)