Brian Patrick McGuire

Family

He is the son of sports journalist and publicity director of the San Francisco 49ers, Dan Francis McGuire (1917–83) and high school teacher Phyllis Evelyn Goemmer (1916-2009), the fourth of nine children. He married on 3 January 1970 Ann Kirstin Pedersen (b. 1947) and in 1980 adopted Christian Sung Dan Pedersen from Korea.

Education and academic career

McGuire obtained in 1968 a B.A. in history and Latin from the University of California at Berkeley, with the highest grade point average in his graduating class. He became a Fulbright Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford University, England, where he was supervised by Sir Richard Southern and in 1971 was granted a D.Phil. in history. In 1970, he was a tutor in “The Great Books of Western Civilisation” at Saint John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland.

McGuire emigrated 1971 to Denmark and worked for an electronics firm, and from 1971-72 taught high school. He moved on to the Institute for History, Copenhagen University, where he in 1972-74 had the function of post-doctoral fellow.

Eventually McGuire became a Danish citizen in 1976. From 1975 to 1996, he was a Lecturer at the Institute for Greek and Latin, Copenhagen University. In 1996 McGuire moved to Roskilde University, as professor in medieval history. He is since 2012 professor emeritus in history.

McGuire was in 2011 elected Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.

Grassroots activity

Together with his wife Ann Pedersen he founded in 1985 the Jyderup Refugee Friends and from 1986-95 was spokesperson for the National Association of Danish Refugee Friends. In 1987 he received the P.H. Prize (in memory of architect and cultural critic Poul Henningsen) and in 1993 the annual prize of the Legal Politics Association (Retspolitisk Forening).

Published works

He has authored 17 books and edited 8 others. Since 2005 most of his publications have been in Danish, but the English-language works since then include: