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Michael Patrick O'Connor, Ordinary Professor of Semitic Languages and Chairman of the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at The Catholic University of America, died on Saturday, June 16, 2007.
Michael O'Connor was born in Lackawanna, New York, on April 7, 1950, and grew up in Orchard Park, outside Buffalo, where he attended the Calasanctius Preparatory School, a school for gifted boys. In his university career he earned four academic degrees in quick succession: an A.B. in English and Classics from the University of Notre Dame in 1970, an M. A. in writing from the University of British Columbia in 1972, an A.M. in ancient Near Eastern studies from the University of Michigan in 1974, and a Ph.D. in ancient Near Eastern languages from that university in 1978, under the guidance of David Noel Freedman.
After receiving his doctorate, he worked for some fifteen years as an independent scholar, writer, and editor. His volume of poems, Pandary, appeared in 1989. From 1985 to 1989 he served as consultant to the Aphasia Research Center of Boston University Medical School's Department of Neurology, editing and contributing to a three-volume study on agrammatic aphasia. He was the assistant general editor for the Anchor Bible during 19771980. More widely during these years, his editorial skills were put to good use by the...