Sean Lawrence O'Sullivan Obituary (1965 - 2023)

Sean O’Sullivan died on October 17, after surviving 16 months with brain cancer. His wife and his mother were at his side. Born in Bari, Italy, in 1965 to Larry O’Sullivan, a writer, and Gwen (Mahle) O’Sullivan Romagnoli, an English language instructor, he spent his early childhood in Rome. At 10, he and his mother moved to Cambridge, MA. Sean graduated from Commonwealth School (Boston) in 1983, where his classmates included his future wife, Hannah Eigerman, and his lifelong friends Doug Hsiao and Myra Paci. Sean spent 1986-87 interning for The Boston Globe, sports desk, which published a very young man’s stories on a wide variety of sports, excelling in coverage of the Red Sox. Sean remained fiercely loyal to Boston, and passed onto his children an avid love of sports at every level. Graduating from Princeton University, summa cum laude, in 1988, Sean was also awarded a Marshall Scholarship and earned an additional degree from the University of Bristol (UK), where he studied film and theatre production. In 1990, he reconnected with his high-school classmate, Hannah, and they were married in 1996, in Newburyport, MA. They first lived in New Haven, CT, where Sean took a PhD in English at Yale, class of 2001. He went on to teach as an assistant professor at Clemson University and then at The Ohio State University, where he earned tenure as an associate professor and served his academic community for seventeen years. His scholarship connected the fields of film, television, narrative theory, 19th-Century British literature, and serial storytelling. He wrote a book on British filmmaker Mike Leigh, who became a friend, and academic articles on television series such as The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Deadwood. He bubbled over with ideas, and wrote about the work of Charles Dickens, and director Ingmar Bergman. Sean’s proudest lifework was helping to raise his two children, Rory, born 2003, and Eve, born 2006. They shared a profound love and he dedicated himself to being their constant support. After his diagnosis in June 2022, Sean endured grueling treatment. He was determined to teach one last class in spring 2023, and, to both their joy, his son, an OSU undergraduate, was able to attend. Days before his death, from his hospital bed, Sean proudly watched his daughter walk down the field in her school’s senior soccer celebration. In addition to his wife, children, and mother, all of Columbus, OH, Sean leaves behind scores of devoted friends, colleagues, and relatives. A Celebration of Life service will be held at 3:00pm, Saturday, December 2 at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at OSU, Sullivant Hall 220, 1813 N High Street (Billy Ireland entrance) Columbus, Ohio. Donations in Sean’s memory may be made to Commonwealth School (www.commschool.org/give)