Professor Stephen Matterson B.A. (Sunderland Poly), D.Phil. (Sunderland Poly), F.T.C.D
Professor
Head of Discipline
My teaching and research is primarily in American Literature, both as a generalist and with a variety of specialised interests within the field.
At undergraduate level, I teach a second-year course in 20th Century American Literature, and am involved also in our first-year course American Genres. Sophister options I’ve taught include: American Autobiography; Poetry of the United States; Reading Race, and Literature of the American South. Most of my postgraduate teaching is for our M Phil in Literature of the Americas, for which I teach an option on The Western (shared with the M Phil in Popular Literature).
My supervision for M Litt and Ph D encompasses a wide range of topics, usually with a focus on American poetry and fiction. Recently completed PhDs have been on: Herman Melville and Levinas; Shirley Jackson and American Gothic; Wallace Stevens and intertextuality; Cold War representations by DeLillo and Updike; the philosophical tradition of Wallace Stevens, and Sylvia Plath and the nature of influence. I’m currently supervising research on: Joyce Carol Oates; Philip Roth; Flannery O’Connor; Ken Kesey and Paul Auster. I’ve also acted as mentor for IRCHSS-funded postdoctoral work on the American suburban gothic and on American Irish ethnicity in the 19th century.
I’m currently working on a monograph on Herman Melville, which focuses on clothing and identity. Forthcoming publications include articles on Henry James and the supernatural, the representation of the 1950s in the Back to the Future trilogy, a co-edited collection of commissioned essays on aberration in modern and contemporary poetry, and a revised edition of Studying Poetry (with Darryl Jones).
Recent book publications include: an annotated edition of The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman (Worsdworth, 2006); Rebound: The American Poetry Book, a collection of critical essays co-edited with Michael Hinds (Rodopi, 2004), and American Literature: The Essential Glossary (Edward Arnold and Oxford University Press, 2003). Recently published articles include: “Dreaming about the Dead: The Master” in Colm Tóibín: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Paul Delaney (Liffey Press, 2008); “Edgar Allan Poe and the Orang-Utan” in On Literature and Science, ed. Philip Coleman (Four Courts Press, 2007); “He Lived Like A Rat: The Trickster In The Dream Songs” in After Thirty Falls: Essays on John Berryman, eds Philip McGowan and Philip Coleman (Rodopi, 2007); “New Configurations: The Framing of Pocahontas” in The Irish Reader: Essays for John Devitt, eds Michael Hinds, Peter Denman and Margaret Kelleher (Otior Press, 2006); “Washington Irving’s American Scene: A Tour on the Prairies” in Exploring the American Literary West, eds David Rio, Amaia Ibarraran, Jose Miguel Santamaria and M. Felisa Lopez (University of the Basque Country Press);“An American Who Wasn’t an American: W. H. Auden” in America in the Course of Human Events, eds Josef Jarab, Marcel Arbeit, and Jenel Virden (VU University Press 2006) and “The New Criticism” in Literary Theory and Criticism: An Oxford Guide, ed. Patricia Waugh (Oxford University Press, 2006).
Professional activities include acting as external course examiner for numerous universities in Ireland and the UK, being an external reader for various publishers and journals, and serving as one of representatives of Irish Universities on the English Course Committee Senior Cycle for the National Council for Curriculum Development. I am also very involved with the Irish Association for American Studies and was the co-founder of the Association’s Journal. I am currently Treasurer of the European Association of American Studies (for the second time) and was part of the team organizing the major EAAS conference held in Dublin in March 2010.
Contact:
Professor Stephen Matterson
Room 4014
Arts Building
Trinity College
Dublin 2
Tel: + 353 1 896 1879
e-mail: smttrson@tcd.ie