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Dr. Brian Cliff
Visiting Research Fellow, English

Publications and Further Research Outputs

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Liz Nugent's Dispersed Narratives in, editor(s)Brian Cliff and Elizabeth Mannion , Guilt Rules All: Mysteries, Detectives, and Crime in Irish Fiction, Syracuse, New York, Syracuse University Press, 2020, [Brian Cliff] Book Chapter, 2020

Brian Cliff and Elizabeth Mannion (eds), Guilt Rules All: Mysteries, Detectives, and Crime in Irish Fiction, Syracuse, New York, Syracuse University Press, 2020 Book, 2020

Class and Multiplicity in 'One by One in the Darkness' in, editor(s)Anne Fogarty and Marisol Morales-Ladrón , Deirdre Madden: New Critical Perspectives, Manchester, UK, Manchester University Press, 2019, [Brian Cliff] Book Chapter, 2019

Genre and Uncertainty in Tana French's Gothic Dublin Mysteries in, editor(s)Bernice Murphy and Stephen Matterson , Twenty-First Century Popular Fiction, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2018, [Brian Cliff] Book Chapter, 2018

Brian Cliff, Irish Crime Fiction, London, Palgrave, 2018 Book, 2018

A 'honeycomb world': John Connolly's Charlie Parker Series in, editor(s)Elizabeth Mannion , The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel, London, Palgrave, 2016, pp31 - 44, [Brian Cliff] Book Chapter, 2016

Brian Cliff, Charlie Parker's 'honeycomb world': John Connolly and Contemporary Irish Fiction, Annual Conference of ACIS (American Conference for Irish Studies) and CAIS (Canadian Association of Irish Studies), University College Dublin, 11-14 June 2014, 2014 Conference Paper, 2014

Keelin Shanley, 'segment on "Morning Edition"', RTÉ 1, (Morning Edition), Dublin, RTÉ 1, 2013, - Broadcast, 2013

Sinéad Crowley, '"Crime Writing Festival at Trinity College This Weekend"', Morning Ireland, RTÉ Radio One, Dublin, RTÉ Radio One, 2013, - Broadcast, 2013

Arminta Wallace, '"Killer Instinct: A Golden Age of Irish Crime Fiction"', Irish Times, Dublin, Irish Times, 2013, - Broadcast, 2013

Brian Cliff, Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival, 22-23 November 2013, 2013, Trinity College Dublin, Brian Cliff Meetings /Conferences Organised, 2013

Brian Cliff, rev. of James H. Murphy (ed.), THE OXFORD HISTORY OF THE IRISH BOOK, VOL IV., Notes & Queries, 258/60, (1), 2013, p167 - 168 Review Article, 2013

Brian Cliff and Nicholas Grene (eds.), Synge and Edwardian Ireland, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, xviii + 257 pp.pp Book, 2012

Brian Cliff, First Look at a Major Writer, Irish Literary Supplement, 32, (1), 2012, p22 - 23 Review Article, 2012

"Introduction." in, editor(s)Brian Cliff and Nicholas Grene , Synge & Edwardian Ireland, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp1 - 6, [Brian Cliff and Nicholas Grene] Book Chapter, 2012

"Insights, Interviews, and More" in, editor(s)Brian Cliff and Emilie Pine , Hood: A Novel, New York, HarperCollins, 2011, pp1 - 16, [Brian Cliff and Emilie Pine] Book Chapter, 2011

"Emma Donoghue." in, editor(s)Renee Fox and Greg Londe , "The Cracked Looking Glass": An Exhibition of the Leonard L. Milberg Collection of Irish Prose at Princeton University, Princeton, Princeton University Library, 2011, pp184 - 187, [Brian Cliff] Book Chapter, 2011

Brian Cliff and Emilie Pine (eds.), and Emma Donoghue, Hood: A Novel, by Emma Donoghue, New York, HarperCollins, 2011 Book, 2011

"'The Pillowman': A New Story to Tell." in, editor(s)Richard Russell , Martin McDonagh: A Casebook, London, Routledge, 2007, pp131 - 148, [Brian Cliff] Book Chapter, 2007

"Muldoon, Paul. (1951-).", Jeffrey H. Gray, James McCorkle, Mary Balkun, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry, Westport, CT, Greenwood, 2006, pp1100 - 1104, [Brian Cliff] Item in dictionary or encyclopaedia, etc, 2006

Brian Cliff, "Community, the Desire to Belong, and Contemporary Irish Literature.", The Irish Review, 34, (Spring 2006), 2006, p114 - 129 Journal Article, 2006 URL

Brian Cliff and Éibhear Walshe, Representing the Troubles: Texts and Images, 1970-2000, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2004 Book, 2004

Brian Cliff, Review of Contexts for Frank McGuinness's Drama, by Helen Heusner Lojek., Review of Contexts for Frank McGuinness's Drama , by Helen Lojek , New Hibernia Review, 8, (4), 2004, p158-160 Review, 2004

'Sigerson, George', Brian Lalor, The Encyclopedia of Ireland, Dublin/New Haven, CT, Gill and MacMillan/Yale UP, 2003, [Brian Cliff] Item in dictionary or encyclopaedia, etc, 2003

Brian Cliff, "'Whither thou goest': The Possibility of Community in Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme and Someone Who'll Watch Over Me.", Foilsiú: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Irish Studies, 3, (1), 2003, p33 - 45 Journal Article, 2003

'Crock of Gold, The', Brian Lalor, The Encyclopedia of Ireland, Dublin/New Haven, CT, Gill and MacMillan/Yale UP, 2003, [Brian Cliff] Item in dictionary or encyclopaedia, etc, 2003

"Coole, Co. Galway.", Brian Lalor, The Encyclopedia of Ireland, Dublin/New Haven, CT, Gill and MacMillan/Yale UP, 2003, [Brian Cliff] Item in dictionary or encyclopaedia, etc, 2003

Brian Cliff, Review of 'In the Chair: Interviews with Poets from the North of Ireland', Review of In the Chair: Interviews with Poets from the North of Ireland, by John Broan , Nua: Studies in Contemporary Irish Writing, IV, (1-2), 2003, p309-313 Review, 2003

Brian Cliff, "Paul Muldoon's Community 'on the cusp': Auden and MacNeice in the Manuscripts for '7, Middagh Street.'" , Contemporary Literature, 44, (4), 2003, p613 - 636 Journal Article, 2003 URL

"Crossing Through the 'Borderlands'." in, editor(s)Helen Lojek , The Theatre of Frank McGuinness: Stages of Mutability, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2002, pp1 - 15, [Brian Cliff] Book Chapter, 2002

"'as assiduously advertised': Publicizing The 1899 Irish Literary Theatre Season." in, editor(s)Alan Gillis and Aaron Kelly , Critical Ireland: New Essays in Literature and Culture, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2001, pp30 - 36, [Brian Cliff] Book Chapter, 2001

"On Language and Violence." in, editor(s)Roberta Kremer , Memory and Mastery: Primo Levi as Writer and Witness , Albany, SUNY Press, 2001, pp105 - 114, [Brian Cliff] Book Chapter, 2001

College Green: A Review of Arts and Literature, Fall 1999, (1999), Brian Cliff and Michael Darcy, [eds.] Journal, 1999

Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications

Brian Cliff, Review of Bottling it Up, by J. Rooney, Review of Bottling it Up, by John P. Rooney , International Fiction Review, 32, 2005, p128-129 Review, 2005

Research Expertise

Projects

  • Title
    • "Community and Contemporary Irish Literature"
  • Title
    • Synge and Edwardian Ireland
  • Summary
    • This is a book of essays, edited by Nicholas Grene and Brian Cliff. The project has received very favorable reviews from the readers at Oxford University Press, and is awaiting the decision of the Delegates. The brief period of creative maturity of J.M. Synge from his first plays in 1902 to his premature death in 1909 almost exactly coincided with the years of Edward VII's reign. That has been the starting point for this volume of essays, which uses the work of Synge as entry point for an exploration of the cultural life of Edwardian Ireland. While the Edwardian period has long been considered a distinctive period in Britain, no comparable attention has ever been paid to these years in Ireland. The achievements of the Irish Literary Revival and the national theatre movement have been almost always viewed as part of the broad nationalist resurgence, what Yeats called the 'long gestation', leading up to Easter 1916. A first aim of this book is to change that perspective. Edwardian Ireland is shown to be a period of rapid modernization, the backward-looking preoccupation with orality and folk culture met by the new technologies of mass communication (Morash), the print culture in which Synge participated part of a wider network of late imperial world readership (Allen). This is a time of a new self-conscious sociological awareness in Ireland shown in writers as diverse as George Moore, W.B. Yeats and D.P. Moran (Brown) a period that created its own special sort of 'celebrity culture' (McDiarmid). Whereas the Irish literary and theatrical revival has often been considered in isolation, essays here on the arts and crafts movement (Gordon Bowe), the musical developments of the time (White), and the interaction between Irish and English theatre (Frazier) provide a much more comprehensive set of contexts. We are made aware also of views of Ireland of the time very different from those of the revivalists in the comic scenes of of Somerville and Ross and Percy French (Stevens). Synge is of course best known as a dramatist, and several of the essays in this volume will be concerned with his theatrical practice. But there will be a special concentration in the book on his less discussed prose and on the ethnographic dimensions of his photographs (Carville). It is in these parts of his work that his engagement with the Ireland of his time can be most significantly seen. Though often regarded as an apolitical writer, an image fostered by Yeats, his travel writings reflect a troubled relationship with social problems, his romantic resistance to modernity in The Aran Islands in conflict with more accurate observations of contemporary conditions (Fitzpatrick). His 'local politics', in fact, avoiding attention to well-known political personalities, can be considered exemplary (Mathews). Synge was a highly controversial figure in his own time and beyond, provoking different sorts of criticism in the Edwardian and post-Edwardian periods. But he continued to haunt those who opposed him, whether a political antagonist such as Padraig Pearse (Markey), or James Joyce, often viewed as his aesthetic antithesis, who was forced to come to imaginative terms with Synge throughout his own creative work (Fogarty) This is a book that will change readers' sense of the significance of Synge, and illuminate in a quite new way the era of Edwardian Ireland in which he lived.
  • Funding Agency
    • Long Room Hub

Recognition

Awards and Honours

TCD Long Room Hub 2009

Montclair State University: Faculty-Student Research Grant 2006-2007

Montclair State University: Global Education Fund Travel Grant, summer 2006 2006

Georgia Institute of Technology: Marion L. Brittain Fellowship 2002-2005

Emory University: Dean's Teaching Fellowship 2000-2001

J.M. Synge Summer School: tuition scholarship 1999

Emory Internationalization Fund: grant for archival research in Ireland 1998

Emory University: Graduate Fellowship 1995-1998, 1999-2000 (on leave 1998-9)

University of Michigan: James B. Angell Scholar 1995

Memberships

IASIL (International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures)

MLA (Modern Language Association)

ACIS (American Conference for Irish Studies)

MSA (Modernist Studies Association)