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Dr. Rosie Lavan
Assistant Professor in Irish Writing, English

Biography

Rosie Lavan read English at St Anne's College, Oxford, and then trained as a journalist at City University, London. She worked on the business desk at The Times for two years, as a media assistant to a London MEP during the European elections in 2009, and for House of Lords Hansard. She returned to Oxford for postgraduate study in 2010 and completed her doctorate, on Seamus Heaney, in September 2014 and subsequently worked as a stipendiary lecturer in English at St Hugh's and St Anne's colleges, teaching literature in English from 1830 to the present, and literary theory. She joined the School of English at Trinity College Dublin in September 2015. Her first monograph, Seamus Heaney and Society, was published by Oxford University Press in May 2020.

Publications and Further Research Outputs

Peer-Reviewed Publications

'Divergence and Entanglement': Eavan Boland and Tradition in, editor(s)Gregory Castle , Irish Revivals, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2023, [Rosie Lavan] Book Chapter, 2023

The Collected Poems of Seamus Heaney, Bernard O'Donoghue and Rosie Lavan, London:, Faber and Faber, 2023, - Critical Edition (Book), 2023

Heaney and Education in, editor(s)Geraldine Higgins , Seamus Heaney in Context, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp241 - 251, [Rosie Lavan] Book Chapter, 2021

Rosie Lavan, "Number, weight & measure": 'Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen' and the Labor of Imagination, International Yeats Studies, 4, (1), 2020, p81 - 90 Journal Article, 2020 URL

Rosie Lavan, Seamus Heaney and Society, 1st, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020 Book, 2020

Violence, Politics, and the Poetry of the Troubles in, editor(s)Eve Patten , Irish Literature in Transition 1940-1980, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020, [Rosie Lavan] Book Chapter, 2020

'Mycenae Lookout' and the Example of Aeschylus in, editor(s)Stephen Harrison, Fiona Macintosh, Claire Kenward and Helen Eastman , Seamus Heaney's Classics: Bann Valley Muses, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019, pp50 - 68, [Rosie Lavan] Book Chapter, 2019 URL

Rosie Lavan, Review of The Grail Mass and Other Works, by David Jones; and Thomas Goldpaugh and Jamie Callison (eds.); , Review of English Studies, 2019 Review, 2019 URL

The World of Sense in In Parenthesis in, editor(s)Jamie Callison, Paul Fiddes, Anna Johnson and Erik Tonning , David Jones: A Christian Modernist?, Leiden, Brill, 2018, pp92 - 106, [Rosie Lavan] Book Chapter, 2018

Rosie Lavan, Remembered Voices, Review of Now We Can Talk Openly About Men; Available Light, by Martina Evans; Maria McManus , Poetry Ireland Review, (126), 2018, p15-19 Review, 2018

Rosie Lavan, The Poet's Chair, Review of One Wide Expanse; Ireland and its Elsewheres; Imaginary Bonnets with Real Bees in Them, by Michael Longley; Harry Clifton; Paula Meehan , Irish University Review, 47, (Supplement), 2017, p587-590 Review, 2017

Image, Text and Conflict: Approaching the Border in Willie Doherty's Work in, editor(s)Nicola Gardini, Adriana Jacobs, Ben Morgan, Mohamed-Salah Omri and Matthew Reynolds , Minding Borders: Resilient Divisions in Literature, the Body and the Academy, Leeds, Legenda, 2017, pp97 - 114, [Rosie Lavan] Book Chapter, 2017

Rosie Lavan, S. J. Perry, Chameleon Poet: R. S. Thomas & the Literary Tradition; Rory Waterman, Belonging and Estrangement in the Poetry of Philip Larkin, R. S. Thomas and Charles Causley, Review of Chameleon Poet: R. S. Thomas & the Literary Tradition; Belonging and Estrangement in the Poetry of Philip Larkin, R. S. Thomas and Charles Causley, by S. J. Perry; Rory Waterman , Notes & Queries, 64, (1), 2017, p195-197 Review, 2017

Rosie Lavan, Seamus Heaney and the Audience, Essays in Criticism, 66, (1), 2016, p54 - 71 Journal Article, 2016 URL

Rosie Lavan, Review of Poetry, by David Constantine , Notes and Queries, 62, (4), 2015, p641-643 Review, 2015

Rosie Lavan, Explorations: Seamus Heaney and Education, The Irish Review, (49-50), 2015, p54 - 70 Journal Article, 2015

Rosie Lavan, Review of The Poor Bugger's Tool: Irish Modernism, Queer Labor, and Postcolonial History, by Patrick R. Mullen , Notes & Queries, 62, (1), 2015, p175-77 Review, 2015

Rosie Lavan, Screening Belfast: "Heaney in Limboland" and the Language of Belonging, Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 21, (2), 2015, p301 - 316 Journal Article, 2015

Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications

Rosie Lavan, Tuning the Medium: Seamus Heaney and the First-Person Plural, Seamus Heaney Memorial Lecture, Keough-Naughton Institute of Irish Studies, Notre Dame University [online event], 13 May , 2021, Keough-Naughton Institute of Irish Studies, Notre Dame University Invited Talk, 2021

Geraldine Higgins, Rosie Lavan, Bernard O'Donoghue, Oxford Irish Seminar: launch of Roy Foster, On Seamus Heaney. With fellow Heaney scholars Professor Geraldine Higgins (Emory) and Bernard O'Donoghue (Oxford), I was invited to contribute a talk and discussion to this special meeting of the Oxford Irish Seminar marking the publication of Roy Foster's book On Seamus Heaney (Princeton, 2020)., Oxford Irish Seminar, Hertford College, Oxford [online event], 11 November 2020, 2020, Professor Ian McBride, Professor David Dwan, Hertford College, Oxford Invited Talk, 2020

Roy Foster, Rosie Lavan, Glenn Patterson, Crediting Poetry: A Nobel Celebration - online panel discussion to mark the 25th anniversary of Seamus Heaney's receipt of the Nobel Prize, Crediting Poetry: A Nobel Celebration, Seamus Heaney HomePlace, Bellaghy, Co. Derry [online event], December 2020, 2020, Seamus Heaney HomePlace Invited Talk, 2020

Rosie Lavan, Sweeney on Station Island, Lunchtime Talks Series, Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again - Bank of Ireland Exhibition Centre, College Green, Dublin, 27 April, 2019 Invited Talk, 2019

Rosie Lavan, "Watching Ourselves at a Distance": Seamus Heaney, 'The Mud Vision', and Modern Ireland, Irish Studies Seminar, Institute of English Studies, 18 October, 2018 Invited Talk, 2018

Rosie Lavan, Revival Legacies: Yeats and the Dolmen Press, Yeats International Summer School, Sligo, Ireland, 26 July, 2017 Invited Talk, 2017

Rosie Lavan, Death of a Naturalist: An Illuminations Introduction, Seamus Heaney HomePlace, Bellaghy, Co. Derry, 22 October, 2016 Invited Talk, 2016

Rosie Lavan, Heaney and the Audience, Cambridge Group for Irish Studies, Magdalene College, Cambridge, 10 November, 2015, Cambridge Group for Irish Studies Invited Talk, 2015

Research Expertise

Description

My research expertise lies in twentieth-century Irish and British literature and culture, especially poetry; life-writing; literature and the visual arts; textual criticism; and feminist theory. Since I applied for Junior Academic Progression in 2019-20, I have published a book, two book chapters, and a journal article, with some of the world's leading presses in literary studies. This impressive rate of publication is one measure of the momentum driving my research career, and the international recognition it is garnering. My book, Seamus Heaney and Society, was published by Oxford University Press (OUP), the most prestigious publisher in my field, in 2020. It offers a dynamic new engagement with Ireland's most celebrated poet, rooted in extensive archival research into Heaney's poetry, criticism, and broadcasting. The significance of this study in signalling new directions in Heaney scholarship has been clearly recognised. Reviewing the book, Clíona Ní Riordáin of the Sorbonne described it as "a book full of revelations and insights". My work on Heaney continues: I am co-editing, with the Oxford poet and critic Bernard O'Donoghue, The Collected Poems of Seamus Heaney for Faber, the leading publisher of poetry in the UK. As the first complete, annotated edition of Heaney's poems, the book will be an indisputable landmark in modern poetry, for scholars and the general reader alike. We are working towards publication in 2023. Other recent publications include a chapter on violence and Irish poetry in the major multi-volume Irish Literature in Transition, from Cambridge University Press. Finally, I am working on my second monograph, 'Watching Ourselves at a Distance', which examines how writers including Eavan Boland, Padraic Fallon, Seamus Heaney, and Nell McCafferty have represented collective experience in Ireland since the 1950s. This book promises valuable new vantage points on key issues in Irish Studies, assessing both canonical and lesser-studied writers.

Projects

  • Title
    • The Extension of Literature
  • Summary
    • I have already identified the subject of my third monograph project, which in methodology and intellectual ambition is a natural successor to my work to date. Provisionally titled 'The Extension of Literature', this project will examine the role of key individuals working in publishing, the literary press, and national broadcasters, in the promotion and reception of literature, particularly poetry, in mainstream culture in Britain and Ireland in the twentieth century. In planning this project, I have identified a number of people I would like to research. For example, I have a longstanding interest in Hilda Matheson, who was the first Talks Director at the BBC in the 1920s; in her work at the broadcaster and subsequently directing publishing initiatives at the Ministry of Information during the Second World War she consistently commissioned writers to undertake projects which were not exclusively or necessarily 'literary' and yet which had the combined effects of disseminating and recontextualising their writing in new circumstances; I have already explored material relating to Matheson at the BBC Written Archives at Caversham. I am very interested, too, in the ways in which Radio Éireann and subsequently RTÉ explored and established relationships with writers and sought to embed literature in the broadcasting schedule in Ireland. In this regard the contribution of Roibeard Ó Faracháin, who was appointed first Talks Officer at Radio Éireann in 1939, is vital, and the Broadcast and Document Archives at RTÉ have extensive holdings of his work. Both Ó Faracháin and Matheson, engaged by their national broadcasters, are implicitly also involved in the national conditioning of the writing they featured - under distinct pressures in Dublin and London, and yet at the same time addressing, and raising, comparable questions through the new kind of work they were doing with literature. Another important comparison could be explored between Karl Miller and John Jordan. In my work on Heaney I became very interested in Miller's role as literary editor of the New Statesman, editor of the Listener, and founding editor of the London Review of Books. It is unquestionably true that without Miller's advocacy Seamus Heaney's career would have begun, and may indeed have developed, very differently. In Ireland, John Jordan's work and role is ripe for academic consideration: like Miller he had an academic career alongside his work as a critic, broadcaster, and founding editor of Poetry Ireland. His papers are held in the National Library of Ireland. I propose to launch my research with these figures, but there are of course others whose careers would complement and extend the issues I am keen to explore here: questions to do with the national conditions and conditioning of literature; the professionalisation of both literary and scholarly writing in the twentieth century; and the role of institutions in establishing, promoting and sustaining the careers of writers. My goal with this project would be to prepare an application for a major grant funding: the work depends on ambitious archival research, and its parameters would be expanded by the assembly of a team of researchers. I look forward to discussing this with colleagues in the Research Office.
  • Funding Agency
    • TBC
  • Date To
    • 2025
  • Title
    • The Poems of Seamus Heaney
  • Summary
    • I was contracted by Faber & Faber to join this project as an assistant to the editor, Bernard O'Donoghue, in 2017, and in summer 2020 I was appointed co-editor. My varied work is central to the editorial process. The volume will include all of Heaney's published poems - collected and uncollected - and my primary task has been to assemble and transcribe the uncollected poems. At present, I am preparing the copy-text of the volume, and drafting the accompanying textual annotations, recording all variants. Working closely with Matthew Hollis, Poetry Editor at Faber & Faber, and with the Heaney Estate, we are also reviewing unpublished material held in the Seamus Heaney Literary Papers at the National Library of Ireland, and in the Heaney collection at the Rose Library in Emory University. I am conducting research for the volume in both archives. The primary output of this project will of course be the volume itself: we are working towards submission at the end of 2021 and publication in 2022. I have a real facility for editorial work and I hope that this will be the first of successive editorial projects I take on. Moreover, this research is revealing potential new directions in my longstanding engagement with Heaney's poetry which I plan to develop. One major insight of my work at Emory in October 2019 was the extent and candour of Heaney's correspondence with Dennis O'Driscoll, friend, fellow poet, and arranger of Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney (2008). Heaney's supreme trust in O'Driscoll is manifest in Stepping Stones alone, but my research in the O'Driscoll papers at Emory indicates that O'Driscoll occupied a uniquely privileged role as reader, counsellor, and critic for Heaney.
  • Funding Agency
    • Faber & Faber
  • Date From
    • 2017
  • Date To
    • 2022
  • Title
    • Watching Ourselves at a Distance: Literature, Ireland, and the Changing State, 1948-1998
  • Summary
    • This project examines how writers have represented and negotiated the agents, forces, and effects of the collective experience of life in the modern state, in both the Republic and Northern Ireland, between the 1950s and the 1990s. Surveying the period which encompasses Ireland's full emergence as a Republic in 1949, the economic and cultural privations of the 1950s, the modernising drive of the 1960s, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the progress of the women's movement, it is concerned with the composition of collective identities on the island, as they are variously claimed, challenged, or rejected by individual writers. Generational experience and the variant uses of retrospect and the recent past, in both official discourse and literary and cultural production, are central to my analysis. My core research interest in modern Irish poetry provides the motivation for this examination, and the poets Padraic Fallon, John Montague, Eavan Boland, and Seamus Heaney, and the influential publisher of modern Irish poetry, Liam Miller, are major figures in the discussion. Prompted by their engagement with these issues, I expand the argument to include writers and cultural figures whose work is similarly preoccupied with the dynamic between the personal and the collective in the context of the changing, modernising, and variously hampered states in this period. This work grew from extensive research on literary representations of the city of Derry in Northern Ireland which exhibit central issues in the representation of memory and collective experience which ramify elsewhere in modern Irish literature. In my Derry work, I found this to be especially true in poetry and life-writing. Two very different figures, Seamus Heaney and Nell McCafferty, exemplify these tendencies and their work is central to this research. Through Derry, I have been preoccupied with the radically altered and altering political circumstances in the North over the past fifty years and their impact on literature and culture. The broader concerns the project has assumed continue to prioritise the long legacy of partition as a central question for those writers coming to cultural and social consciousness, and seeking and claiming literary expression, in the states which were constituted, on the map and in the mind, after the turbulence of the 1910s and 1920s. How do these writers - in most cases the children and grandchildren of the first citizens of the Free State and Northern Ireland - identify themselves in, and in relation to, the states of their birth? How do they assess the push and pull of history and modernity? How do they relate to Ireland, or to Northern Ireland, and to the assumptions those states and states of mind embody? And what motivates their choice of form and genre in giving expression to their responses to these matters? To date my work has been supported by awards from the Moore Institute in NUI Galway, the Rose Library at Emory University, Atlanta, and the ZSR Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University, North Carolina. The main output of this project will be a monograph: I am currently in correspondence with my editor at OUP about publication. I hope to have a complete draft in hand by the end of 2020.
  • Funding Agency
    • Various
  • Title
    • Seamus Heaney and Society, 1964-1994
  • Summary
    • This project resituates Seamus Heaney's work in its varied textual, cultural, institutional, and political contexts, in order to revive the web of connections within which Heaney's work was written, published, and received. It considers: the London publishing scene on which his work emerged; his relationship to Belfast mediated through television documentary; his radio work for the BBC Northern Ireland Schools Service; his relationship to Derry mediated through photography; and ideas of audience, address, and redress in his Oxford lectures. It makes extensive use of archival material held in the National Library of Ireland, the BBC Northern Ireland Community Archive, and the archive of the British Film Institute, and an interview conducted with Heaney in 2013.
  • Funding Agency
    • Arts and Humanities Research Council
  • Date From
    • October 2011
  • Date To
    • September 2014

Keywords

20th Century literature; 20th Century poetry; Anglo-Irish literature, poetry; comparative literature and cultural theory; contemporary Irish literature; English Language/Literature; Irish writing, poetry, Drama, cinema; Language and/or Literature, Non-Fiction; Language and/or Literature, Poetry; Modern Poetry

Recognition

Representations

I have served as a peer reviewer for the Irish Studies Review, the Irish University Review, and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition, all major journals in their fields. 2019

I have served as a book reviewer for the Irish University Review, a leading and influential journal in Irish studies. Since 2014 I have regularly reviewed books, for titles including the widely read and highly regarded Notes & Queries and Review of English Studies, among others. 2015

In 2018, I was asked to act as an advisory consultant on Missing Voices, a conference planned by Poetry Ireland to address the issue of gender representation and equality in Irish poetry. My role involved reviewing and responding to draft schedules for the conference, and producing a report outlining my recommendations. 2018

Awards and Honours

Visiting Fellow, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC October 2019

Visiting Fellow, Rose Library, Emory University, Atlanta October 2019

Award beneficiary, Visual and Performing Arts Fund, Trinity College Dublin November 2016

Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Award September 2011

Visiting Fellow, Moore Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway April 2016

Memberships

Elizabeth Bowen Society March 2018

International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures July 2013

David Jones Society July 2016