Biography
Amy Prendergast is Assistant Professor in Eighteenth-Century Studies in the School of English. She previously held the positions of Marie Sk"odowska-Curie Research Fellow at Queen"s University Belfast, and Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow and Teaching Fellow at TCD. She was the recipient of numerous travel bursaries and fellowships over the course of her doctoral and postdoctoral studies, including the Moore Institute Visiting Research Fellowship and the A. C. Elias Irish-American Fellowship.
Amy"s research expertise in the long eighteenth century centres on the areas of women"s writing, life writing, writing from Ireland, and Franco-Irish connections and cultural transfers. She is author of Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland in the Long Eighteenth Century (Palgrave, 2015), as well as articles and chapters in European Journal of Life Writing; Life Writing; Women"s Writing; Eighteenth-Century Ireland; and Irish Literature in Transition, 1700"1780 (Cambridge, 2020).
Her second monograph, Mere Bagatelles: Women"s Diaries from Ireland, 1760"1810, is forthcoming with Liverpool University Press in 2024.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Prendergast, Amy, Glossing the Diary: Women Writing for Posterity, the Case of Elizabeth Edgeworth (1781"1800), Life Writing, 19, (2), 2022, p277-294
Prendergast, Amy, A Winter in Bath, 1796-97: Life Writing and the Irish Adolescent Self, European Journal of Life Writing, 10, 2021, p18-40
Transnational Influence and Exchange: The Intersections between Irish and French Sentimental Novels in, Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp189-206 , [Prendergast, Amy]
Prendergast, Amy, "Open[ing] the Flood-gate of literature to her own Sex": Elizabeth Griffith, translation, transmission, and cultural transfer, Women's Writing, 27, (2), 2020, p184-202
The diary (1689-1719) and accounts (1704-1717) of Élie Bouhéreau, Marie Léoutre, Jane McKee, Jean-Paul Pittion & Amy Prendergast, Dublin:, IMC, 2019, -
PRENDERGAST, AMY, `Members of the republick of letters": Maria Edgeworth, literary sociability, and intellectual pursuits in the Irish midlands, c.1780-1820, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 31, (1), 2016, p29-46
Amy Prendergast, Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland in the Long Eighteenth Century, 2015
Irish literary salons of the long eighteenth century, The Literary Encyclopedia, 2013, [Amy Prendergast ]
Amy Prendergast, 'The drooping genius of our Isle to raise': the Moira House salon and its role in Gaelic cultural revival, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 26, 2011, p95 - 114
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
Dr Brandon Yen and Amy Prendergast, 'Ireland and the English Lake Poets', 2019, -
Research Expertise
Description
My research expertise in the long eighteenth century centres on the areas of women"s writing, life writing, writing from Ireland, and Franco-Irish connections and cultural transfers. My second monograph, Mere Bagatelles: Women"s Diaries from Ireland 1760-1810, is under contract with Liverpool University Press, and will be published as an open access work. Engaging with overlooked archival diaries by women across Ireland, it opens new avenues concerning authorship and female agency, transforming our understanding of women"s contributions to literature and cultural movements. The entirely new corpus allows for the emergence of new perspectives on the self during the period and prompts a re-evaluation of the contours of Irish writing. My first monograph was completed during an IRC Postdoctoral Fellowship held at TCD. Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland in the Long Eighteenth Century(Palgrave, 2015) offered the first detailed examination of the literary salon in Ireland, considered in the wider contexts of contemporary salon culture in Britain and France. It was positively reviewed in European Romantic Review; The British Association for Romantic Studies Review; Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies; New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century; Reviews in History; Eighteenth-Century Ireland. Eric Gidal, European Romantic Review, wrote, `Prendergast brings an impressive amount of archival research to bear upon the story she tells, and anyone seeking to understand how salon culture crossed the Irish Sea will need to consult this work." and Rebecca Bar, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, that `In its sensitive recuperation of a past that is neglected and, at times, seemingly deliberately obliterated, Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland will be of interest to Irish historians and literary scholars alike." I was also co-editor of The Diary and Accounts of Élie Bouhéreau(Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2019), which I worked on during my time as a Research Associate at Marsh"s Library. It has been described as 'an impressively translated and edited edition which is also handsomely produced' wherein 'Readers will appreciate the high quality of the translation, editing, annotation and indexing.' (Martin Greene, Dublin Review of Books). Recent articles have appeared in The European Journal for Life Writing (2021); Life Writing (2020); and Women"s Writing (2020). In addition to my large-scale research projects, I have contributed to various edited collections, including several from Cambridge University Press, and am Section Editor on Elizabeth Vesey for Elizabeth Montagu Correspondence Online.Recognition
Representations
Peer reviewer for Cultural and Social History, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Review of Irish Studies in Europe (RISE), Renaissance Studies.
Secretary of Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society
Editorial board member for the Élie Bouhéreau Diary project, Marsh's Library, Dublin.
Awards and Honours
Marie Sklodowska Curie (MSCA) Individual Fellowship
American Society Eighteenth-Century Studies, Elias Irish-American Fellowship
Moore Institute Visiting Research Fellowship (NUIG)
International Society Eighteenth-Century Studies, International Seminar
Huntington Library Fellowship [respectfully declined]
Royal Irish Academy Charlemont Travel Award
Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship
PRTLI Government of Ireland Doctoral Scholarship
Irish Embassy to Britain Bursary for travel to Warwick University
Department for Employment and Learning Studentship (respectfully declined)
French Government Medal and NUI prize for proficiency in French
University Scholar (NUIG)
Dr H. H. Stewart Literary Prize for French
NUI Entrance Scholarship
Memberships
Committee member of Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society