A PhD student in the Department of History, Alex is researching the civilian populations of the north of France that found themselves living in direct proximity to the Western Front during the First World War. Examining issues such as civil-military relations, occupation, food supply, refugees and the civilian experience of artillery bombardment, his thesis is a socio-cultural analysis of the position of civilians in modern warfare

Alexandra is an Irish Research Council funded PhD student working on Northern Irish writer Paul Muldoon, based in the School of English. The aim of her research is to position Paul Muldoon's poetry within the frameworks of autobiography and autofiction

Anne is in the final year of her research in the School of Ecumenics. She is working on a practice of close readings of selected texts of poetry and fiction in order to illustrate patterns of faith in terms of human experience. Her interest is in imaginatively expanding the space in which conversations about matters 'sacred' and 'secular' occur. The dissertation crosses the lines between theology and literature and suggests that the borders are porous through the use of metaphorical language. The 'small truths' of poetry and of fiction illuminate 'large' questions about the human search for meaning.  

Aran is a PhD Student in the Department of History. As part of a study of law and authority within the Three Kingdoms and the American Colonies, his thesis examines the arbitrary and summary forms of criminal justice. Ultimately, the thesis seeks to unravel and demonstrate that martial governance, as a prerogative of Crown authority, and a significant part of Early Stuart policy was transformed, broadened, and made increasingly more incisive.  The work is fundamentally part of a movement to reconstruct and reinterpret the ‘peaceful’ image of this important period of Atlantic History.

A PhD student in the Department of History, Brian's research interest is the impact of the Irish Revolution on individuals and communities and specifically the use of intimidation and coercion by the IRA between 1917 and 1922. His thesis will examine violence and, more particularly, the threat of violence in terms of both its victims and its influence on local populations. By extension, it will consider notions of popular support and loyalty in light of traditional nationalist narratives of the revolution.

A PhD student in Digital Arts and Humanities, Catherine Ann is a writer/radio producer working to make the Pollard Collection of children's books accessible to children through a digital platform, the Tarry at Home Traveller Project. She is concentrating on travel books for children 1700-1900. The project takes its name from a series of books written by the Reverend Isaac Taylor in the late 18th and early 19th century.
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Ciara is completing her PhD student in the School of Drama, Film and Music. Her research interests include contemporary star studies, feminist film theory, and the intersection of genre filmmaking practices and gender representation. She recently co-edited the collection Genres in Transit: Rethinking Genre in Contemporary Cinemas, which is in preparation for publication.

Deirdre is a PhD student in the School of Linguistic, Speech and Communications Sciences. Her research focuses on the sociolinguistic reflections of the semiotic landscapes in border areas. She is interested in the role of the linguistic and semiotic landscapes in multilingual communities, paying particular attention to whether language policies reflect, or do not reflect, practice. Her research concentrates on the autonomous communities of Spain and the minority languages therein.

'A theory of English spelling formation: Beowulf to Bootylicious' 

Des is a PhD student in the School of Linguistics, Speech and Communication Sciences. His work tries to explain both standard and non-standard spelling. Traditional approaches only try to account for standard spellings and non-standard ones are considered marginal or deviant. To him, unusual and irregular spellings are portals into the possibilities of spelling. It is a level of communication that has untapped potential for creativity. Such creations include names, puns, blends, logos, abbreviations, doodles, emoticons and onomatopoeia. These strange formations allow writers to add layers of meaning that is not possible using only dictionary spellings. He is attempting to explain all of them within one theoretical model. Visit http://a2dez.com

Eileen is an Irish Research Council funded PhD student researching community filmmaking in Ireland, within the Department of Film. Her thesis explores the contribution of community film to the construction of community in Ireland and to Irish national cinema. It looks at how film can generate and maintain community through films made by the community itself, either with the collaboration of a professional filmmaker or without professional filmmaking input. Working from a view of community as a form of social belonging within society, and as the radical and symbolic creation, expression and imagination of social relations, this project examines community film from a film studies perspective. This involves close analysis of community films as cultural texts in their production, reception and social contexts.

Emily is a PhD candidate on the Digital Arts and Humanities structured program. She is interested in textual space, particularly architectural, archetypal and geographic spatial representations in literature. Her doctoral thesis is focused on space and the politics of artistic production in the novel 2666 by Roberto Bolaño.

Frank is a Digital Arts and Humanities PhD student with the Department of Classics. Archaeology has moved into the digital age in a somewhat haphazard manner. Researchers and projects contribute to an increasingly heterogeneous and often confused pool of digital resources. After over a decade of digital exposure, the time is now ripe for a systematic evaluation of archaeological digital epistemology. As part of this research project, Frank has created an ADDM system called linkedARC.net. LinkedARC.net implements the practices of Linked Open Data with its objective being to host archaeological datastores as public nodes within the global web of data. Using linkedARC.net as a practical working example, the thesis considers the philosophical and sociological implications of an archaeological epistemology that has been empowered by the semantic web.

Geoffrey is a PhD student in New Testament studies within the Confederal School of Religions, Theology and Ecumenics. His research interests are primarily to do with issues pertaining to the earliest stages of Jewish-Christian relations, in particular, focusing on the various means by which distinct religious identities were forged within (sectarian) Second Temple Judaism. His research examines the role of obduracy themes (e.g., blindness and deafness as metaphors for a lack of understanding) and divine concealment motifs within the New Testament, assessing their significance and impact as rhetorical devices in the context of religious disputes.   

‘A comparative study of mimesis in the works of Samuel Beckett and Gertrude Stein’

Georgina is an Irish Research Council funded PhD student with the School of English. Her thesis is of a comparative study of mimesis in the works of Samuel Beckett and Gertrude Stein. She is currently editing a digital genetic dossier of the Company/ Compagnie; Verbatim module as part of the Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project (www.beckettarchive.org). 

Dr Woodward is researching the impact of the Second World War on literature and culture in Northern Ireland between 1939 and 1970.

Dr Orr is postdoctoral fellow in the School of English, finishing a monograph on Ulster Romantic Belief and Practice (1790-1815). Her research looks at Romantic-period writers' networks and the practice of sociability in Belfast and its surrounding rural areas during the United Irish Rebellion and early Union period. 

Karolina is currently doing a PhD in Digital Arts and Humanities with the School of Histories and Humanities (Art History). The purpose of this research is to enrich the knowledge on the Fagel Collection from Trinity Library, to endorse its research potential in future and to create an innovative and digital exhibition of illustrated books from the Collection. It reflects her interest in Art History, Culture, Heritage, museum practise and digital technologies, which all interact with each other under a scholarship in digital humanities. Karolina is also working as an Outreach Assistant for DigCurV and Trinity Long Room Hub. 

‘A complexity theory interpretation of collaborative language learning’

Marina is a doctoral student in Applied Linguistics. She is investigating the mediating role of collaboration in language learning within the TCD Language Modules. By orienting the study in complexity theory, the dynamic group learning process can be captured in multiple layers and timescales. Marina is interested in dynamic systems theories more broadly, and in learner-focused approaches within the field of Second Language Acquisition. 

Michael is a composer currently doing a practice-led PhD within the School of Drama, Film and Music. His main interest lies in the rethinking of the structures, spaces and context of "live" multi-disciplinary art forms (opera, ballet, sacred music). His research also focuses on the role of non-dialectical thought in processes of collaborative creation, and how the reconsideration of these creative processes impacts upon the way in which a modern audience experiences the work produced.  

Dr de Buitléir is an Irish Research Council funded postdoctoral fellow. She is conducting research which aims to lay down a comprehensive comparative mapping of the place of the First World War in recent fiction in English and German. She is currently concentrating on retrieving little-known and neglected works of recent German fiction in order to assemble a catalogue of pertinent works in both languages, followed by a comparative analysis and an investigation of translation reception in either direction.

Pamela is a PhD student in the Department of Classics, reading under the supervision of Professor Monica Gale. Pamela works on Lucretius, a Roman thinker of the first century B.C.E., and his Latin epic *De rerum natura*. Her dissertation focuses on animals in the poem, with particular emphasis on their place in its broader philosophical and didactic program. 

Paula is in the third year of her PhD with the School of English, which considers innovative responses to the problem of evil in nineteenth-century literature and culture.

Robin Fuller is researching the development of sans-serif typefaces in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in relation to notions of functionalism in design. His research supervisor is David Scott, professor of Textual & Visual Studies in the Department of French. The twentieth century saw a rise in the design and use of sans-serif typefaces. Beginning with the modernist typographers of Weimar Germany, sans-serif typefaces have been asserted as more functional, rational and legible than other typefaces. Using a multidisciplinary approach — drawing on Visual Studies, Linguistics and Design History — Robin is exploring various factors (aesthetic, ideological and scientific) which have contributed to the view that sans-serif typefaces are functionally superior to other styles of letter.

Sarah is a PhD student looking at the relationship between Ireland and India 1885-1935. The work particularly focuses upon the impact of Irish medical organisations working among socially-disadvantaged societies in Bengal. The aim is to investigate whether Irish aid organisations used medical aid and medical education as a means to penetrate social boundaries. The PhD further asks whether education enabled socially-excluded groups to participate in the imperial project in India or to the emergence of colonial nationalism.

Seán’s research addresses what A.P.W. Malcomson has termed ‘the missing years’ of nineteenth-century Irish history. His thesis analyses the political milieu of the early nineteenth century, examining the developments in the Anglo-Irish relationship between the Union and the rise of mass agitation in favour of Catholic Emancipation under the leadership of Daniel O’ Connell. This crucial period in Irish history, has so far been under represented by historians. Within this study of high politics, the thesis looks to develop strands on the cultural, social and economic history of the period.
 http://www.tcd.ie/history/research/centres/early-modern/oreillsd.php

Suzanne is pursuing a PhD in Digital Arts and Humanities. She has chosen to take a human geography inspired approach to the study of the production, representation and use of physical and virtual spaceas part of evolving peace praxis in and around Northern Ireland. She is particularly interested in the exploration of how the re-imagining of space by civil society actors has progressively transformed the peacebuilding landscape in and around Northern Ireland. Her goal is to present a contemporary academic perspective on the multifaceted functions, spheres and trajectories of space in a 21st century peace-building paradigm.

Tim is a doctoral student in the Department of History focusing on the social and economic history of eighteenth century Dublin. His main research interests are on the effects of the Industrial revolution on Ireland, as well as the history of popular radicalism and republicanism. His thesis is focused on the history of Dublin's journeymen and their political societies in the era of the American and French Revolutions (1776-1803). 

Toma is a PhD student researching the Historic Dictionary as an Exploratory Tool: A Digital Edition of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić's "Lexicon Serbico-Germanico-Latinum"

Vikas is a software consultant currently doing a PhD in Digital Arts and Humanities within the School of Computer Science and Statistics. His main interest lies in the problem of authorship verification, which considers whether a given text has been written by a particular author or not.  His research  focuses on the writings and speeches of Oliver Cromwell, where a number of versions of many of his letters, documents and speeches exist.