Current Research Students
Name and Email |
Thesis Title |
Supervisor(s) |
Bibliography and Research Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|
| Margot Blankier blankiem@tcd.ie |
''The Sweetest Story Ever Told:' Cinderella in Contemporary American Popular Genre' | Dr Jarlath Killeen |
New York University, B.A. cum laude Liberal Arts (History and Film) 2008 Ph.D candidate 2011-present Conducting research on the fairy tale of ‘Cinderella’ as an ‘American Dream’ narrative for women in the 20th century. Fairy Tales; Popular Film; Children’s Literature; Popular Romance; Feminism; New Historicism |
Joana Blanquer blanquej@tcd.ie |
'The Complexities of Time in Beowulf' |
Dr Alice Jorgensen |
CPGE Montpellier – Lycée Joffre (France) 2009-2012, major in Classics and English Master’s Degree Paris IV La Sorbonne LLCE English-Research 2014 with honours thesis year one on the Christian elements in Beowulf and year two ‘Between rewriting and reinvention: the Scandinavian analogues to Beowulf’. PhD candidate from September 2015 to present. I am looking at how Beowulf works as a sum of Anglo-Saxon attitudes to the measurement and interpretation of time in order to provide an Anglo-Saxon poem on the ancestors. Beowulf; Anglo-Saxon England; Old Norse Literature; Antiquarianism; Middle Ages; Classics |
Eva Burke |
'"Down These Clean Streets a Girl Must Go": A Study of the Sensational Origins and Evolution of the Domestic Suspense Genre.' |
Dr Clare Clarke | Completed MPhil in Popular Literature at Trinity College, Dublin in 2014-2015. Irish Research Council scholar focusing on the history and popularity of ‘domestic suspense’ fiction. Shortlisted for the FWSA essay prize in 2015 and has published articles in the Journal of International Women’s Studies, Trinity Postgraduate Review and Feminist Spaces. Chapter of MPhil thesis will be published as part of an edited collection From the Domestic to the Dominant: The New Face of Crime Fiction, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan. Gendered Dynamics of Victimhood in Popular Crime Fiction and Depictions of the Monstrous Feminine in Horror Fiction. |
| Laura Byrne byrnel27@tcd.ie |
'Lolita and the Mythologies of Femininity' |
BA Double Honours English and Philosophy, Maynooth University, 2003-2006. MA in Gender and Writing, School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin, 2007-2008. Doctoral Candidate, Trinity College Dublin, 2013— My thesis examines issues of gender construction in the novels of Vladimir Nabokov. Nabokov; Feminism; Gender; Deconstruction; Twentieth Century |
|
| Sarah Cullen Scullen5@tcd.ie |
'The Significance of Night in Nineteenth Century American Literature' | Professor Stephen Matterson |
University College Dublin, B.A. in Drama Studies & English 2009-12 M.Litt. candidate at Trinity College Dublin September 2015-present. Currently conducting thesis research in nineteenth century American literature, investigating the importance of night in the works of various authors. Nineteenth Century; American Literature; Ecocriticism; Temporality |
| Kaitlyn Culliton cullitok@tcd.ie |
'The Fairy Realm of the Renaissance: Using Imagined Landscapes to Make Sense of Everyday Places' | Dr Ema Vyroubavolva |
University of Denver, B.A., Creative Writing & Distinction in Literature, 2007-2010 Conducting thesis research in geographies of fairy landscapes in Renaissance dramas Renaissance; Shakespeare; Johnson; Fairy; Children’s Literature; Cultural Geography |
| Jennifer Daly dalyj5@tcd.ie |
'Fantasies of Self-Invention: The Masculinity Crisis in American Fiction' |
Professor Stephen Matterson |
MA American Studies (UCD Clinton Institute) Currently a TA in the School of English. Research interests include American fiction, masculinity, the suburbs, and the work of Richard Yates, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, and Marilynne Robinson. Secretary of the Irish Association for American Studies. Marketing & Reviews Editor for the Irish Journal of American Studies. American Studies; American Literature |
| Aoife M. Dempsey dempsea3@tcd.ie |
'Nineteenth-Century Irish Anglican Fiction and the Postcolonial Gothic' | Dr Jarlath Killeen |
University of Limerick, BA New Media & English 2006-2010 University of Leeds, MA Postcolonial Literary & Cultural Studies 2011-2012 Trinity College Dublin, PhD 2014-Present My research traces the influence of colonialism in the Gothic literature produced by Irish Protestant writers in the nineteenth century. It positions this writing as “Settler Gothic”, arguing that the impetus to produce Gothic literature was motivated by the tumultuous socio-political situation of Ireland during this period, primarily as a result of British colonial rule. Teaching Assistant since 2014 on Senior Freshman modules ‘Victorianism’ and ‘Postcolonial Literature & Theory’ Gothic; Postcolonial; Anglo-Irish; Nineteenth Century; Irish Studies; Le Fanu; Stoker; O’Brien |
| Gavin Doyle doyleg5@tcd.ie |
'Impure and Unthinkable Green Thoughts: Queering Irish-American Literature and Culture' | Dr Paul Delaney |
BA Hons in English and German, University College Dublin, 2005-2009 Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate PhD Scholar at the School of English in Trinity College Dublin, 2014-Present I am currently carrying out my PhD project on representations of queerness in Irish-American literature and culture since the latter half of the twentieth century. Co-convener for the School of English Staff-Postgraduate Seminar Series, 2015/2016 Teaching Assistant on the Junior Freshman Theories of Literature module, Michaelmas Term 2015 Queer Theory; Irish-American Studies; Diasporic Theory; Ethnic American Studies; LGBT Literature |
| Clare Fletcher cfletch@tcd.ie |
"‘The world is changed overal": Signs of Decay and the Decay of Signs in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis' | Dr Brendan O’ Connell | BA (Hons) English and History at Trinity College, Dublin My thesis investigates aspects of language and sign theory in John Gower’s 14th century Middle English work Confessio Amantis. Medieval Poetry; Gower; Language; Semiotics; Chaucer |
Louise Gallagher |
"Typography and Narrative Voice in Children’s Literature: Relationships, Interactions and Symbiosis" | Dr Jane Carroll | University College Dublin, B.A. Hons. Archaeology and Greek & Roman Civilisation 2003 - 2006 I am currently conducting research on the relationship between the physical form of the printed word and narrative voices in children’s literature from the 18th century up to the present, ranging from picture books to young adult literature. Children’s Literature; Typography; Narrative Voice; Experimental Literature; Semiotics; Multimodality; Print Culture |
| James Hussey jahussey@tcd.ie |
''This Matter of the Individual:' Individualism in the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne' | Professor Stephen Matterson |
Trinity College Dublin, B.A. Hons. TSM Moderatorship in English Literature and Modern Irish 2009-2013 Trinity College Dublin, MPhil in Literatures of the Americas 2013-2014 PhD Candidate at Trinity College Dublin 2014-Present IRC Postgraduate Scholarship 2015-2018 Teaching Assistant on the “American Genres” Junior Freshman Course, Michaelmas Term 2015 Currently conducting research on representations of individualism in the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne; Individualism; American Literature; Nineteenth Century; Society and Literature |
| Emily Johnson jeffere@tcd.ie |
'Mapping Roberto Bolaño's 2666: A Mirror and an Explosion' | Dr Philip Coleman |
Emily Johnson is a PhD candidate on the Digital Arts and Humanities structured program. Her doctoral thesis is funded under a DAH postgraduate fellowship and is focused on spatial representations — architectural, archetypal, geopolitical, and textual — in Roberto Bolaño’s final novel, 2666. Emily holds an MPhil in Literatures of the Americas from Trinity College Dublin (2010-2011), and has worked as a teaching assistant and occasional lecturer with the School of English since 2013. Digital Humanities; World Literature; Literary Space; Modernism; American Literature; Cultural Theory |
James Little |
'Beckett and the Politics of Confinement' | James Little is a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Research Scholar whose primary research interests are in modern Irish writing. His Ph.D. thesis examines the career-long engagement with confinement in the work of Samuel Beckett. He has taught courses on Irish writing and modernism and will teach a module on literary theory in 2016-17. Beckett; Confinement; Carceral; Space; Politics |
|
Rebecca Long |
'Narratives of Ireland: Re-Imagination and Cultural Heritage in Irish Children's Literature, 1892-2016' |
Dr Amanda Piesse |
University of Dublin, Trinity College B.A. Hons. English Studies 2006-10 Irish Research Council Scholar and PhD Candidate at Trinity College 2014-Present Currently conducting thesis research in Irish children's literature from 1892-2016, focusing on the transmission of cultural heritage, and on narrative patterns through which traditional, folkloric, mythological, and historical stories are re-imagined, and re-told. Member of the ISSCL Committee (Irish Society for the Study of Children's Literature), April 2015-Present Children's Literature; Cultural Heritage; Narrative Patterns; Mythological Contexts; Archetypal Images |
| Brian McManus mcmanubd@tcd.ie |
'The Construction of Irish Identity in Irish-American Children's Literature of the Early-Twentieth Century' | University of Dublin, Trinity College, B.A. Hons. Nua-Ghaeilge & English Literature 2005-09 University of Dublin, Trinity College, M.Phil. Children’s Literature 2012-13 PhD Candidate at Trinity College 2013-Present Currently conducting thesis research into the construction of Irish identity in Irish-American children’s literature of the early-twentieth century Teaching Assistant in the School of English, Trinity College 2014-15, and 2015-16 in Shakespeare: Text, Stage, Screen and Irish Writing 1890 - 1945 Children’s Literature; Irish-American Literature; Diasporic Literature; Irish Identities; Irish Women Writers |
|
| Áine Madden maddenai@tcd.ie |
'One doesn't read Jane Austen; one re-reads Jane Austen.:' Re-reading Jane Austen through fanfiction.' | Dr Jarlath Killeen |
University of Dublin, Trinity College, B.A. Hons. English and French 2004-2008 PhD Candidate at University of Dublin, Trinity College, 2014-Present Currently conducting thesis research exploring Jane Austen’s afterlife in popular culture through an examination of fanfiction inspired by Pride and Prejudice. Teaching Assistant in Victorian Literature in University of Dublin, Trinity College, 2015- Present. Jane Austen Studies; Popular Culture Theory; Reception History; Reader Response Criticism; Fan Studies; Fanfiction; Jane Austen Fandom |
| Jane Mahony mahonyjl@tcd.ie |
'Irish Writers and their London Publishers, 1884-1922' | Professor Eve Patten |
Co-author with Prof Eve Patten: ‘ ‘Breaking Away:’ Beatrice Grimshaw and the commercial woman writer‘ in Irish Women’s Writing 1878-1922: Advancing the Cause of Liberty (forthcoming Manchester UP, 2016) Lecturer 2014-5, 2015-6: The Book (JS) on 1) Publishing in the Long 19th Century: the transformation of the literary marketplace; 2) The Modern Publishing Market: the impact of The Net Book Agreement (fixed book pricing) Conference organiser: Creative Networks and Cultural Output, TCD Long Room Hub, 19-20 June 2015 Teaching Assistant 2014-5: Irish Literature 1890-1945 Publishing History; Book History; Irish Literature; Irish History; Women’s Literature |
Nora Moroney |
'The Contribution of Irish Writers to British Periodicals in the 1890s' |
BA in English Literature and History, Trinity College Dublin (2014) Teaching Assistant in the School of English, Trinity College 2015-16 Victorian; Irish Writing; London; Journalism; Transnational |
|
Alexandra Nica |
'City Rhythms: Patterns of Identity Formation in Early 20th Century London' | Professor Eve Patten |
My dissertation locates itself at the intersection of literary and urban studies, and it aims to understand the co-dependencies among individuals, intellectual communities, and the city space in early 20th century London. Modernism/Modernity; Rhythm; City/Urban Studies; Community; Periodical Publications |
| Georgina Nugent-Folan nugentfg@tcd.ie |
'Comparative study of Gertrude Stein and Samuel Beckett' | Dr Sam Slote |
Georgina Nugent-Folan completed her B.A. in English at Trinity College, graduating with a 1.1 in 2010. She was elected a Trinity Scholar in 2008 and was also awarded the Trinity Gold medal. In addition to her PhD research, for which she was awarded an IRC Postgraduate Scholarship, she is preparing a digital genetic edition of Samuel Beckett's Compagnie/ Company as part of the Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project. Articles on Beckett and/or Stein have been published in the Journal of Beckett Studies 22.1(April 2013), 24.1 (April 2015), The Southern Review (Spring 2015) and Samuel Beckett Today/ Aujourd'hui (December 2015). Her essay on Beckett, "Samuel Beckett: Going On in Style," published in The Southern Review in Spring 2015, is currently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Anglo-American and European Modernist Literature and Visual Art; Irish Modern and Contemporary Fiction; American Modern and Contemporary Fiction; Genetic Criticism; Digital Humanities. |
Shauna O’Brien |
'Persian Shakespeares: Between the Global, the Local, and the Exilic' | Dr Ema Vyroubalová | Trinity College Dublin, B.A. (Hons) English Studies, 2008 - 2012. My research explores the adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays in the Persian-speaking contexts of Iran and Afghanistan. Also of interest are Shakespeare adaptations staged by Iranian and Afghan theatre practitioners outside of these two countries. Teaching Assistant on the ‘Stages of Theatre’ module in 2014, and on the ‘Shakespeare: Text, Screen, Stage’ module in 2013/14. Global Shakespeare Studies; Adaptation; Exile, Censorship |
Mary O’Byrne |
'Phenomenology of Death and Human Consciousness and the inner workings of time in the stage plays of Samuel Beckett' | Professor Chris Morash | A graduate of University College Dublin with a B.A in Social Science in 1982, Mary worked in the public service for over twenty years. She obtained a Masters of Public Administration in UCD in 1989. She completed a Masters of Drama and Performance in UCD in 2010 and began her PhD as a John and Pat Hume Scholar in National University of Ireland, Maynooth in 2011, transferring to Trinity in 2012. Mary has taught seminars on Beckett in UCD, NUI Maynooth and TCD. This is Mary’s fourth year as a Teaching Assistant, in the School of English, TCD and she is the Convenor of Beckett Reading Group, a post-graduate reading group established in 2014 to the present. Beckett’s Drama; Phenomenology of Heidegger; Levinas and Derrida |
| Stephen O’Neill oneillsb@tcd.ie |
'The country and the city in the Irish novel, 1922-65' |
Dr Tom Walker |
Queen’s University Belfast, B.A. Hons, English, 2008-10 Queen’s University Belfast, M.A., English (Irish Writing), 2010-11 PhD Candidate at Trinity College Dublin, 2013-Present I’m currently investigating the country and the city in the Irish novel in the post-partition era. My research is generously funded by the Irish Research Council. Teaching Assistant in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin 2014-Present in ‘Realism and the Novel’ and ‘Irish Writing 1890-1945’. With Anne Thompson and James Little, I was co-convenor of the Staff-Postgraduate Seminar Series for the School of English in the academic year 2014-15. With Aoife Dempsey, current TA Representative, 2014-15. Twentieth Century Irish Literature; Postcolonialism; Literary Geography; Partition literature; Politics; Fiction |
Ciarán O'Rourke
|
'Politics in the Poetry of William Carlos Williams' |
Professor Stephen Matterson |
Ciarán O'Rourke is a Trinity Scholar and PhD candidate at the School of English. His research interests include the cultural politics of modernist and mid-century American poets, and ideas of political violence as they appear in the prose of British Romantic writers, among other topics. His PhD thesis examines William Carlos Williams's poetry in light of his various and evolving political commitments (1913-1963). Modernism; American Studies; Poetry; Twentieth Century |
| Naarah D. Patton pattonn@tcd.ie |
'Female Sexual Transgression in García Márquez and Faulkner' | Professor Stephen Matterson |
University of Illinois, B.A. Hons., English and Women’s Studies, 2007 PhD candidate at University of Dublin, Trinity College, 2014 – present Currently conducting research on Gabriel García Márquez and William Faulkner, examining their fictional representations of women who transgress against the sexual taboos of their respective cultures. U.S. Southern Literatures; Latin American Literatures; Comparative Literature; Gender and Sexuality Studies |
| Mary Pyle mpyle@tcd.ie |
'Harry Potter and the Unconscious Dimension' | Dr Amanda Piesse |
Mary Pyle’s primary degree was in English literature which she taught to university level. Later she trained in psychoanalysis which she has practised and taught for over 30 years. Now, partially retired, she has returned to English literature and is working for a doctorate. She is interested in the link between the unconscious and culture, and the unconscious response to literature. Psychoanalysis; Unconscious; Conflict; Evil; Love; Playing; Wizard; Death |
Stefano Rosignoli |
'A Comparative Textual Analysis of the Ethics of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett' | Dr Sam Slote | Stefano Rosignoli received degrees in Modern Literature (2006) and Publishing Studies (2008) from the University of Bologna. He worked in publishing for several years and gradually increased his interest in academic research, currently addressing moral philosophy and 20th-century Irish literature. He has been awarded scholarships from Trinity College Dublin and The University at Buffalo. Together with Mark Byron, he co-edited a dossier on Samuel Beckett and the Middle Ages, published in a celebratory issue marking the 40th anniversary of the Journal of Beckett Studies (25.1). He is also the author of a chapter on the sociology of Beckett’s texts in the years of the broadcasts for BBC Radio (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming). Modernism and 20th-Century Literature, Moral Philosophy, Textual Scholarship. |
Genevieve Sartor
|
'Return to Lacan: A Genetic Critique' | Dr Samuel Slote |
Concordia University, Montreal. B.A. Hons. English Literature and Philosophy (2008-2012) My doctoral research concerns an archive-based Joycean critique of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s late work in conjunction with Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s concept of schizoanalysis. This research is funded internally by TCD’s Ussher Award. I am sole editor of a volume James Joyce and Genetic Criticism (forthcoming Brill, 2017), and have articles published or forthcoming in Deleuze Studies, the Journal of Modern Literature, the James Joyce Literary Supplement, and Forum. Lacanian Psychoanalysis; Genetic Criticism; James Joyce; Critical Theory; New Historicism |
Ben Simmons |
'The Honest Ulsterman Magazine: Poetry, Politics and Identity in Northern Ireland 1968-1979' | Dr Tom Walker |
National University of Ireland Galway, B.A. Hons. Classical Civilisations & English 2007-2011 National University of Ireland Galway M.A. Culture & Colonialism 2011-12 PhD Candidate at Trinity College 2013-Present Currently conducting thesis research on the Honest Ulsterman magazineand its relationship to Irish literary culture during the late 1960s and 1970s. Poetry; Northern Ireland; Periodicals; Small-Press Publications; Cultural History |
Kate Smyth |
'Explorations of 'an Alien Past:' Memory and Place in the short fiction of Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and Margaret Atwood' |
Dr Philip Coleman |
BA in English and Psychological Studies, NUI Galway (2007-2010) Doctoral Candidate, Trinity College Dublin (2014- Present) Kate's research looks at the interactions between memory, identity, and place in the Canadian short story, specifically those of Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and Margaret Atwood. In 2015, she was awarded Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate funding. She is an Early Career and Postgraduate representative for the Irish Association of American Studies, a co-convenor of the 2015-2016 Staff-Postgraduate Seminars in the School of English at TCD, and a teaching assistant in American Genres. Short Story Form; Canadian Studies; Memory Theory; Identity; Place; Transnationalism |
| Stephen Stacey sstacey@tcd.ie |
'Samuel Beckett and French Before the Linguistic Turn' | Dr Samuel Slote |
University of Dublin, Trinity College, B.A. (Hons), English and French Stephen Stacey’s thesis re-examines Beckett’s engagement with French by focusing upon that understudied body of French-language material produced by the author prior to 1947. This research is supported by the Peter Irons/School of English Studentship. Alongside research, he works as a Teaching Assistant within the School of English. To date, he has tutored on the ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘Introduction to Modernism’ courses. He is currently co-organising ‘DRAFF’, a bilingual Beckett conference which will take place in August 2016. Further information can be found at draff2016.wordpress.com. Beckett; Bilingualism; Materialism; Modernism; Publishing History; Translation |