Biography
I completed a BA in the School of English in 2006, in the course of which I was elected a Scholar. I went on to write my PhD in the School of English, under the supervision of Professor Nicholas Grene. My dissertation examined the material imagination and serial creative practice of Samuel Beckett, and was published, in reworked form, by Cambridge University Press in 2017 with the title Beckett's Art of Salvage. Paperback: 2020.
Since completing my PhD, I have taught literature, drama, and creative writing in universities in Mexico and Bosnia, and have given lectures in Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, England, Ireland, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, and Turkey.
I took up a two-year post in the School of English as a Teaching Fellow in September 2015, and have been an Assistant Professor in the School since 2017.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Julie Bates, Beckett's art of salvage: writing and material imagination, 1932-1987, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017, 350pp
Word & Image, 38, 2, (2022), 1-71p, Julie Bates and Lea Vuong, [Editors and Authors]
Julie Bates, "I do, I undo, I redo": Louise Bourgeois and Samuel Beckett, Journal of Beckett Studies, 32, (1), 2023, p1-16
Julie Bates, Erica Van Horn's creative exercises, Irish Studies Review, 31, (1), 2023, p1-29
Julie Bates, Beckett, Brian O'Doherty and Brian Dillon: intermediality and the future anterior, Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui, 32, (1), 2020, p129 - 143
Beckett at the Gate in, editor(s)Nicholas Grene and Christopher Morash , The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp478 - 493, [Julie Bates]
Julie Bates, Writing with air in The Third Policeman, 110 Myles: Flann O'Brien at a Distance, Vienna (online), July 2021, 2021,
Julie Bates, The political and aesthetic power of the everyday in Beckett's Happy Days, Journal of Beckett Studies, 28, (1), 2019, p52 - 66
Essayism in contemporary Ireland in, editor(s)Paige Reynolds , The New Irish Studies: Twenty-First-Century Critical Revisions, Cambridge , Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp228 - 243, [Julie Bates]
Writing with air in The Third Policeman in, editor(s)Paul Fagan, Katherine Ebury, John Greaney , Flann O'Brien and the Nonhuman: Animals, Environments, Machines, Cork, Cork University Press, 2023, pp1-21 , [Julie Bates]
Julie Bates and Lea Vuong, Interview with Maggie Wright, Louise Bourgeois Archive, The Easton Foundation, Word and Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry, 38, (1), 2022, p11 - 18
Julie Bates and Lea Vuong, At Home with the Artist: Exploring the Louise Bourgeois Archive, Word and Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry, 38, (1), 2022, p1 - 10
Twenty-first Beckett studies: Materiality/Animality/Humanity in, editor(s)Mark Nixon and Dirk Van Hulle , The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Beckett, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2023, pp1-18 , [Julie Bates]
Julie Bates, "I do, I undo, I redo": Samuel Beckett and Louise Bourgeois, Journal of Beckett Studies, 31, (1), 2022
Writing homelessness: the fugitive literature of Samuel Beckett and W.G Sebald in, editor(s)Dorothea Depner and Guy Woodward , Irish Culture and Wartime Europe 1938-48, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2015, pp150 - 175, [Julie Bates]
Beckett's Maternal Miscellany in, editor(s)Claudia Reese and Yvonne O'Keeffe , New Voices: Inherited Lines, New York, Peter Lang, 2013, pp20 , [Julie Bates]
Julie Bates, Staging Beckett , Review of Staging Beckett in Ireland and Northern Ireland & Staging Beckett in Great Britain (Bloomsbury Methuen, 2016) , by Trish McTighe and David Tucker , Irish University Review, 48, (1), 2018
Julie Bates, Beckett's Political Imagination, Review of Beckett's Political Imagination, by Emilie Morin , Textual Practice, 32, (6), 2018, p1027-1029
Julie Bates, Beckett's Birds, 2019, -
Julie Bates, From Beckett's sedulous fiction to Brian Dillon's essayism, 2018, -
Julie Bates, Ruined Time: Samuel Beckett and Brian Dillon, 2017, -
Julie Bates, Louise Bourgeois's fabric works: time-charged materials and radical family portraits, 2017, -
Julie Bates, '"The boldest jump-cut - the most daring time-shift, the most outrageous deduction - ever": Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, 2018, -
Humble Relics: Beckett and van Gogh's old boots in, editor(s)Rui Carvalho Homem , Relational Designs in Literature and the Arts: Page and Stage, Canvas and Screen, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2012, pp20 , [Julie Bates]
Julie Bates, Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo and New Orleans, 2013, - 10
Julie Bates, A menace to hedgehogs: Larkin and Beckett, 2012, - 10
Julie Bates, "Stuck like a sheaf of flowers in a deep jar, its neck flush with my mouth": Chasing floating heads from Beckett's fiction to drama and film, Keynote address, International Beckett Conference , University of Guanajuato, Mexico, November , 2014, University of Guanajuato
Julie Bates and Aliye F. Mataracı, Costume as a Manifestation of European Fascination with the Ottomans, Don Juan Archiv Wien International Symposium: Ottoman Empire & European Theatre VIII, Pera Museum, Istanbul, May 2015, 2015
Julie Bates, Protestant middle class values embedded in Beckett's bowler hats, Class and Culture in Twentieth-Century Ireland, St John's College, University of Cambridge, April 2015, 2015
Julie Bates, Greatcoats in Beckett and André Kertész: paternal heirloom and costume staple, Autobiography in Context, University of Rijeka, Croatia, November 2014, 2014
Julie Bates, Writing homelessness: Beckett's creative response to the Second World War, Writing Home: Irish Culture and Wartime Europe 1938-48, Trinity Long Room Hub, TCD, June 2013, edited by Dorothea Depner and Guy Woodward , 2013
Julie Bates, Comic cripples and beggars: Beckett, Adam and Paul and Hieronymus Bosch, Samuel Beckett and the 'State' of Ireland, Humanities Institute, UCD, July 2012, edited by UCD , 2012
Julie Bates, Beckett's Greatcoats: Paternal Museums, Samuel Beckett: Out of the Archive, Humanities Research Centre, University of York, England, June 2011, 2011
Julie Bates, Beckett and van Gogh's Old Boots, Relational Forms I: An International Conference on Literature and the Arts, Faculdade de Letras de Universidade do Porto, Portugal, November 2010, 2010
Julie Bates, Beckett's rough treatment of the bowler hat, Ireland and Modernity: An Interdisciplinary Conference, Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, November 2010, 2010
Julie Bates, Beckett's Maternal Miscellany, Irish Literatures and Culture: New and Old Knowledges: IASIL Annual Conference, NUI Maynooth, Ireland, July 2010, 2010
Julie Bates, Peephole Art: Beckett and Video Art, Electronic Information and the Visual Arts: EVA Annual Conference, Covent Garden, London, England, July 2010, 2010
Julie Bates, Hats and Beds: Beckett's Maternal Objects, New Voices: Inherited Lines, University of Limerick, Ireland, May 2010, 2010
Julie Bates, But Is It Still Theatre, Eh Joe?, ISTR Annual Conference, School of Drama, TCD, April 2010, 2010
Julie Bates, Elizabeth Bowen's charged materials: clothing & the fabric of time, International Conference on Elizabeth Bowen, Warsaw, Poland, 5 July 2016, edited by Interdisciplinary Research Foundation , 2016
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
Julie Bates, Samuel Beckett's miscellaneous rubbish, 2017, -
Julie Bates, "Every man for himself, assuming bees to be capable of such notions": Beckett's bioaesthetics, Beckett and the Nonhuman International Conference, Free University of Brussels, VUB, Belgium, 7-8 February 2019, 2019, Free University of Brussels and University of Antwerp
Julie Bates, Beckett and Pierre Huyghe: challenges to human exceptionalism, Neurohumanities panel, TLRH Coffee Morning, Trinity Long Room Hub, 23 January 2019, 2019, TLRH
Julie Bates, Stylish failure: traces of Beckett in contemporary Irish writing, Beckett International Foundation 30th Anniversary Research Seminar, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, UK, 24 November 2018, 2018
Julie Bates, Tim Robinson: Affective Geographies, 10th Anniversary of the International Flann O'Brien Society, University of Gdansk, Poland, 26-28 July 2021, edited by Paul Fagan, Katherine Ebury, John Greaney , 38, (1), Between.Pomiendzy Festival, University of Gdańsk, 2019, pp1 - 10
Julie Bates, Husbanded hypochondria: illness and creativity in Beckett's fiction, Samuel Beckett Summer School, TCD, TLRH, 2 August 2018, 2018, Samuel Beckett Summer School, TCD
Julie Bates, Samuel Beckett and Louise Bourgeois: floating heads and creative imaginations, 2016, -
Julie Bates, Plenary Discussion: Beckett and Disability, Samuel Beckett Summer School, TCD, Trinity Long Room Hub, 1 August 2018, 2018, Samuel Beckett Summer School, TCD
Julie Bates, Panel debate: Irish writers on writing, Innovation and Experiment in Contemporary Irish Fiction. International Conference: KU Leuven, Leuven Centre for Irish Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium, 1 December 2018, 2018
Julie Bates. co-author: Rosie Lavan, A literary treasure map of Trinity College Dublin, 2017, -
Julie Bates. Public Interview with the author Kevin Breathnach, Kevin Breathnach in conversation with Julie Bates, 2018, -
Author: Julie Bates. Translator: Emina Jeleskovic, Otisci u Prostoru (Prints in Space), Review of Otisci u Prostoru, by D enita Huseinović , Oslobodenje, 2014
Julie Bates, D enite Huseinović: conjuring identity, Review of Otisci u Prostoru: 'Prints in Space', by D enite Huseinović , Oslobodenje, 2014, 2014, p1
Julie Bates, Dragana Juri ić's YU: The Lost Country, DU Hist Herstory salon, Hist conversation room, GMB, TCD, 11 March 2019, 2019, DU Hist
Julie Bates, 'Coups, Haircuts and Cockroaches', Sarajevo, Embassy of Ireland, Ljubljana, 2015, - 100
Julie Bates, 'Book launch, public reading & exhibition', Galerija Mak, Sarajevo, Embassy of Ireland, Ljubljana, 2015, -
Julie Bates, 'Creative Responses to Samuel Beckett's Writing', 2015, -
Julie Bates, Public interview with academics from UNAM and TCD to introduce performance of Beckett, A Night of Samuel Beckett, La Ciudadela library, Mexico City, November , 2014, Embassy of Ireland in Mexico City
Julie Bates, 'A Day to Remember', 2015, - 50
Julie Bates, D enita Huseinović: conjuring identity, Talk to open Prints in Space exhibition by D enita Huseinović, Gallery at the International University of Sarajevo, October, 2014, Gallery at the International University of Sarajevo
Julie Bates, The material imagination of Orhan Pamuk, University of Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey, July , 2014, Department of English Literature, University of Bilkent
Julie Bates, "Tears and laughter, they are so much Gaelic to me": Beckett in the Irish imagination, Talk to open Irish Embassy exhibition on Beckett, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia, March , 2014, Embassy of Ireland in Mexico City
Julie Bates, Roundtable on Irish literature, Roundtable on Irish literature with French, German, Colombian and Irish academics, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia, March , 2014, Embassy of Ireland in Mexico City
Julie Bates, Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo and New Orleans, Dublintellectual Conversations on Culture Series, Ormond Wine Bar, Dublin, March , 2012, Dublintellectual
Julie Bates, Orhan Pamuk's Museum of Innocence, Literature and Memory: A roundtable discussion with invited guests on the theme of literature and memory, Trinity Long Room Hub, TCD, 13 April, 2016
Julie Bates, The personal essay in Ireland today, 2019, -
Julie Bates, Marina Carr: By the Bog of Cats, 2018, -
Julie Bates, Samuel Beckett in Paris: arriving from Dublin "like coming out of gaol in April", 2018, -
Julie Bates, Animals and Ethics in Kafka and Beckett, 2017, -
Julie Bates, Ibsen's A Doll's House, Evening Lecture Series, School of English, TCD, 2016, 2016
Julie Bates, Gallery@50 Exhibition in Long Room, 2020, -
Julie Bates, Bloomsday Lecture on the relationship between museums and literature, Annual Bloomsday Lecture, Collins Barracks, National Museum of Ireland, June, 2017, National Museum of Ireland
Julie Bates, Louise Bourgeois's fabric books and Leanne Shapton's Important Artifacts, Monthly Discussion Group on affinities between literature and visual arts, Douglas Hyde Gallery, TCD, 2017, Douglas Hyde Gallery
Julie Bates and Feargal Whelan, A Stain Upon the Silence, Awkward Silences in Literature, Beckett Theatre, TCD, edited by Trinity Week 2019: Silence , 2019
Julie Bates and Jane Maxwell, A Stain Upon the Silence, 2019, -
Research Expertise
Description
My research contributes to two long-established, international fields: Beckett Studies and Irish Studies. It addresses texts and artworks as sites of investigation for two vital issues: the comedy/pathos of embodiment and mortality; and the challenges/rewards of inhabiting a place and forming relationships with other human and nonhuman inhabitants. Strategically building on my existing publications, my current research draws on Environmental Humanities in exploring the potential for literature and art to translate the climate crisis onto a personal scale. As a canonical male author, Beckett has been inscribed in a masculinist heritage. My recent research has sought to disrupt this, setting out comparative readings with the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois and Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer. My current book project is within Irish Studies: a study of the Tipperary-based writer and artist Erica Van Horn who is internationally acclaimed for her artist"s books, but critically neglected. My monograph with an expected completion date of summer 2024, will be the first academic study of her work, and I have an article forthcoming in spring 2023. I have consistently been published by the most prestigious academic presses and journals in my fields. My monograph, Beckett's Art of Salvage (Cambridge UP, 2017) was very positively reviewed in the Beckett Circle, Irish Studies Review, and Dublin Review of Books, praised as "a thought-provoking and original book, which offers a deeply engaging portrait of Beckett and of his work." My standing within Beckett Studies is indicated by the essays I have been invited to write: on his Irish cultural context, treatment of gender, and on the impact of Environmental Humanities on twenty-first century Beckett studies. Within Irish Studies, I am acknowledged as an expert in contemporary writing, and have been invited to write essays about creative non-fiction, and on the representation of contemporary rural Irish daily life.Projects
- Title
- Exploring Heritage Collections (HCI:C5-WP3 CPD Heritage Collection)
- Summary
- Exploring Heritage Collections is a 5-year project funded by the HEA's Human Capital Initiative grant led by Dr Julie Bates and Dr Jane Carroll (School of English). The project creates new relationships between Trinity College Dublin and 10 key partners in the heritage sector: The Library of Trinity College Dublin: Manuscripts and Early Printed Books; The National Library of Ireland; The Irish Film Institute; Dublin City Library and Archive; The Irish Museum of Modern Art; The National Archives; Marsh's Library; The Hugh Lane Gallery; The National Visual Arts Library at NCAD; The Digital Repository of Ireland. Using digitised materials from the archival collections of all 10 institutions, we will develop a new online module which will be offered to undergraduate students and to industry professionals. The online classes will be complemented by a series of practical workshops in which learners engage directly with special collections from the 10 institutions. Over the course of the module, students and industry professionals will work together on digital projects, showcasing the learners' new skills and opening up the archival materials to a wide public audience, and creating new digital pathways for the access and enjoyment of Ireland's heritage collections.
- Funding Agency
- Higher Education Authority
- Date From
- 2021
- Date To
- 2025
- Title
- Animating the Archive: Creative Legacies from Samuel Beckett Collections
- Summary
- Project Leaders: Julie Bates (Trinity College Dublin) and Steven Matthews (University of Reading, UK). This project is a collaboration between the Samuel Beckett Research Centre and Special Collections at the University of Reading, UK, and the School of English and Manuscripts and Archives Research Library (M&ARL) at Trinity College Dublin. In collaboration with the existing Creative Fellowships at Reading, the newly-formed Trinity Creative Fellows will create new work in response to the Beckett archive at M&ARL. They will also have access to the Beckett collections at Reading. Twice per year, Creative Fellows and Beckett scholars from the two partner universities will travel to each other's archives to hold workshops, and in order for the Creative Fellows to present and reflect on their work in progress.
- Funding Agency
- Trinity College Philanthropy
- Date From
- 2022
- Title
- RIA Charlemont Grant - Research trip to Beinecke Library, Yale University
- Summary
- In 2019 I was awarded a Royal Irish Academy Charlemont grant for a week-long research visit to the Beinecke library, Yale University. The purpose of this research trip was to explore the archives of the writer and artist Erica Van Horn, and to lay the groundwork for a collaboration with Nancy Kuhl, the curator at the Beinecke responsible for the purchase of Van Horn's archive. The project was a success, and I have been encouraged to apply for a longer residency by Kuhl, who will support my ongoing research project on Van Horn.
- Funding Agency
- Royal Irish Academy
- Date From
- 20 October 2019
- Date To
- 27 October 2019
- Title
- University of Reading - Beckett Creative Fellowships
- Summary
- I have set up a collaboration with Professor Steven Matthews, director of the Samuel Beckett Creative Fellowships at the Beckett International, University of Reading, UK. These creative fellowships support contemporary writers and artists to create new work in response to the Beckett archive at Reading. The first creative fellow was Eimear McBride. We are in discussion about extending these fellowships so that Trinity will participate, and writers and artists will have access to the Beckett archives in both Trinity and Reading. Professor Matthews secured starter funding to support the early stages of this collaboration. We have so far funded the visit of two Irish-based writers to the Reading archive, who participated in a workshop with current creative fellows, including the writer Robert McCrum. We also funded a public event featuring readings by these writers (Nathan O'Donnell and Niamh Campbell) and discussion with Professor Matthews, at the Beckett Summer School in TCD in 2019. In January 2020, this Reading grant will also fund an event in the Irish Museum of Modern Art, an exploration of contemporary writers and artists responding to canonical writers and artists: https://imma.ie/whats-on/reactive-practices-an-evening-of-artists-responses/
- Funding Agency
- University of Reading
- Date From
- 2019
- Date To
- 2020
- Title
- IRC New Foundations - Residency in Louise Bourgeois Foundation, New York, U.S
- Summary
- I was awarded an Irish Research Council New Foundations fellowship, for a week-long residency in the Louise Bourgeois Foundation. The purpose of this research visit was to build on my earlier archival research and collaboration with the lead archivist Maggie Wright, President of the Foundation Jerry Gorovoy, and to lay the groundwork for a proposed publication to bring together the new research and ideas emerging from the archive. A further aim of the research visit was to explore the potential lines of comparison between the creative practices of Bourgeois and Samuel Beckett, as figures spanning the modern and contemporary periods. As a result of this and the previous research visit, I set up a collaboration with Dr Lea Vuong to collect the research emerging from the archive in a special issue of the journal Word & Image. I have also had an article accepted by the Journal of Beckett Studies that will undertake a comparative assessment of Beckett and Bourgeois. The special issue and journal article are both forthcoming.
- Funding Agency
- Irish Research Council
- Date From
- 5 November 2017
- Date To
- 12 November 2017
- Title
- RIA Charlemont Grant - Residency in Louise Bourgeois Foundation, New York, U.S.
- Summary
- In February-March 2016, I arranged a week-long residency in the archive of the artist Louise Bourgeois. The archive is located in the Foundation next door to her former Chelsea studio and home. During my residency, I conducted interviews with a number of pivotal figures, including her longterm studio assistant and President of the Foundation Jerry Gorovoy, and the chief curator emeritus at MoMA who organised Bourgeois's 1982 retrospective in the museum, Deborah Wye. This was the first major exhibition by a female artist in MoMA. I also viewed artworks by Bourgeois in the MoMA archive and in the Cheim and Read gallery in Chelsea, NY.
- Funding Agency
- Royal Irish Academy
- Date From
- 27 February 2016
- Date To
- 5 March 2016
Recognition
Representations
Member of Scientific Committee for the 6th International Conference of the Samuel Beckett Society: '"Stepping down into the sexpit": Sex and Gender in Samuel Beckett's Work', Bordeaux Montaigne University, France
Member of Royal Irish Academy Early Career Focus Group
Editorial Board of Short Fiction in Theory & Practice. I serve on the editorial board and have been consulted on the activities of the journal.
Books editor for Irish University Review. I select the books to be reviewed in the major Irish Studies journal. I choose and commission appropriate reviewers, get copies of books from publishers and send them to reviewers, agree deadlines and formats with reviewers, edit their review and confirm the final copy, and work with the overall editor of the journal to complete each issue.
Chair of Panel at international conference: 'Cosmopolitanism: Literature, Language, Pedagogy' in the Trinity Long Room Hub, February 2018.
Chair of Panel at 'The Critical Ground: Conference of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures', 22-26 July 2019, TCD
Chair of closing Panel at International Conference: 'Intermedial Beckett', TLRH, TCD, October 2017.
Awards and Honours
Royal Irish Academy Charlemont grant, for research visit to Beinecke library, Yale University
Faculty of Arts Benefaction Fund, TCD, for Word & Image special issue
Irish Research Council New Foundations Fellowship
Charlemont Scholar, Royal Irish Academy
Faculty of Arts Benefactions Fund for Cambridge University Press monograph
Irish Research Council Humanities and Social Sciences PhD Award
School of Humanities Postgraduate Research Studentship
Trinity Foundation Scholarship
Memberships
Co-Director of the Trinity Centre for Beckett Studies
Samuel Beckett Society
International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures