2014-15
Professor Andrew Murphy
In March 2015, the Trinity Long Room Hub was delighted to welcome Prof Andrew Murphy as a Visiting Research Fellow.
Professor Murphy is Professor of English at the University of St. Andrews. Professor Murphy was appointed as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub in collaboration with the School of English. His research relates to two Trinity College research themes: ‘Identities in Transformation’and ‘Manuscript, Book and Print Cultures'.
During his time at the Trinity Long Room Hub Prof Murphy was working on a book entitled Ireland, Reading and Cultural Nationalism, 1790-1930, which will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. The book will trace the emergence of an Irish ‘common reader’ over the course of the nineteenth century, as literacy rates rose significantly with the expansion of educational provision.
At the time, many Irish cultural commentators considered popular reading to be potentially debasing and de-nationalising, as Irish readers were seen as being troublingly attracted to the cheap products of the London print trade. Various solutions to this perceived problem were proposed, including the promotion and provision of an alternative Irish canon.
These developments sparked a significant — and often heated — debate about what, exactly, constituted a specifically Irish literature, and, indeed, how Irishness itself could be defined.
Professor Murphy gave a talk titled ‘Bringing the Nation to Book: Literacy and Irish Nationalism’ on Monday, 18 May 2015 at 6.15pm in the Trinity Long Room Hub.
Ireland, Reading and Cultural Nationalism, 1790-1930
