2009 Press Releases
30.03.2009
The School of English at UCC recently celebrated the appearance of six books, including monographs and edited collections, by members, two collaboratively, with Tina O’Toole (UL) and Paul Hegarty (French, UCC).
School Head, Professor James Knowles welcomed the large attendance. Launch speaker was Professor Nuala Finnegan, Hispanic Studies.
The volumes on display covered American, Irish and English authors and topics.
On display were: Two volumes by Graham Allen discuss Mary Shelley: Critical Issues (Palgrave Macmillan), and a central canonical work, Shelley’s “Frankenstein” (Continuum). On Irish literature, following earlier PRTLI-funded research on women’s writing, Patricia Coughlan and Tina O’Toole’s Irish Literature: Feminist Perspectives (Carysfort Press) collects twelve new international essays. Eibhear Walshe’s collection Elizabeth Bowen: Visions and Revisions (Irish Academic Press) adds to a growing body of work on this major Irish modernist novelist. Americanist Alan Gibbs’ new work discusses Jewish-American novelist Henry Roth’s 1990s Mercy of a Rude Stream, painful material including incest and family strife. Drawing on trauma theory, Gibbs reveals contradictions between Roth's urges to confess yet to evade the facts of his own life, showing Roth’s ultimate transformation of his autobiographical material.
With Danny Kennedy, Paul Hegarty co-edited Writing at the Edge (Sussex Academic Press), about Dennis Cooper, prominent US playwright, poet, and novelist known for bold experimentation and transgressive content. Their book is innovative in combining new writing by Cooper himself with work in different media by other artists he has inspired. It celebrates Cooper’s distinctive expression about sexuality in the suburbs, bodily limits and possibilities, and electronic communication.
Professor Finnegan commended the School members’ achievement in producing this rich harvest of work, despite the currently challenging academic environment. She commended the School’s scholarship and intellectual prowess, noting its enabling collegial atmosphere and visibly thriving research culture, represented at the launch by the many PhD and postdoctoral scholars.
Photographed are: Back row L-R: Dr Alan Gibbs, Professor Patricia Coughlan, Dr Eibhear Walshe. Front row L-R: Dr Paul Hegarty, Danny Kennedy, Professor Graham Allen.
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