Rosemary Gallagher is one of our PG reps and is based at NUI Galway.

 

How did you end up where you are now?

I was working in a really cool antiquarian and online bookshop in Galway for a few years (kennys.ie), and though I loved the work I found myself craving a new challenge. I missed talking about books in a really meaningful sense. So I attended a funding workshop, and began the process of applying for a PhD, and lo and behold I got it! (I mean I got accepted, I didn’t get the funding – not until the following year.) My topic was quite a bit broader when I applied, but I talked with the person who was to become my supervisor and honed it in a bit and once I started researching I focussed it even more. It’s pretty surprising to look back at where I started.

Tell us a little bit about your current research interests?

I’m all about the Humour Studies. My research looks at how jokes work in post-World War II American war novels. I am also curious about how jokes function in different cultures, and even outside of literature, so all the recent additions to my “Things to Research When I Finish My PhD” list are on that general theme.

Favourite book/film/album?

Man, picking favourites is tough. Thankfully most of my favourite novels are still by the authors I’m studying. It’d be a toss up between Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins. Do I really have to pick a book? Jeez! Ok. Another Cowgirl with Woodpecker! No, you busted me, that’s three novels smushed together. I’ll be good. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins.

Album: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel

Film: Baz Luhrmann’s Return of the Indiana Jedi and the Raiders of the Field of Dreams Rouge. Don’t give me that look, I picked a novel.

Universities don’t exist. What job would you have instead?

Editor of the New York Times Book Review. But only because my accent is too grating to be a Podcaster. I could listen to Roman Mars’ husky voice all day long.

Who would play you in the movie of your life?

Emma Stone? She’s pretty goofy. I’ll aim to grow into Julianne Moore so she can play me in 25 years when you ask me this again. She’ll be 25 years older too but I reckon she could still pull it off.

How did you get involved with the IAAS?

I met Zalfa Feghali at a Postgraduate Conference in 2011 and she introduced me to Philip McGowan, who was then IAAS Chair, at the Manchester BAAS Conference dinner later that academic year. I thought the IAAS didn’t exist anymore, because the website was a bit dated and there didn’t seem to be much happening. Boy was I wrong! Philip set me straight, and around two weeks later I found myself at the IAAS Conference in Cork making new friends every time I turned around. Two weeks and a day later I was on the Committee! We now have a lovely website with lots of information and it’s much easier for new researchers to get involved – you don’t need to go to Manchester for dinner at all at all.

In an alternate universe to question 4, you have somehow ended up establishing your own university. What’s the motto?

In Ron We Trust.

We’re all going to call around this evening. What’s for dinner?

I love to cook, so… everything? How do you feel about everything? I bought a balcony-friendly barbecue in Lidl recently so let’s grill up some burgers (I use a spicy sausage meat in my mix for extra flavour), served on home-made burger buns, shrimp in Old Bay Seasoning for the pescatarians (my aunt ships it over from North Carolina), a big salad with my favourite Honey Sesame Dressing and grilled asparagus. Would you mind bringing the potato salad? Thanks, see you at 8.

Who is your hero, academic or otherwise?

Sarah Koenig. I’m going to give her a pass on season two.

Free space! You have about 200 words to plug something dear to your heart/announce plans to take over the universe/tell us about the grand plans you have as a member of the committee…

As Postgraduate Rep, along with Katie Ahern and Kate Smyth, I’m mostly interested in getting our rookie members more involved. If you’d like to experience what it’s like to be on the committee, help organise a conference, contribute to a journal, or if you have a great idea you’d like some guidance on, get in touch. We can help you set a cunning plan in motion, or we can put you to work, whichever you prefer. You can find me on Twitter: @roe_gal

Next up in Meet the Committee is Katie Ahern, one of our PG & ECR reps, who is based at UCC

 

How did you end up where you are now?

I did a BA in English and Irish in University College Cork, during which I took a lot of American literature courses and discovered a lot of authors I’d not encountered before. This then led me to do a Masters in Twentieth-Century American Literature and Film, in the School of English. During my MA I read the novels of Anzia Yezierska and Edith Wharton, and fell down a research rabbit hole which brought me to do my PhD on both those authors.

Tell us a little bit about your current research interests?

My PhD thesis, ““All Night Long I Walked the Streets, Drunk with my Dreams”: A Comparative Study of Urban Space in Twentieth-Century American Literature” analyses American novels set in the urban environment to investigate marginalised identities and establish the ways in which neglected identities were conceived of by twentieth-century American writers.

Favourite book/film/album?

Any novel by Louise Erdrich.

Universities don’t exist. What job would you have instead?

A professional cookbook collector – for such a thing should exist.

Who would play you in the movie of your life?

Meryl Streep – because she’s played nearly everyone else.

How did you get involved with the IAAS?

I attended the IAAS PG symposium when I first started my PhD, discovered that it’s a great way to meet other people involved in American studies in Ireland, and was hooked by the idea that others understood the intellectual and emotional morass involved in doing research!

In an alternate universe to question 4, you have somehow ended up establishing your own university. What’s the motto?

“You should be writing.”

We’re all going to call around this evening. What’s for dinner?

Curry. Or else soup.

Who is your hero, academic or otherwise?

Dana Scully – despite aliens, inept bureaucrats and evil government forces interfering in her life, she gets stuff done.

Free space! You have about 200 words to plug something dear to your heart/announce plans to take over the universe/tell us about the grand plans you have as a member of the committee…

Calling all postgrads to join the ranks of the IAAS and make your views known!
The conferences and symposia are interesting, and a great way to meet other scholars in the area. I encourage everyone to think about joining the committee, or helping to run a conference. It looks good on the CV as well – proof that one can play well with others.

Next up in our Meet the Committee series is Kate Smyth, one of our Postgraduate and Early Career reps…

 

How did you end up where you are now?

I did my BA in English and Psychology at NUI Galway and an MA in Writing there, and then came to Trinity to do the M.Phil in Literatures of the Americas. I did my dissertation on Toni Morrison, but was reading Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood at that time too. I took a couple of years out to work and teach English as a foreign language, and to figure out what my PhD research would look like. It took quite a bit of reading and note-making but I pursued my interest in Munro and Atwood, discovered Mavis Gallant, decided to focus on the short story form, and started my project in 2014. I’m about halfway through now, managed to get IRC funding, and things are trucking along pretty well.

Tell us a little bit about your current research interests?

I work on the short fiction of Gallant, Munro, and Atwood, focusing specifically on the post-war period, and on issues of belonging, identity, and gender in their stories. I’m interested in issues to do with home and place, as well as the social and cultural construction of identity and the ways in which this can change over time and through movement from one place to another.

Favourite book/film/album?

Mavis Gallant’s From the Fifteenth District / Lost in Translation / The Last Shadow Puppets, The Age of the Understatement

Universities don’t exist. What job would you have instead?

Professional dog minder

Who would play you in the movie of your life?

Judi Dench

How did you get involved with the IAAS?

Having attended a couple of the conferences, I was recruited to become an IAAS PG rep. And I’m glad I was because I’ve met some cool and interesting people as a result.

In an alternate universe to question 4, you have somehow ended up establishing your own university. What’s the motto?

“Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus”

We’re all going to call around this evening. What’s for dinner?

Burgers (I’ve gotten pretty good at making them).

Who is your hero, academic or otherwise?

Elif Shafak, Turkish writer and journalist.

Free space! You have about 200 words to plug something dear to your heart/announce plans to take over the universe/tell us about the grand plans you have as a member of the committee…

I highly encourage any postgrads interested in American studies to join the IAAS. We’re good craic and you can learn a lot and meet a lot of interesting people. It’s an important part of the postgrad process to include yourself in your academic community, and we welcome any and all postgrads to come along to events or give us a shout with questions. As for my grand future plans, right now I’m focussing on finishing this thesis chapter and trying not to get distracted by re-watching episodes of That 70’s Show.

Continuing our Meet the Committee series is the current EAAS rep Dr Philip McGowan. Philip is also the current President of the EAAS. Visit their website here to find out more about what they do.

 

 How did you end up where you are now? 

Well, after completing my PhD (1997) at Trinity College Dublin and seven years of working at Goldsmiths’ College in London (1998-2005), I was appointed by Queen’s University Belfast. Among the first thing I wanted to do here was to bring the annual IAAS conference to Queen’s, which we did in 2006 and again in 2011, by which time I had moved from being Secretary to the IAAS to being its Chair. I vacated this role in April 2016 at the AGM during our hugely successful IBAAS conference, again at Queen’s, and now find myself the President of the EAAS until 2020. So, you know, careful what you wish for and all that.

Tell us a little bit about your current research interests

I was hoping you might do this bit for me… Right now, when I get the moments, I am looking at Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry and how she surreptitiously (I believe) folds philosophy into her work. Poetry does seem to be taking up most of my time these days when it comes to research: I have other articles in process on John Berryman, Wallace Stevens and Mark Doty, but will also be pulling together another on F Scott Fitzgerald’s short stories from the 1930s for the F Scott Fitzgerald Review (most likely in 2017).

 Favourite book/film/album?

Too hard to narrow this down. I have loved William Maxwell’s fiction for quite some time now and still can’t quite understand why he has been so overlooked. Jack Lemmon’s performance in Save the Tiger (1973) makes that one of my favourite films. No idea about a favourite album: listening to The Wedding Present a lot again recently, and New Order’s Power, Corruption & Lies was the first album I bought and it still sounds brilliant 33 years on; so, an indie kid still at heart.

Universities don’t exist. What job would you have instead?

Inventing a university.

Who would play you in the movie of your life?

Americans regularly tell me I remind them of Edward Norton. So him, I guess.

 How did you get involved with the IAAS?

Stephen Matterson, my PhD supervisor, suggested I present at the annual conference in St Pat’s in Drumcondra in 1994 or 1995. So 21 or 22 years and counting now.

In an alternate universe to question 4, you have somehow ended up establishing your own university. What’s the motto?

Ha. Um, I guess something from Emerson – “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Or “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” These, of course, would be used provided Ron Callan can be this university’s permanent President.

We’re all going to call around this evening. What’s for dinner?

Curry

Who is your hero, academic or otherwise?

The person who resurrects Leeds United.

 Free space! You have about 200 words to plug something dear to your heart/announce plans to take over the universe/tell us about the grand plans you have as a member of the committee…

You should have asked me this 5 years ago… When I became Chair of the IAAS I was really keen to grow our membership numbers and when we hit the 100 member mark it was a real pleasure to see our late Treasurer, Tony Emmerson’s, smile at that fact. The IAAS is now tucked in among the middle membership associations in the EAAS – still nowhere near Germany’s 1100 members mind you, but if we can keep our membership numbers buoyant and between 100-150 I think we will be well set to support postgraduate and early career scholars for years to come. As President of EAAS I’ve set myself and the Officers and the European journal team some ambitious and challenging goals: relaunch the EAAS website and the EAAS journal in time for the next EAAS conference, in London in 2018; produce a fairer set of subscription rates in relation to postgraduate and concession members across all of the associations; look at how to support the smallest Associations to help them increase membership; look at how we collaborate with other American Studies associations internationally. So plenty to do, but all hopefully to the benefit of EAAS members.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to introduce you to the members of the Executive Committee. First up is Dr Bernice Murphy!

     How did you end up where you are now? 

After doing a BA in English and an MA in Modern Literary Studies at Queen’s University, Belfast, I was accepted for PhD study with Stephen Matterson at Trinity. My thesis focused on the work of Shirley Jackson, who was, at the time, a rather outrageously neglected figure (although this is thankfully no longer the case). I looked at her work from within the framework of the historical and cultural context of 1950s America, and it exposed me to a wide range of ideas and subject areas. I’d always been a pretty solid (though by no means exceptional) college student, but I realised pretty early on at TCD that something about the process of PhD writing and research really suited my inherently anti-social tendencies. In short: I wanted to keep on doing This Kind of Thing, if possible. With Stephen’s encouragement, I started work on my first book during the final year of my PhD, which was an edited collection of essays on Jackson (the first of its kind). I then spent almost three years in miserable post-PhD limbo, working as a TA and unsuccessfully applying for the kinds of academic jobs that require you to set aside a week to fill in the 40 page application form and then take six months to let you know you don’t have an interview. I was finally granted a reprieve when I won an IRCHSS Postdoctoral Fellowship, which allowed me to write my book The Suburban Gothic. Essentially, that fellowship made it possible for me to have a viable academic career – just as it was finishing up in 2008, a job as lecturer in Popular Literature opened up at TCD, and my skills and research interests were a good match (it’s actually still, to my knowledge, the only post of its kind in the world – I was fortunate to be in the right place, at the right time). I started my new job on the exact same day that Lehman Brothers bank collapsed. Little did I know then that it would be almost a decade before we had name brand-biros in the school stationery cupboard again (and even now, we have to share one between three of us).  But it’s all downhill from here!

     Tell us a little bit about your current research interests

My research so far has mainly focused on the study of place and space in American horror and gothic narratives, and I have published monographs about gothic suburbia, backwoods horror, and the highway horror film. However, over the last year or so, I have been working on a couple of projects related to popular literature in a more general sense: a text book that is intended to introduce undergraduate and postgraduate students to Key Concepts in Contemporary Popular Fiction, and, with Stephen Matterson, an edited collection featuring 20 essays on leading genre authors, called Twenty-First Century Popular Fiction (both forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press). After I get those finished, I intend to lie down in a darkened room for several months, and then gradually start work on the final instalment in my ‘places in the American Gothic’ series. I also have a couple of pretty cool article ideas I want to develop over the summer, though who knows what will become of them. It’s been a very busy couple of years writing, so I am really looking forward to being able to slow down a bit, and engaging in the kind of seemingly rather aimless background reading that so often leads to the accidental formulation of interesting ideas.

     Favourite book/film/album?

Book: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Film: That’s a toss-up between Carrie, Notorious and the 1976 adaptation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers at the moment, though this list changes on a fortnightly basis.

Album:  Dated but true answer: Dummy by Portishead.  I almost cheered when ‘Sour Times’ was used to score a particularly on-the-nose scene in The People Versus O.J. Simpson.

     Universities don’t exist. What job would you have instead?

I would probably be an extremely inept secondary school English teacher who gets sacked for making age-inappropriate jokes about the suggestive similarities between Ed Gein and Boo Radley.

     Who would play you in the movie of your life?

That’s a tough one, but it comes down to a tie between Angela Lansbury and Eva Green. I feel that Lansbury would capture my quiet dignity and skill for amateur crime detection, whilst Green would convey my intermittent bouts of demonic possession with terrifying aplomb. I suggest they take alternate scenes, except for when portraying my lecturing style – then both of them should appear, ‘William Wilson’ style.

     How did you get involved with the IAAS?

I was bundled into the back of a van on the way to college one morning and ‘encouraged’ to join if I wanted to keep researching American literature.  But it turned out to be one of my most rewarding abductions ever!

Actual Answer:  Back in 2001 or 2, my PhD supervisor sensibly advised me to give my first ever conference paper at one of the annual IAAS postgrad symposiums, which was held in Cork. I was very favourably impressed by the quality of the contributions from the other students and by the openness and friendliness of the organisation at large. It was also very useful to be exposed to papers that came from a broader American Studies perspective than I would normally have encountered during the course of my own research, which was quite nuclear holocaust and unhappy suburban housewife-centric at the time.  (Nothing much has changed there).

     In an alternate universe to question 4, you have somehow ended up establishing your own university. What’s the motto?

“Grimdark University: Preparing Our Students for a Dystopian Tomorrow, Today”

     We’re all going to call around this evening. What’s for dinner?

If you have the good manners to ring me a couple of hours beforehand with advance warning, I’ll rustle up some half-way competent casserole or a really nice stir fry. If you show up unannounced, it will be cream crackers and peanut butter, at most.  The chippers round my way are all pretty mediocre.

     Who is your hero, academic or otherwise?

I have quite a few. Before the age of 12 or so, Joan of Arc, Miss Piggy, and Constance Markievicz all loomed large: as a horror obsessed teenager it was Stephen King, whose writing on the horror genre introduced me to the idea that one could actually study popular literature for the first time. Shirley Jackson, whose work is the reason that I have an academic career at all, is the writer I idealise most. I also have huge respect for Joyce Carol Oates (the most likable famous writer I have ever seen up-close in person, and a stellar and underappreciated talent), and Davids Cronenberg and Bowie.

     Free space! You have about 200 words to plug something dear to your heart/announce plans to take over the universe/tell us about the grand plans you have as a member of the committee…

As a committee member, I would strongly encourage Irish-based students or academics working on any aspect of American culture or society to join the IAAS – it’s an immensely worthwhile and welcoming organisation.

Shameless Self Promotion Plug 1:

Prospective students for the M.Phil in Popular Literature (which I direct) can find information on our course here: https://tcdmphilpoplit.wordpress.com/

Shameless Self Promotion Plug 2:

Key Concepts in Contemporary Popular Fiction and Twenty First Century Popular Fiction are both out later this year from EUP. The collection Lost Souls: Essays on Horror and the Gothic’s Neglected Personages, which contains more than 50 short essays on overlooked but fascinating genre figures, is also out soon, from McFarland and Co.  I co-edited it with Elizabeth McCarthy, with whom I also co-founded and edited the online Irish Journal of Horror and Gothic Studies, which is still going strong with a great new team, ten years later.