Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Padraig Kirwan

Appointed to Goldsmiths in 2006.

Academic qualifications

BA (Hons) English and History, 1997; MA (Hons) American Literature, 1998; PhD, University College Dublin, 2002.

Teaching

I convene a MA option titled 'Contemporary Indigenous Literatures: Place, Politics & Identity' and teach on the MA core course 'American Literature and Culture: Critical Concepts.' I also convene a number of undergraduate courses, including 'Further Studies in American Literature and Culture' (Second Year) and 'The Emergence of Modern America' (Third Year) as well as teaching and lecturing on courses such as 'Introduction to American Literature and Culture,' 'Modern American Fiction,' 'Inventing the Nation' and 'Explorations in Literature.'

Areas of supervision

I have supervised doctroral students in their examination of various aspects of Native American fiction, the African novel, postcolonial literature and theory, and American immigrant writing (principally Italian-American and Irish-American fiction). In addition, I acted as supervisor to a MRES candidate who examined the subject of diaspora in contemporary Indian and American fiction. Furthermore, I have supervised 18 MA dissertations to date. I am particularly interested in hearing from doctoral students hoping to conduct research in the area of contemporary Native American literatures, Transatlantic Studies, Border Theory and/or fiction of the American West.

Grants & awards

• Fulbright Scholar to the University of California, Los Angeles, 2003.
• Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences scholar, 2001.

Professional activities

• Member of the Modern Language Association
• Member of the Irish Association for American Studies
• Member of the European Association for American Studies
• Associate Fellow of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London

• Appointed as Expert Panelist to the Higher Education and Training Awards Council of Ireland (2009-Present)
• External Examiner for PhD at University College Dublin
• Internal Examiner for PhD at Goldsmiths
  

Research interests

My primary interest is contemporary Native American writing and tribal literatures of the Americas. I am also interested in Border Studies, Transatlantic Studies, and fictional engagements with extra-textual questions surrounding sovereignty and nationalism in the present moment. I am currently completing on a monograph examining indigenous literatures, national spaces and literary aesthetics, which is due out in 2011.

Selected publications

Books

Forthcoming: Sovereign Stories: Aesthetics, Space and Contemporary Native American Fiction. (Oxford: Peter Lang).

Edited Books

Affecting Irishness: Negotiating Cultural Identity Within and Beyond the Nation, edited by James P. Byrne, Padraig Kirwan and Michael O'Sullivan (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009)

Articles

Forthcoming: '"All the Talk and All the Silence": Literary Aesthetics and Cultural Boundaries in David Treuer's Little,' NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 44.3 (2011).

'Transatlantic Irishness: Irish and American Frontiers in Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,' Comparative Literature, 63.1 (2011).

'Language and Signs: An interview with Ojibwe Novelist David Treuer,' Journal of American Studies, 43.1 (2009).

'Introduction' (co-authored with James P. Byrne and Michael O'Sullivan), Affecting Irishness: Negotiating Cultural Identity Within and Beyond the Nation,  (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009)

'Remapping Place and Narrative in Native American Literature,' American Indian Culture and Research Journal 31.2 (2007).

'Elizabeth Cook-Lynn,' 'Carter Revard' and 'W.S. Penn,' The Encyclopedia of Native American Literature. Alan R. Velie and Jennifer McClinton Temple Eds. (New York: Facts on File, 2007).

'Native American Individuality and Cultural Chronology in Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,' New Voices in Irish Criticism 3. Karen Vandevelde Ed. (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002).

'Type(ing) Cast: Early Euro-American Literary Representations of the Native American,' ROPES 8 (2000). Hilary Lennon and Fiona Sullivan Eds.

'The Emergent Land: Nature and Ecology in Native American Expressive Forms,' PaGes 6 (1999), pp. 83-92.