Eamon Maher
Director,
National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies,
ITT Dublin,
Tallaght,
Dublin 24.
Work phone: +353-1-4042871
Home phone: +353-1-6287345
Mobile: 087-7663865
E-mail:
EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
· 1997: PhD in French Literature, NUI Galway, Ireland:
“Roman et christianisme en France. Le thème de la marginalité dans la vie et l’œuvre de Jean Sulivan (1913-1980).”
· 1990: M.A. in French, NUI Maynooth.
· 1982: H.Dip. Ed., NUI Maynooth.
· 1981: B.A. in French and History, NUI Maynooth.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE AND ACADEMIC AWARDS
· 2011-2012: Visiting Research Fellow at the Moore Institute, NUI Galway. This allowed me to spend 3 weeks researching the McGahern Archive in the Hardiman Library and to produce a scholarly article on my findings.
· 2011-2012: President of ALFIT (Association of Lecturers of French in the Institutes of Technology).
· Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques (2008). Honour bestowed by the French Government for contribution to the promotion of Franco-Irish Studies.
· 2004-present: Director of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies (NCFIS), ITT Dublin.
http://www.it-tallaght.ie/ncfis/
· President and founding member of AFIS (Association of Franco-Irish Studies).
· 2010-2013: Chairperson, Board of Management, Moyle Park secondary school, Clondalkin.
· 2005-2008: Associate Editor, The Irish Book Review (The Liffey Press).
· 2003-2004: President of ALFIT.
· 2003-2004: Recipient of an Irish Research Council for the Humanities and the Social Sciences Small Research Grant for a second monograph on John McGahern.
· 1996: Winner of the Prix de l’Ambassade, Translation Bursary Scholarship.
CONFERENCE ORGANISATION
· 07 October 2014: Écrire la guerre/Writing the War. One-day seminar on literary representations of the Great War in France and Ireland.
· June 2014: Member of the organising committee of the second Dublin Gastronomy Symposium in Cahal Brugha Street.
· May 2014: Organiser of the 10th annual AFIS conference in the National Concert Hall, Dublin.
· May 2012: Organiser of the PhD seminar “Esthétique et Spiritualité”. The workshops are usually hosted by the Université Catholique de Louvain, the Université Libre de Bruxelles or the Université Charles de Gaulle Lille3, so the request to hold a meeting in ITTD was an indication of the esteem in which the Centre for Franco-Irish Studies is held.
· June 2012: Co-organised the first Dublin Gastronomy Symposium in DIT (Cathal Brugha Street).
· April 2012: Organised annual ALFIT seminar in ITT Dublin.
· May 2009: Organised with Professor Grace Neville the fifth conference of NCFIS in UCC: France, Ireland and Rebellion/La France, l’Irlande et la rébellion.
· May 2007: Organised the third conference of NCFIS in ITT Dublin – Modernity and Postmodernity in a Franco-Irish Context.
· March 2006: Was responsible, with Professor Grace Neville, for the second conference of NCFIS in UCC: France-Ireland: Interlinks, Interference, Intertextuality/France-Irlande: Interfaces, Intervention, Intertextualité.
· June 2005: Arranged with Rev. John Littleton the conference: Irish and Catholic? Towards an Understanding of Identity.
· April 2004: Organised ALFIT (Association of Lecturers of French in the Institutes of Technology) conference in ITT Dublin: La France et la langue française face à la mondialisation.
· March 2003: Initiated the first Franco-Irish Conference in ITT Dublin entitled Ireland and France: Cultural, Literary and Spiritual Bonds.
· February 2000: Was responsible for a conference on 20th-Century French Literature in ITT Dublin: Regard en arrière vers la littérature d’expression française du XXe siècle: Questions de marginalité et d’identité.
· July 1994: Co-organised with Professor Pádraig Ó Gormaile the 1994 Conference of the Association Européenne François Mauriac in Clongowes Wood College.
POSTGRADUATE RECRUITMENT AND SUPERVISION
I have secured 4 funded TSRI postgraduate fellowships (cumulatively worth more than €180,000) to work on the following areas:
· 2005 - The French Connection: The Influence of Camus and Proust on the Fictions of John McGahern. (Raymond Mullen). Graduated with research Masters in 2007.
· 2006 – ‘As Mirrors are Lonely’: A Lacanian Reading of Three Irish Novelists. (Peter Guy). Graduated with PhD in 2009.
· 2006 – Goodbye to the Power and the Glory? From Modernity to Ultramodernity – A Socio-historical Analysis of Secularisation as the Restructuration of Catholic and Political Belief in France and in Ireland. (Jean-Christophe Penet). Graduated with PhD in 2010.
· 2007 – A City Rooted Out of Time: A Rhizomatic Analysis of the City and Woman in the Poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Fernando Pessoa, T. S. Eliot and Peter Sirr. (Sarah Balen). Graduated with PhD in 2014.
Self-funded PhDs
· Jeanne Lakatos, ‘The Wild Irish Girl': Iconic Realism and Revolutionary Rhetoric in the Work of Sydney Owenson. Graduated in November 2012.
· Brian Murphy, Changing Identities in a Homogenised World: The Role of Place and Story in Modern Perceptions of French Wine Culture. Graduated in November 2013.
President’s Award
· 2012 – ‘Bande à part’: Céline, Cendrars, Giono and the Legacy of the Great War (Gerard Connolly). Internal postgraduate Fellowship worth approximately €30,000. Graduated with a research Masters in 2014.
External Examiner for the following PhDs
· L’Église catholique face aux défis contemporains en République: Redéfinition d’une institution désacralisée (Déborah Vandewoude – Université Lille 3 Charles-de-Gaulle, 2010)
· Love and Ethics in the Fiction of John McGahern (Mary J. Doyle – University College Dublin, 2013)
· John McGahern and the American Connection: Intertextuality and Masculinity (Adam Bargroff – Queen’s University Belfast, 2013)
· Sécularisation et polémique autour de l’avortement en Irlande (1983-2013) (Edwige Nault - Université Lille 3 Charles-de-Gaulle, 2014).
· ‘The Distant Skin’: A Deconstructive Analysis of Women and Polysemic Touch in the Writing of John McGahern and Anne Enright (Michelle Kennedy – Mary Immaculate College/UL, 2014).
EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE (Book series)
Click on series title to view outline description and various works in print.
Series editor of REIMAGINING IRELAND (to date over 60 books in print).
Series editor of STUDIES IN FRANCO-IRISH RELATIONS.
Guest Editor (with Professor Catherine Maignant)
Special issue of Études Irlandaises entitled Les religions en République d’Irlande depuis
1990/Religions in the Republic of Ireland since 1990. Automne-Hiver 2014/Numéro 39.2.
GUEST/KEYNOTE LECTURES
2014: “A Voice from the Margins: Albert Camus at 101.’
Address to the Sophia Society in University College Cork, 25 November.
2014: “Faith of our Fathers: A Lost Legacy?”
The Catholic Church in Ireland Today
Loras College Dubuque conference on contemporary Irish Catholicism, 28-29 March.
2013: “A Voice from the Margins: Albert Camus at 100.”
Outside the Frame: Challenging Representations of France and Ireland.
9th annual conference of AFIS, Université de Rennes 2, May 23-24.
2013: “Sins of the Flesh: Problematic Sexuality in Mauriac and McGahern.”
A Way of Seeing: 50 Years of John McGahern in Print.
Queen’s University Belfast, 15-16 March.
2011: “Tracing the Imprint of Catholicism on the 20th century Irish Novel.”
The Moore Institute, NUI Galway, 7 December.
2011: “Where to Now for the Catholic Novel?”
Central Catholic Library, 1 November.
2011: ‘“The Church and its Spire”: John McGahern and the Catholic Question’.
Liverpool Hope Irish Studies Lecture series, 24 January.
2009: “John Broderick and the French Connection”.
Athlone Literary Festival, 25-27 September.
2007: “‘No Surrender!’ War and the Death of Innocence in the Fictions of John McGahern.”
Ireland at War and Peace. Fifth annual conference of the North East Irish Network, University of Sunderland, 9-11 November.
2007: “Pondering Eternity in a stifling Rural Setting: François Mauriac’s Thérèse Desqueyroux and John McGahern’s The Dark.”
Encounters/La Rencontre. First International Postgraduate Conference of NCFIS, Tallaght, 5-6 October.
2007: “John McGahern and Religion.”
First International John McGahern Seminar organised by NUI Galway and Leitrim Co. Council, 26-28 July.
2006: “Interpreting Rural Ireland Through the Prism of John McGahern’s Memoir.”
“Autour de Memoir de John McGahern.”
Commemorative Research Day on John McGahern, Université de Reims, June 2.
2005: “Sulivan et l’actualité : Un regard depuis les marges.”
2005 Année Jean Sulivan, Table Ronde.
Conseil Municipal de Rennes, 23 November.
2005: “Representations of Catholicism in the 20th-century Irish Novel.”
Irish and Catholic? Towards an Understanding of Identity
The Priory Institute, Tallaght (23-24 June).
2005: “Catholicism at the Crossroads: Towards an Evaluation of Religion in the Novels of Kate O’Brien and John McGahern.”
Central Catholic Library, Dublin, (3 March).
2005: “Towards a Theory of the Irish Novel: The Example of John McGahern.”
Plenary paper at New Voices in Irish Criticism conference: Ireland and Theory. MIC/University of Limerick, 28-30 January.
2004: “The Current State of Irish Fiction: The Example of John McGahern.”
Université de Bourgogne (Dijon) (6 March)
2004: “Death as envisioned by the French priest-writer, Jean Sulivan.”
University Church, Dublin (19 March)
2001: “The Joys of Literature.”
Lecture series organised by the Priory Institute, Tallaght. Series covered works by Jean Sulivan, François Mauriac, Georges Bernanos, Kate O’Brien and John McGahern (November/December).
2001: “Sexuality in the Novels of John Broderick.”
Second John Broderick Weekend, Project Theatre, Athlone (June).
2000: “Love and Loss of Faith in the Novels of Kate O’Brien.”
Kate O’Brien Annual Weekend, The Hunt Museum, Limerick (February).
1998: “John McGahern: Irish Novelist in Tune with his Time.”
Université de Bourgogne, Dijon (April).
MEDIA APPEARANCES
In addition to publishing regular opinion pieces and reviews in The Irish Times, I have also appeared on the following programmes:
The Living Word – RTÉ Radio 1. A week of reflections on the work of John McGahern (June 2011), on beginning a new year (January 2012), on the centenary of the birth of Albert Camus (January 2013), and of Jean Sulivan (November 2013). With John Littleton, on The Francis Factor (May 2014).
Tonight with Vincent Browne – TV3. Was invited as a panellist for a discussion on the findings of the Murphy Report (October 2011)
News at One – RTÉ Radio 1. Interviewed on the day my book, The Murphy Report: A Watershed for Irish Catholicism?, was published (29 March, 2010)
RESEARCH PROFILE
SINGLE AUTHOR BOOKS
2011: Maher, Eamon, ‘The Church and its Spire’: John McGahern and the Catholic Question (Dublin: The Columba Press).
2008: Maher, Eamon, Jean Sulivan: La Marginalité dans la vie et l’œuvre (Paris: L’Harmattan).
2003: Maher, Eamon, John McGahern: From the Local to the Universal (Dublin: The Liffey Press).
2000: Maher, Eamon, Crosscurrents and Confluences: Echoes of Religion in 20th-century Fiction (Dublin: Veritas).
2000: Maher, Eamon, Anticipate Every Goodbye (trans.) (Dublin: Veritas).
BOOKS AS EDITOR OR CO-EDITOR
2014: Maher, Eamon and O’Brien, Eugene (eds), From Prosperity to Austerity: A Socio-Cultural Critique of the Celtic Tiger and its Aftermath (Manchester: Manchester University Press).
2014: Mac Con Iomaire, Máirtin and Maher, Eamon (eds), ‘Tickling the Palate’: Gastronomy in Irish Literature and Culture (Oxford: Peter Lang).
2014: Littleton, John and Maher, Eamon (eds), The Francis Factor: A New Departure (Dublin: The Columba Press).
2012: Maher, Eamon and Maignant, Catherine (eds), Franco-Irish Connections in Space and Time: Peregrinations and Ruminations (Oxford: Peter Lang).
2012: Littleton, John and Maher, Eamon (eds), Catholicism and Me (Dublin: The Columba Press).
2011: Maher, Eamon and O’Brien, Eugene (eds), Breaking the Mould: Literary Representations of Irish Catholicism (Oxford: Peter Lang).
2010: Maher, Eamon and O’Brien, Eugene (eds), War of the Words: Literary Rebellion in France and Ireland (Rennes: TIR).
2010: Littleton, John and Maher, Eamon (eds), The Dublin/Murphy Report: A Watershed for Irish Catholicism? (Dublin: The Columba Press).
2009: Littleton, John and Maher, Eamon (eds), What Being Catholic Means to Me (Dublin: The Columba Press).
2009: Maher, Eamon (ed.), Cultural Perspectives on Globalisation and Ireland (Oxford: Peter Lang).
2009: Bévant, Yann, Maher, Eamon, Neville, Grace and O’Brien, Eugene (eds), Issues of Globalisation and Secularisation in France and Ireland (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang).
2008: Maher, Eamon, Neville, Grace and O’Brien, Eugene (eds), Modernity and Postmodernity in a Franco-Irish Context (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang)
2008: Littleton, John, Maher, Eamon (eds), Contemporary Catholicism in Ireland: A Critical Appraisal (Dublin: The Columba Press)
2007: Maher, Eamon, O’Brien, Eugene and Neville, Grace (eds), Reinventing Ireland Through a French Prism (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang)
2007: Maher, Eamon, O’Brien, Eugene (eds), La France face à la mondialisation/France and the Struggle Against Globalization (Lewiston/New York: The Edwin Mellen Press).
2006: Fuller, Louise, Littleton, John, Maher, Eamon (eds), Irish and Catholic? Towards an Understanding of Identity (Dublin: The Columba Press).
2005: Maher, Eamon (ed.), Un Regard en arrière sur la littérature d’expression française du 20e siècle: Questions de Marginalité et d’Identité (Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté).
2004: Maher, Eamon, Neville, Grace (eds), Ireland-France: Anatomy of a Relationship (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang).
2003: Böss, Michael, Maher, Eamon (eds), Engaging Modernity: Readings of Irish Politics, Culture and Literature at the Turn of the Century (Dublin: Veritas).
NEWSPAPER AND JOURNAL ARTICLES
2014: “‘They all seem to have inherited the horrible ugliness and sewer filth of sex’: Catholic Guilt in selected work by John McGahern (1934-2006).”
Études Irlandaises (Les religions en République d’Irlande depuis 1990/Religions in the Republic of Ireland since 1990), Automne-Hiver/ Numéro 39.2, pp.101-113.
2014: “Catholic Sensibility in the Early Fiction of Edna O’Brien.
Doctrine & Life, Vol. 64 No. 8 (October), pp. 50-59.
2014: “Overcoming Fear: Catholicism in the Work of Michael Harding.”
Spirituality, Vol. 20, No. 116 (September-October), pp.313-317.
2014: “An Irishman’s Diary”. Article to mark Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s classic novel of the Great War.
The Irish Times, 12 May.
2014: “The religious landscape of Walter Macken’s Universe.”
Spirituality, Vol. 20, No. 113 (March-April), pp.113-118.
2014: “’Home is where the Heart is’: Arrivals and Departures in John McGahern’s Short Stories.”
Doctrine & Life, Vol. 64, no.3 (March), pp.27-35.
2014: “Albert Camus and the dilemma of the Absent God.”
The Way, Vol. 53, No. 1 (January), pp.76-87.
2014: “French Writer’s Voice Retains all the Hallmarks of a True Prophet.” (On Jean Sulivan).
RITE AND REASON, The Irish Times, 25 February.
2013: “An Irishman’s Diary”. Piece to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Albert Camus. The Irish Times, 5 November.