Guest Speakers
Paige Reynolds
Professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts
Renowned scholar Paige Reynolds publishes on the subjects of modernism, drama and performance, and modern and contemporary Irish literature. She is author of Modernism in Irish Women’s Contemporary Writing: The Stubborn Mode (Oxford UP, 2023) and Modernism, Drama, and the Audience for Irish Spectacle (Cambridge UP, 2007).
She also is editor of Modernist Afterlives in Irish Literature and Culture (Anthem Press, 2016), The New Irish Studies (Cambridge UP, 2020), and (with Eric Falci) Irish Literature in Transition, Volume 6, 1980-2020 (Cambridge UP, 2020).
Claire Connolly
Professor of Modern English at University College Cork, Ireland
Her Cultural History of the Irish Novel, 1790-1829 (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism) won the Donald J. Murphy Prize, awarded by the American Conference for Irish Studies. She has been visiting Associate Professor of Irish Studies at Boston College, O’Brien Professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Parnell Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge and Burns Professor at Boston College.
With Marjorie Howes (Boston College), she was General Editor of Irish Literature in Transition, 1700-2020 (Cambridge University Press, 2020); as well as editor for Volume 2 of the series, Irish Literature in Transition, 1780-1830. Her new book on Irish Romanticism is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.
Laura P.Z. Izarra
Full Professor of Literatures in English at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
She received her MA, PhD and Post-Doctoral degrees from said university. She was former Vice-President and Associate Director at USP International Cooperation Office (2015-2021), Coordinator of the W.B.Yeats Chair of Irish Studies (since 2009) and co-founder and former president of Irish Studies Associations – SILAS (2003/ 2006-2009); ABEI (1988/ 2009-2018). She is co-founder of the Alliance of Chairs of Irish Studies in Latin America and IASIL vice-chairperson for Latin America and the Caribbean (former “Other Countries”).
Author of Mirrors and Holographic Labyrinths. The Process of an Aesthetic Synthesis in the Novels of John Banville (NY, Oxford: International Scholars Publications, 1999), Narrativas de la diáspora irlandesa bajo la Cruz del Sur (Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 2010-11) y O Trauma Cultural: Ressonâncias literárias irlandesas (SP: Editora FFLCH, 2020) among numerous chapters and articles on Irish contemporary literature, Irish in South America, (post/de)coloniality, cultural trauma, memory and diaspora studies.
Jane Ohlmeyer
Erasmus Smith’s Professor of Modern History (1762) at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, MRIA, FBA, FTCD, FRHistS was a driving force behind the 1641 Depositions Project and the development of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. She chaired the Irish Research Council (2015-21). In 2023 received an Advanced ERC for VOICES, a project on the lived experiences of women in early modern Ireland.
She is the author or editor of numerous articles and 11 books. Her latest Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism and the Early Modern World (Oxford, 2023) is based on the 2021 Ford Lectures in Oxford. In 2023 she was awarded the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal in the Humanities.
Briona Nic Dhiarmada
Thomas J. & Kathleen M. O’Donnell Professor of Irish Studies Emeritus and Concurrent Professor of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame, United States
A writer, academic and filmmaker, Nic Dhiarmada was educated in Trinity College, Dublin and UCD and is a native of Wexford. She lectured at UCD before working in television for RTÉ and TG4 before returning to academia at UL in 2006. She has been a Distinguished Visiting International Scholar at the University of Missouri and held a Senior Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame before joining the fulltime faculty as a tenured endowed professor.
She has written numerous screenplays and has produced, written and directed award winning documentaries including the multi-award winning documentary series 1916 narrated by Liam Neeson and screened worldwide. Her book 1916- The Irish Rebellion won the Foreward Prize for History. She is the writer and producer of the 4-part series and documentary feature film entitled From that Small Island- The Story of the Irish (2025) narrated by Colin Farrell.
Nuala Finnegan
Dean of Undergraduate and Postgraduate Studies and Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at University College Cork, Ireland
Director of the Centre for Mexican Studies (1999-2023), she has published widely in the areas of contemporary Mexican literary and visual cultural studies with a particular focus on gender. Much of her work has focused on cultural responses to violence and includes a monograph on femicide in Ciudad Juarez (Cultural Representations of Feminicidio on the U.S.-Mexico Border) with Routledge, articles, book chapters, exhibitions, community engagement and student/staff cultural activism.
Involved in exploring the generative interconnections between Ireland and Latin America, she recently led a research team in UCC and Ulster University on a project called Critical Epistemologies Across Borders, funded by the North-South Research Programme (NSRP) which is integrating Latin American art practice and feminist methodologies to forge conversations about women, identity and new constitutional futures on the island of Ireland.
