Speakers
Valentina Anania is an Italian student with a profound love for English literature, currently attending the MA in English Modernities in UCC. She completed her BA in French and English literature at the Universita' di Udine, Italy, majoring with a thesis on the figure of the Devil on the Elizabethan stage. Theatre remains her major interest, though she is now exploring its relationship with other media.
Adil Ansaroglu is from Turkey and has previously graduated from the University of Limerick with a BA in English Literature, Sociology and History. He is currently undertaking UCC’s English MA in Modernities. His research interests focus on Victorian literature and culture, while he also maintains an interest in the sociology of literature and history. From Textualities he hopes to gain new ideas, which he can then include in his PhD proposal next year.
Áine Barry from Cork is currently pursuing an MA in Irish Writing and Film in University College Cork, having studied English and History for her BA. Áine focused predominantly on Film Studies throughout her time as an undergraduate in preparation for continuing to postgraduate level. Her interest lies within Irish cinema and how it is considered internationally by directors such as John Ford. Her presentation at Textualities will discuss the representation of masculinity in the cinema of John Ford and in what way this ideology influenced his films. For her thesis she is focusing on censorship and its significance on women within film during the post war period.
Sam Bourke is native to Cork, and completed his BA (Hons) in English and Psychology along with a PDE (Professional Diploma in Education), also known as “the h-dip,” in University College Cork. He is currently studying for his MA in Modernities at UCC. His interests are in Irish literature, satire and parody, and transgressive fiction, with a penchant for philosophical readings of texts.
Elaine Malone is from Limerick, and currently studying the MA Modernities in UCC where she also completed her BA Hons English and Philosophy. Her thesis will cover Literary Cubism in the work of Gertrude Stein and its connection to stream of consciousness in fiction and combining different mediums of artistic expression. She hopes to continue study after her Masters is completed, particularly in the dynamic between Philosophy and Modern literature and potentially the Beat Generation era writers.
Tim Collins is a native of West Limerick currently undertaking the Modernities English MA at UCC. He graduated from the University of Limerick with a BA in English and History. An avid reader, and occasional writer, Tim’s interests lie in early twentieth-century English literature. Authors he admires most include such literary talents as E.M Forster, Evelyn Waugh, Aldous Huxley and P.G Wodehouse. A former student of Postmodernism, Tim has recently turned his interest to conservative authors writing in the Modernist era.
Sean Travers received her BA in English and
History of Art in UCC, where she is currently studying for her MA in Modernities. Sean hopes to lecture at third-level in her future, and intends to write about representations of trauma in a selection of postmodern texts for her thesis. Among the texts she is examining is David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, which she intends to discuss in relation to the series engagement with the work of Sigmund Freud at Textualities.
Elaine Hanley from Co.Kerry is an English and Geography graduate of University College Cork, Ireland. Currently studying for an English Masters in Irish Writing and Film, Elaine’s passion is Irish poetry. Specific literary interests include Irish writing and poetry by Oscar Wilde & W.B. Yeats, however literary research has drawn her interests towards forgotten female poets who wrote poetry in early Twentieth Century Ireland. Her presentation will focus on Emily Lawless as an inspiration to the poets she hopes to focus on in her thesis.
Jane Farrell is from Kilkenny and has a BA from Trinity College Dublin in English Literature and Classical Civilisation. She is currently undertaking an MA in Irish Writing and Film with a particular focus on Maeve Brennan through the theoretical lenses of feminism and psychoanalysis. Her thesis will be based on ideologies of marriage as represented in Brennan’s short fiction, particularly looking at the Derdon and Bagot families. Jane’s presentation will examine the various accounts of Brennan as simultaneously an exile, ‘forgotten’, ‘insane’ and as a ‘female writer’.
Laura Hussey is a graduate of University College Cork with a BA in English and History. She is now currently completing a Masters in Irish Writing and Film. Laura is interested in gender and sexuality in Irish literature. She hopes to complete her thesis on the representation of Church and State in the works of Edna O’Brien. She hopes to improve her presentation skills through the Textualities Conference.
Grace Collender, from Waterford, is currently undertaking an MA in Irish Writing and Film in University College Cork, having previously graduated from UCC with a BA in English and History. In undertaking this MA she hopes to continue expanding her knowledge of Irish literature and culture. She is most interested in examining the relationship between gender, sexuality, culture and nation and how this relationship has been analysed in Irish literature, in particular the writings of Edna O’Brien. She aims to focus on the way in which O’Brien’s works challenge the patriarchal establishment by expressing the need to empower the feminine in both sexes.
Síne Meehan, from Cork, is doing a Masters through Research in Medieval religious and sermon literature, with a particular interest in macabre imagery of the body and its uses. She completed her undergrad in University College Cork, and graduated with a BA in English and Psychology. She is hoping that Textualities will help her to expand her knowledge on a topic related to her thesis, and discuss it in a way that she may not have the opportunity to otherwise.
Ciarán Kavanagh graduated from University College Cork with a BA in English and History, and is now studying for his MA in English Modernities. While he maintains an interest in literature from the Romantic period to the Contemporary, his thesis will focus on issues of narrative instability and 'denarration' in Postmodernist texts. His presentation will illustrate occurences of these phenomena in the movie Fight Club, and extrapolate as to how the conclusions drawn from such an analysis will prove helpful in the context of wider Postmodernism
Margaux Pujol is a French student at University College Cork, where she is actually completing an MA in English Literature (MA Modernities). She did her BA in Anglophone Literature, History and Culture. She mostly focuses on the Victorian era for her research although she aims at connecting this particular period with what came before - Romanticism - and what happened next - Modernism. For Textualities 2015, she will be dealing with the reception of Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure.
Hwaet! Laura Creedon is from Cork and is currently studying the MA Modernities in UCC, where she also got her BA Hons in English and History. Her MA Thesis will be a study on the influence of periods of conflict on the translation of Old English battle poetry. In the textualities conference Laura hopes to look at the depictions of conflict in The Battle of Maldon. After the MA she hopes to continue her studies of Old English language and literature!
Kurian Therakath Peter is interested in Popular Culture, Pulp Fiction, Technology, Victorian England, comic books and esoterica (which, it should be noted, is not a portmanteau term for esoteric erotica). He hails from the little village of Pathanamthitta in Kerala, India- a tiny smudge on the map the Tourism Board calls God’s Own Country. He himself is agnostic on this matter. He is prone to sesquipedalianism, illeism, and a sometimes-crippling self-awareness. He is currently in the Modernities Master’s program at UCC.
Cal Doyle is a student on the Irish Writing and Film MA. His interests include twentieth century poetry in English, modernism, film, and theories of space, psychogeography, and the urban, Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja in particular. His MA thesis will focus on the urban in the poetry of Samuel Beckett, Louis MacNiece and David Wheatley.
Donal Buggy graduated from University College Cork in 2014 with a BA in English and
Applied Psychology, and is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Irish Writing and
Film. His previous studies have included modernity and postmodernity in European cinema, while his research in Irish literature has led to a particular interest in the works of James Joyce as one of the country’s foremost modernist writers. He will be presenting on the screen adaptations of Joyce’s writing, focusing particularly on the experimental techniques employed in the film medium and how they relate to Joyce’s original texts.
Rachel O' Donoghue, from Clonakilty, is working towards her MA in Modernities in UCC, where she previously completed her BA in English and Geography. Her main interest is the use of tradition and allusions in poetry and prose. For her thesis she will be focusing on allusions in William Butler Yeats' early career, focusing on Irish folklore and mythology. Her presentation will be looking at the use of allegories and allusions in the contemporary fiction of Harry Potter.