This fall the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies welcomes three new fellows: Amy Mulligan, Irish Language and Literature; Isabelle Torrance, Classics; and E. Mark Cummings, Psychology.
Amy Mulligan joined the Irish Language and Literature Department and is also a Fellow in the Medieval Institute. Amy received a Masters in Philosophy in Celtic Language and Literatures and a Ph.D. from Oxford. Her current research focuses on the role that written accounts of the land played in Ireland in the 12th century, a time of upheaval, compromised political autonomy and shifting control of the land. She considers the ways that imagined or ‘virtualized’ geographies were every bit as persuasive, rich, and real as the physical geography itself, and argues that engagement with ‘narrative topographies’ enabled the maintenance and development of place-based identities at times of dislocation from the land itself. Her expertise in medieval languages and literature of Scandinavia, Britain and Ireland encourages the connections between Irish Studies and Medieval Studies. She looks to create new conversations surrounding Ireland’s place in northwest Europe and vernacular literature. This semester Amy teaches Vikings and Celts: Fighting and Writing in the Middle Ages and Irish Literature and Culture I.
Isabelle Torrance, Associate Professor of Classics, grew up in Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin and completed her B.A. and Ph.D. in Classics at Trinity College Dublin. She specializes in classical Greek language, literature and culture, especially Greek tragedy, and also researches the reception of Greek tragedy in later literature. She has a strong interest in Irish adaptations of Greek tragedies and what they tell us about Ireland’s changing socio-political climate. She has been able to include dramas by Seamus Heaney and Marina Carr in some of her Classics courses at Notre Dame and is thrilled to have been awarded a course development grant from the Keough-Naughton Institute to plan an entire course on Greek Tragedy and the Irish Imagination, which is scheduled to run in fall 2014. Isabelle says she is delighted to have been made a Fellow of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and looks forward to learning a lot from the other fellows and invited speakers.
E. Mark Cummings, Professor and Notre Dame Endowed Chair in Psychology, received a Masters in Psychology and a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Known for work on the effects of family relationships on child development, Prof. Cummings has acted as the Principal Investigator of two large research projects centering on the social and developmental impact of political and sectarian conflict on children and their family relationships in Northern Ireland. His work found that children who experienced family conflict as a result of political violence reported greater emotional insecurity about family relationships, which also resulted in more mental health symptoms and behavior problems over time. His work provides an important analysis of the impact of political violence on community in Northern Ireland.