Project Description
Frankenweek: a ten-day festival marking the bicentenary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in partnership with the global Frankenreads project (frankenreads.org). Frankenweek@UL comprised a number of interdisciplinary and collaborative endeavours, including, among other things, an undergraduate poster competition; a half-day symposium; a screening of Mel Brooks’ YoungFrankenstein (1974); a demonstration of the science behind Shelley’s novel with Peter Davern (Chemical Sciences, UL); a reading and Q&A with Cork author Danny Denton in conjunction with One Campus, One Book; a writing workshop for teens with UL writer-in-residence Martin Dyar and Narrative4; an Ogham Stone writing competition; a public reading of selections from Frankenstein; and lectures by Prof. Graham Allen (UCC), Dr. Susan Manly (St. Andrews), Prof. Tom Moylan (UL), Prof. Billy O’Connor (GEMS), Cethan Leahy (novelist and editor of The Penny Dreadful), and Dr. Emily Mark-Fitzgerald (UCD).
Principal Investigators
Drs. Christina Morin and Carrie Griffin
Grant Sources
AHSS Teaching and Learning Board; AHSS Research Grant; funding from the School of English, Irish, and Communication, the Centre for Early Modern Studies, the Arts Office at UL, and IED.
Dates
22-31 October 2018
Project Description
This study entitled ‘Exploring Gender Identity and Gender Norms in Primary Schools’ sought to understand how gender identities and gender norms are understood, experienced and negotiated in primary schools by: (a) transgender and gender variant children and their families (b) primary school educators. Eleven parents of transgender and gender variant children aged between 5 and 12 and seven primary school educators took part in this study. Key findings are as follows: 1. The children in this study were strongly gender non-conforming from the time they could communicate. 2. Across the children in this study, there was a diversity of approaches to negotiating their gender identity and using names and pronouns. 3. The parents and their children in this study experienced significant pressures related to the gender identity binary in society. 4. In attempting to support their child, parents were in a vulnerable position, particularly because of the age of their child. 5. Parents’ everyday negotiations with schools and health services were affected by their economic, social, cultural and symbolic resources. 6. Highly gendered systems, practices and language in primary schools caused particular difficulties for the children in this study. 7. Educators lacked knowledge about gender identity diversity and the onus was often on the parents to support, educate and procure resources. 8. An absence of national education directives — exacerbated by confusion and fear about the age of children, religious affiliation and religious ethos — caused reluctance and inaction among educators. 9. The approach to gender identity in schools was largely reactive and focused on supporting an individual transgender child, often constraining broader learning and change related to gender. For more detail, the report is available here: https://ulir.ul.ie/handle/10344/6889
Principal Investigator
Aoife Neary PhD
Co-Investigator
Catherine Cross
External Partner
Transgender Equality Network of Ireland
grant Source
Irish Research Council: New Foundations Engaging Civic Society Strand
Dates
2017-2018
Project Description
Researched linkages between the economic empowerment of women and international law: four reports produced addressing four areas; 1. Scoping; 2. i. Equal Remuneration; ii. Equal Access to Economic Activity; 3. i. Women in Power and Decision-Making; ii. Gender Responsive Budgeting; 4. The Collective Approach. Country specific examples were researched (each time, for all subjects), and empirical evidence sought and compared with claims made as well as obligations undertaken. A major benefit is that the membership of the Committee is drawn from a wide range of jurisdictions (legal and economic).
Principal Investigators; Co-Investigators
Members of ILA International Committee on Feminism and International Law - see (http://www.ila-hq.org - Committees) (2011-2018) for full list of members and alternates - drawn from several countries reflecting the membership of the International Law Association (ILA).
Chair - Patricia Conlan;
Rapporteurs: Judy Walsh, (UCD) and Denise Roche, (NWCI) - different periods.
Dates
2011-2018
Project Outputs
Reports 1 (Sofia Seventy-Fifth Conference 2012); 2 (Washington Seventy-Sixth Conference 2014) and 3. (Johannesburg Seventy-Seventh Conference 2016) have been published and no. 4 (Sydney Seventy-Eighth Conference 2018) is due this year: the publisher is The International Law Association, London.
Project Description
This study entitled ‘Exploring Homophobia and Transphobia in Primary Schools’ sought to open up a conversation about the current shape of Irish primary schools with regard to gender and sexuality identity, beginning with the perspectives and experiences of school leaders, teachers and parents. Six schools and a total of 46 people took part. This included six school leaders, twelve teachers and 28 parents The key findings are as follows: 1. Addressing homophobia/transphobia and educating around gender and sexuality identity happened in an ad hoc and mostly reactive manner. 2. School leaders and teachers were central in schools’ approaches. 3. Dialogue unravelled ‘childhood innocence’ and yielded the potential for an incremental, holistic education about gender and sexuality identity. 4. Assumptions and uncertainties about religious ethos reproduced silences and posed challenges across all school types. 5. Accounts from several schools revealed norms and practices that did not cater for all children equally. For more detail, the report is available here: https://ulir.ul.ie/handle/10344/5874
Principal Investigator
Aoife Neary PhD
Co-Investigators
Sandra Irwin-Gowran; Eileen McEvoy
External Partner
Gay and Lesbian Equality Network of Ireland
Grant Source
Irish Research Council: New Foundations Engaging Civic Society Strand
Dates
2015-2016
Project Description
Women are under-represented at senior levels in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM) disciplines worldwide. This under-representation is receiving attention at EU and National level, on the basis that this homogeneity impedes creativity, diversity and innovation and limits attracting and retaining female students to these disciplines.
UL and six partner universities are involved in this five-year FESTA Project, whose aim is to increase the numbers of women in science and technology by implementing changes in the working environment. Within the overall project, there are seven different work packages, which include: Awareness Raising, Decision Making and Communication Processes, Perceptions of Excellence in Hiring Processes, PhD Supervision and Resistance to Equality Measures.
As a result of the project, partner institutions will have increased awareness of:
Principal Investigators
Prof Pat O’Connor and Prof Ita Richardson
Co-Investigator
Prof Edmond Magner, Dean, Science and Engineering
Project Manager
Dr Clare O’Hagan, Research Fellow FESTA
External Partners
Uppsala University, Sweden; Syddanske Universitet, Denmark; FWTH Aachen Universitat, Germany; Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Italy; SWU Bulgaria; Istanbul Teknik Universitesi, Turkey.
Dates
February 2012 - January 2017
Grant Source
EU. FP7-Science-in-Society-2011-1. Project No. 287526
Grant Amount
Total funding: 729,664
EU funding: 455,812
Matched funding: 194,512
Project Description
The project’s particular focus is on HR-related practices, specifically on selection, performance management and promotions/advancement, and aims to influence private and public sector employers to improve gender balance in key decision-making positions through the design and development of a ‘Best Practice Guide to Accelerate Progress towards Gender Balance in Key Decision-Making Positions’. An additional aim is to encourage business schools to promote gender diversity in leadership positions through the design of a training programme for undergraduate, postgraduate and post-experience students on ‘Why gender balance on key decision-making committees makes good business sense’.
Principal Investigator
Dr Christine Cross
Co-Investigators
Mr Tommy Foy, Human Resources Director
Ms Marie Connolly, HR Manager
Post-doctoral Researcher: Dr Caroline Murphy
External Partners
Irish Business and Employers’ Confederation; Cranfield School of Management, UK; Dell Computers, EMEA; University of Abertay, Scotland.
Dates
October 2014 - September 2016
Grant Source
European Commission PROGRESS
Grant Amount
Total funding: 311.929,05
EU funding: 249.543,24
Matched funding: 62,385.81
Project Outputs
Project Description
Building on literature on Irish women’s migration this Spanish national research project focused on Irish and Galician women’s mobility and how it is represented in contemporary Irish and Galician literature.
Principal Investigator
Dr Manuela Palacios González, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
Ireland-Based Partner
Dr Breda Gray (UL)
Collaboration
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela; Universidad de Almería; Universidade de Vigo; Universidade da Coruña, University of Limerick.
Dates
2013-2015
Grant Source
Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad Grant
Outputs
Three peer reviewed journal articles and two conference papers; one conference panel.
Project Description
This project is part of a cross national study of senior management in eight countries (UK, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland). It is particularly concerned with locating higher education in a wider societal context as well as exploring the relevance of gender and organisational models (particularly collegiality/managerialism) in understanding the experiences of those in, what are effectively, elite positions in universities.
Thus it explores the extent of the power of senior management within these organisations, as well as the limits of that power in the context of the wider constraints of the state and the market. It looks at the pathways into these positions; at the explanations offered for the scarcity of women in them; it explores stereotypical ideas about management styles; and senior managers’ identification of the valued characteristics and competences of those in these positions in their own organisation. It looks at their experiences of being in senior management: in terms of the interactional context; in terms of the content of the job itself and its perceived advantages/disadvantages as well as their commitment to a managerial position.
Principal Investigator
Prof Pat O’Connor
Co-Investigators
The project was undertaken as part of a wider cross national study and a number of publications have emerged in collaboration with the members of that group, individually and collectively.
External Partners
Prof Barbara Bagilhole (Loughborough University); Prof Anita Goransson (Uppsala University); Prof Teresa Carvalho (CIPES and Aveiro); Dr Kate White (Ballarat, Australia)
Dates
2008-2014
Grant Source
IRCHSS, Swedish Research Council, etc.
Project Outputs
Project Description
As my co-editor and I establish in our introduction, the female body, with its history as an object of social control, expectation, and manipulation, is central to understanding the gendered construction of shame. Through the study of 20th-century literary texts, this volume demonstrates how shame structures women’s relationships and shapes women’s identities. In examining works by women authors from around the world, it provides an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective on female shame.
Principal Investigator
Patricia Moran
External Partners
Erica L. Johnson Associate Professor of English, Wagner College, New York.
Dates
2011-2013
Publications related to the project
The Female Face of Shame (Indiana University Press, 2013) (includes co-authored introduction and one chapter)
Project Description
This project investigated the role of the Catholic Church in the social protection of migrants (emigrants from Ireland and immigrants to Ireland) from the mid-20th century to the present. The project has since developed to a wider project addressing the relative roles of church and state in the social protection of migrants. This research locates the Irish case study in the wider field of research on Transnational Social Protection globally. As origin-state diaspora engagement policies proliferate, the project is investigating the intersections between church and state in protecting non-resident citizens.
Principal Investigator
Breda Gray
Research Team
Breda Gray
Ria O’Sullivan Lago
Natalia Mazurkiewicz
Dr Eoin O’Mahony (DCU) acted in an advisory role
Funding Source
Irish Research Council
Dates
2009-2013
Outputs to Date
2019-2021: Writing up research monograph.
IdEx University of Bordeaux Initiative of Excellence, Visiting Scholar Award at Centre Émile Durkheim. Sciences Po Bordeaux, Sept-Dec 2019.
Visiting Scholar, Department of Sociology, Wellesley College and at the Transnational Studies Initiative (TSI) at Harvard University, Fall 2018.
6 peer reviewed journal articles
6 book chapters
4 Workshops International on Religion in the Public Sphere (UL)
Database of 70 interviews with migrant chaplains, directors of pro-migrant NGOs, and Philanthropic funders
Database 84 documents (church and state on migration, integration and state diaspora engagement policy)
Archive of 28 interviews (with consent) migrant chaplains and supporting materials UL Glucksman Library, Institutional Repository
Special edited edition of Irish Journal of Sociology – developing transnational methodological and substantive insights from project.
16 conference papers
Collaborations: Wellesley College and Transnational Studies Initiative Harvard; Centre Émile Durkheim, Sciences Po Bordeaux
Project Description
My colleague Prof Catherine Paul and I are preparing the first fully corrected and annotated scholarly edition of the occult philosophical book A Vision by W. B. Yeats. The book Yeats sometimes felt was his most important work, A Vision was written (and published, in a limited edition) between 1917 and 1925, then rewritten in the last decade of the poet’s life and published again in 1937. It is a strange and difficult work that illuminates many of his most famous and most powerful poems and plays. It is also an unusually collaborative work in that it had its genesis in mediumistic experiments in automatic writing, which Yeats undertook with his wife George Hyde Lees.
Our edition, part of the Collected Works of W. B. Yeats (Scribner), will bring an important text to new light, showing the Yeatses’ creative research into areas as diverse as Neoplatonism, Indian philosophy, Theosophy, spiritualism, Asian art, Idealist philosophy, anthropology, Italian philosophical and political thought, and modern theatre, in addition to world literature.
Principal Investigator
Prof. Margaret Mills Harper (UL)
Co-Investigators
Prof Catherine Paul
External Partners
Clemson University (South Carolina, USA)
Dates
2008-2013
Project Outputs
Publications related to the project: A Vision (1937)
Other related outputs/outcomes: Articles and conference papers derived from the primary research, an MA thesis and a PhD dissertation by students who are helping on the project.
Project Description
The Nomadic Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy project is a joint project between the Departments of Sociology and Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) at UL.
As the Irish economy is further integrated in the global knowledge economy, this project is investigating new forms of work and professional practice in high-tech, academic research and creative industries. As the knowledge economy is marked by intense flows of capital, goods, people and ideas, mobility becomes a critical feature of contemporary life for individuals, organisations and nations, not only internationally but also at personal, local and regional levels.
This project is investigating the challenges and opportunities posed by knowledge/professional mobility, as the country seeks to reposition itself in a ‘post Celtic Tiger’ phase and specifically addresses the question of how mobile work affects work and non-work activities and the gendered implications across the ICT, new creative and academic areas of work.
Principal Investigators
Dr Breda Gray (Sociology)
Dr Luigina Ciolfi, Interaction Design Centre, CSIS)
Co-Investigators
Dr Anthony D’Andrea (2008-2010)
Fabiano Pinatti de Carvalho (PhD Scholar)
Lisa Wixted (PhD Scholar)
External Partners
Dr Michaela Benson (Keele University), Dr Elaine Moriarty (Trinity College Dublin), Dr Misha Myers (University of Falmouth), Dr Justin Spinny (University of Surrey), and Dr. Jo Vergunst (University of Aberdeen), Prof. Tim Cresswell (University of London); Dr Detleve Lück (Mainz University Germany); Dr Henrike Rau (NUI Galway); Dr Carsten Sorensen (LSE); Prof. John Urry (CeMoRe, Lancaster University); Prof. Rosalind Gill (King’s College London), Dr Kate Kenny (National University Ireland – Galway); Dr Kate Boyer (University of Southampton); Prof. Dianne Perrons (LSE); Dr Doris Ruth Eikhof, (University of Stirling); Dr Katie Milestone (Manchester Metropolitan University), Prof. Gloria Mark (University of California, Irvine); Dr Mark Perry (Brunel University); Professor Barbara Czarniawska (University of Gothenburg, Sweden).
Dates
2008-2012
Grant Source
PRTLI4 (Irish Social Science Platform)
Grant Amount
€500,000+
Project Outputs
Project Description
This research investigates the public concern regarding the need for role models for young men arising out of recent scholarship about boys and academic underachievement. It critically examines from the perspective of parents, teachers, and students, mentorship needs and models.
Principal Investigators
Dr Kevin Davison, School of Education, NUI Galway
Dr Orla McCormack, School of Education, University of Limerick
Dates
February 2011 – September 2012
Project Outputs
Peer-reviewed research papers.
Project Description
Conceptions of national identity are gendered in Ireland, as in other national contexts, and to define oneself as a patriot was to be gendered in a particular way. In Ireland, to engage with national politics and national conflicts in the period between the Land War and Partition was to find oneself grappling with gendered norms and expectations, through which distinctive modes of ‘patriotic action’ could be validated or naturalised, but also re-interpreted or condemned. At the same time, in an international context, imperial and colonial conflicts of the late nineteenth-century opened up new conceptions of space and national identity, while in the early twentieth century, the First World War produced a sustained literary re-evaluation of cultures of militarisms and masculinity. These political events were, however, taking place alongside a series of other conflicts, conflicts centred around disruptions of norms of gendered behaviour and class alignments, as well as disruptions of literary norms with the rise of Modernism. The aim of this research project is to interrogate the literary tropes and political constructions through which women’s writing conceptualises conflict, and the processes through which narratives of identity – gender, national, local, literary – are constructed, de-constructed and rewritten as counter-narratives.
Principal Investigator
Prof. Margaret Mills Harper (UL)
Dr Tina O’Toole (UL)
Dr Muireann Ó Cinnéide (NUIG)
Dr Gillian McIntosh (QUB)
External Partners
Prof. Patricia Coughlan (UCC)
Dr Clíona Ó Gallchóir (UCC)
Dr Maureen O’Connor (UCC)
Dr Eamonn Hughes (Queen’s University Belfast)
Dr Gillian McIntosh (Queen’s University Belfast)
Prof Heidi Hansson (Umeå University, Sweden)
Prof Hedwig Schwall (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Dr Elke D’hoker (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Dr Kathryn Laing (Mary Immaculate College Limerick)
Dr Maura Cronin (Mary Immaculate College Limerick)
Dates
Project start: April 20th 2011
Project Outputs
April 2011: European Working Group meeting held at UL; this brought the majority of our group together to initiate the research project and to plan research outcomes and future funding bids.
2011-13: Individual research leading to finished articles in the fields of literary history, literary criticism, late-imperial and colonial politics, cultural analysis, and psychoanalytic literary criticism.
2012-13: Two-day international symposium, to involve members of our group planned for June 2012, titled: ‘Behind the Lines: Women, War and Letters 1880-1920’. Professor Matthew Campbell (York) will be one of the plenary speakers at this event.
2016: Women Writing War: Ireland 1880-1922, eds. Tina O’Toole, Gillian McIntosh, Muireann O’Cinneide (UCD Press, 2016)
Project Description
This IRCHSS Graduate Research Education Programme was a structured PhD offered jointly with UCD. There are students based in UL and in UCD working on the theme of gender, culture and identity. Twelve PhD students enrolled.
Principal Investigators
Professor Gerardine Meaney, GREP Director
Dr Bernadette Whelan, UL Course Director
Co-Investigator
Professor Mary O’Dowd, School of History, QUB
External Partners
Queen’s University Belfast
Trinity College Dublin
University of Warwick
University College London
Dates
2007-2012
Grant Source
Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Grant Amount
€991,020
Project Outputs
2 International and 1 national conference, 2 symposia, 4 workshops, 1 summer school, one follow up workshop and network, 2 exhibition catalogues.
New Voices and Counter-Narratives: Hannah Lynch, Transnational Literary and Publishing Networks, and Late-Nineteenth-Century Irish Women's Writing
Project Description
The aim of this project is to uncover dissonant voices, alternative perspectives, new narratives of transnational literary connections and publishing networks in the Irish fin de siècle. The life and writing of Dublin-born but Paris-based writer, Hannah Lynch (1859-1904) in the contexts of the dominant debates of the period: nationalism, imperialism, women and education, the Irish Literary Revival, Decadence, and the New Woman, provides an ideal lens for this study. Lynch’s ‘Europeanized perspective’, evident in all of her work, offers a broader picture of life and writing in Ireland at the fin de siècle than ‘the Irish grand narrative’ has allowed, in particular the grand narrative of the Irish Literary Revival. While her literary career intersected with some of the major Irish writers of the period, such as W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde and George Moore, her work also opened up dialogues with a diversity of English and European writers. She was published alongside Joseph Conrad in Blackwood's magazine and she frequented literary salons attended by Walter Pater, Henry James and Marcel Proust. Her cosmopolitan and feminist connections established in London and Paris through the English writers Mabel and Mary Robinson and the French historian and biographer, Cécile Vincens (Arvède Barine), for example, shaped her writing, specifically in relation to the discourses of gender and national identity. Through new and original archival excavation and critical analysis of hitherto unstudied texts, the aim is to recover a distinctly different narrative of Ireland and late-nineteenth-century writing, revealing fresh avenues of critical enquiry into late-nineteenth-century Irish women’s writing and its European contexts. Exposing hidden female networks and connections, neglected literary and critical voices, narratives and counter-narratives, will be a major outcome of the project and base for further research. It will also inform the overall shape and substance of the study.
Principal Investigator
Dr Kathryn Laing (MIC, University of Limerick)
Co-Investigators
Dr Faith Binckes (Worcester College, University of Oxford)
External Partners
University of Oxford
Dates
2007- 2019
Grant Source
MIC Seed Funding
Grant Amount
€4,177.39
Project Outputs
Publications related to the project:
Laing, K. & F. Binckes, (2012). 'Irish Autobiographical Fiction: Hannah Lynch’s Autobiography of a Child'. English Literature in Transition Vol 55, 2, 195-218.*
Laing, K. & F. Binckes, (2011) 'An Irishwoman in Belle Epoque Paris: Literary networks, cultural debate and the writing of Hannah Lynch. Etudes Irlandaises No. 36-2, 157-171.
Laing, K. & F. Binckes, (2010). 'From “Wild Irish Girl” to “Parisianised Foreigner”: Hannah Lynch and France' in War of the Words: Literary Rebellion in France and Ireland. Publication du CRBC Rennes-2, TIR, 41-58.
Laing, K. & F. Binckes, (2010). ‘A Vagabond’s Scrutiny: Hannah Lynch in Europe’. In: Elke d’Hoker, Raphaël Ingelbien and Hedwig Schwall (Eds) Irish Women Writers: Irish and European Contexts. Peter Lang.
Other related outputs/outcomes:
‘Inventing and Re-Inventing the Irish Woman’: External Influences on Gender Construction, 1760-2005
Project Details
This IRCHSS Thematic Project ‘Inventing and Re-Inventing the Irish Woman’: External Influences on Gender Construction, 1760-2005, finished in 2010/11.
Principal Investigators
Dr Bernadette Whelan, Department of History UL
Professor Gerardine Meaney, Director, Humanities Institute of Ireland, UCD
Co-Investigator:
Professor Mary O’Dowd, School of History, QUB
External Partners
Queen’s University Belfast
Trinity College Dublin
University of Warwick
University College London
Dates
2006-2010
Grant Source
Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Grant Amount
€150,000
Project Outputs
The principal results of the research are new datasets generated through the project, including a) subscriber lists to selected eighteenth-century Irish publications; b) excerpts from the oral history interviews on the theme of American influences on Irish women; c) a digital archive of the exhibition history of films and reviews in Irish publications of work by women writers and filmmakers from outside Ireland; d) lists of books acquired by one library which is indicative of the type of reading selected both for readers by library committees and favoured by readers in 1930s Ireland with nationality and gender of authors identified where possible; e) a list of 'Women Playwrights at the Gate Theatre, Dublin'; f) a listing of poetry by women from outside Ireland; and g) a list of films directed or written by women shown at the Irish Film Institute. Other publications produced by the project include articles, chapters, conference papers, an edited collection and an interdisciplinary, collaborative volume.
