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Dr Brian Cliff B.A. (Michigan), M.Phil. (Dublin.), Ph.D. (Emory)Visiting Research Fellow

brian-cliff

Research and Teaching Interests

Before my appointment as a lecturer and subsequently Assistant Professor at Trinity (2007-2019), I held teaching posts at Emory University (2001-2002), the Georgia Institute of Technology (2002-2005), and Montclair State University (2005-2007). I lecture primarily on modern and contemporary Irish literature, particularly on Irish fiction, though my other undergraduate and postgraduate teaching interests include the Harlem Renaissance and crime fiction. From 2011-2015, I directed Trinity’s Irish Studies Moderatorship. In November 2013, I co-organized “Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival” at Trinity, featuring 18 leading Irish and Irish-American crime novelists. My recent publications include Irish Crime Fiction (Palgrave, 2018) and Guilt Rules All: Irish Mystery, Detective, and Crime Fiction (Syracuse, 2020, co-edited with Elizabeth Mannion and nominated for an Edgar Award), as well as essays on Deirdre Madden, Tana French, Irish domestic noir, and gothic elements in Irish crime. I am currently working on a monograph about community and contemporary Irish writing, focused on writers who came of age in the 1960s and after, drawing on their work to examine a broader set of relations between literature and community in Ireland.

Publications

Books

Irish Crime Fiction. London: Palgrave, 2018.

Edited Works

Guilt Rules All: Irish Mystery, Detective, and Crime Fiction. Syracuse University Press, 2020. Co-editor, with Elizabeth Mannion. Shortlisted for an Edgar Award (Biographical/Critical category) by the Mystery Writers of America.
Synge and Edwardian Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Co-editor, with Nicholas Grene.
Hood, by Emma Donoghue. Reprint with supplementary materials. Written and co-edited with Emilie Pine. New York: Harper Perennial, 2011.
Representing the Troubles: Texts and Images, 1970-2000. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004. Co-editor, with Éibhear Walshe.

Selected Articles and Essays

'"Secrets and Lies”: Gothic Elements in Irish Crime Fiction. Irish University Review 53.1 (2023): 159-72.

‘Tana French: An Interview with Brian Cliff’, Critical Inquiries Into Irish Studies 4.1 (2022). Https://scholarship.shu.edu/ciiis/vol4/iss1/1.

“Class and Multiplicity in One by One in the Darkness.” In Deirdre Madden: New Critical Perspectives,ed. Anne Fogarty and Marisol Morales-Ladrón. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022. 66-79.

‘Irish Crime Fiction’. Oxford Bibliographies in ‘British and Irish Literature’. Ed. Andrew Hadfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199846719-0173

‘At Home in Irish Crime Fiction’. Clues: A Journal of Detection, Theme Issue: Domestic Noir, ed. Eva Burke and Clare Clarke, 39.1 (2021): 13–23.

‘Between the Lines: Liz Nugent’s Malignant Protagonists’. In Guilt Rules All: Irish Mystery, Detective, and Crime Fiction. Ed. Elizabeth Mannion and Brian Cliff. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2020. 253-267.

“The power of a good book in times of chaos.” Irish Times 3 November 2018. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-power-of-a-good-book-in-times-of-chaos-1.3680800
“Why Irish crime fiction is in murderously good health.” Irish Times 25 July 2018. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/why-irish-crime-fiction-is-in-murderously-good-health-1.3569128
“Tana French’s Dublin Ghosts.” In 21st Century Popular Fiction Writers. Ed. Bernice Murphy and Stephen Matterson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018.
“Subversive series shows ’80s Belfast as shape of things to come.” Irish Times
27 October 2018. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/subversive-series-shows-80s-belfast-as-shape-of-things-to-come-1.3271167
“Unwilling Executioner: Crime Fiction and the State – Accessible, insightful and even-
handed.” Irish Times 23 September 2017. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/unwilling-executioner-crime-fiction-and-the-state-accessible-insightful-and-even-handed-1.3225090
“Crime pays, from academia to bestseller lists.” With Clare Clarke. Irish Times 27 March
2017. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/crime-pays-from-academia-to-bestseller-lists-1.3026363
“Emma Donoghue.” In “The Cracked Looking Glass”: An Exhibition of the Leonard L. Milberg Collection of Irish Prose at Princeton University, ed. Renee Fox and Greg Londe (Princeton, Princeton University Library, 2011): 185-6.
“The Pillowman: A New Story to Tell.” In Martin McDonagh: A Casebook. Ed. Richard Russell. New York: Routledge, 2007: 131-148.
“Community, the Desire to Belong, and Contemporary Irish Literature.” The Irish Review 34 (Spring 2006): 114-129.
“Paul Muldoon’s Community ‘on the cusp’: Auden and MacNeice in the Manuscripts for ‘7, Middagh Street.’” Contemporary Literature 44.4 (Winter 2003): 613-636.
“‘Whither thou goest’: The Possibility of Community in Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme and Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me.” Foilsiú: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Irish Studies 3.1 (Spring 2003): 33-45.
“Crossing Through the Borderlands.” In The Theatre of Frank McGuinness: Stages of Mutability. Ed. Helen Lojek. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2002: 1-15.
“‘as assiduously advertised’: Publicizing The 1899 Irish Literary Theatre Season.” In Critical Ireland: New Essays in Literature and Culture. Ed. Alan Gillis and Aaron Kelly. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001: 30-36.
“On Language and Violence.” In Memory and Mastery: Primo Levi as Writer and Witness. Ed. Roberta Kremer. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001: 105-114.