Current Research Students
Postgraduate Student Handbook
The postgraduate student handbook is available here.
Trinity College Postgraduate Research Student Handbook:
School of English PGR Student Handbook
Postgraduate Representatives
A number of registered postgraduate research students serve as representatives for the broader graduate community in the School of English every year (excluding MPhil students, who have their own class representatives for each taught programme). The Graduate Students’ Union oversees the election of these representatives, which usually takes place in September. Teaching Assistants in the School also have a representative.
Current Research Students
Name: Alan Armstrong
Email: armstral@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr. Brendan O'Connell
Thesis Title: The Ethics of Wealth in Late Medieval Alliterative Verse
Projected Completion: 2026
Funding: Trinity College Dublin Non-Foundation Scholarship
Background: B.A. in History and English, Trinity College Dublin (2021)
Research keywords: Alliterative Poetry, Medieval Literature, Middle English, Historicism, Romance, Wealth
Name: Amanda Dunne
Email: dunnea29@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr Pádraic Whyte
Thesis Title: Early Adolescence in Modern Irish Children's Literature
Projected Completion: September 2028
Funding: TRDA
Research keywords: early adolescence, children's literature, young adult literature, Irish children's literature, identity formation, narrative voice, neuroscience of adolescence, psychology of adolescence
Name: Arianna Locoteta
Email: locoteta@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr. Mark Faulkner
Thesis Title: A Computational Approach to Abbreviation Patterns: Using Digital Philology for a Better Localisation of Early Medieval Insular Manuscripts
Projected Completion: September 2028
Funding: Trinity Research Doctorate Award: Group-Based Project "Wandering Books"
Background: M.Phil. in Medieval Studies at Trinity College Dublin (2022-23, First Class Honours); B.A. in Foreign Languages and Literatures at Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna
Research keywords: Historical Corpus Linguistics, Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR), Abbreviations, Old English, Medieval Latin
Name: Brenda Romero
Email: romerob@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Eoin McNamee and Kevin Power
Thesis Title: Literary Slivers: Memoirs of Women in Tech
Projected Completion: 2025
Funding: N/A
Academic Background: MA, National University of Ireland in Galway, 2021. BSc, Technical Communications, Clarkson University 2006
Research keywords: Gender, Memoir, Games, Technology, Programming, Code, Women
Name: Carolyn Oxley
Email: oxleyc@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr. Una Mannion
Thesis Title: Each of Us a Haunted House: Treatments of Time and Revelations of the Non-Linear Self in Autofiction
Projected Completion: 2029
Academic Background: MPhil in Creative Writing, Trinity College Dublin (2023); BA in English, Georgetown University, Washington, DC (1999)
Research keywords: Autofiction; Autobiographical Fiction; Autobiographical Novel; W.G. Sebald; Emmanuel Carrère; Patricia Lockwood; Serge Doubrovsky
Name: Celina Tran
Email: celinatran01@gmail.com
Supervisor: Dr. Kevin Power and Dr. Paul Delaney
Thesis Title: PhD in Literary Practice
Projected Completion: 2028
Background: BA (Homs) in journalism from the University of Leeds (2020-2023), MPhil in Creative Writing at Trinity College Dublin (2023-24)
Research keywords: Diaspora, Literature, Creative Writing, Vietnam, Vietnamese History
Name: Chiara Mastronardo
Email: mastronc@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Professor Christopher Morash
Thesis Title: Archipelagic relations and the space of Islands’ Fiction: a comparative perspective of Ireland, Iceland, Taiwan, and Cuba
Projected Completion: 2026
Academic Background: B.A. (Hons) in Languages, Cultures, Literature and Translation – English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish from “La Sapienza” University of Rome (2015); M.Phil. in Chinese Studies from Trinity College Dublin (2018)
Research keywords: Irish literature, Island studies, islandness
Name: Claire Poynton-Smith
Email: poyntonc@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr Mark Faulkner
Thesis Title: Tracking the language of sanctity across transitional English: an analysis of expressions of lust and chastity in English texts c.950-c.1250
Projected Completion: September 2024
Funding: Provost's PhD Project Award
Background: BA Hons English Language and Literature, University of Oxford (2012-2015); Postgraduate Certificate in Secondary Education with Distinction, University of Leicester (2015-2016); MA Viking and Anglo-Saxon Studies, University of Nottingham (2018-2019)
Research keywords: Medieval literature; late Old English; early Middle English; twelfth-century English; Saints' Lives; gender; historical linguistics
Name: Eva Stenskar
Email: stenskae@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr Rosie Lavan
Thesis Title: Elements of das Unheimliche in the Works of Sylvia Plath
Projected Completion: 2027
Funding: IRC
Background: BA, Comparative Literature – Lund University. MA, Comparative Literature – Linné University
Research keywords: the uncanny, das Unheimliche, space, home, things, Judeo-Christian imagery, metamorphoses, Ireland
Name: Joanne McDonagh Touhey
Email: touheyj@tcd.ie
Supervisor(s): Eoin McNamee and Julie Bates
Thesis Title: Beneath the Carpet: A Memoir, The Silence We Inherit, and a Critical Reflection on Trauma, Voice, and the Second-Person in Life Writing
Projected Completion: 2025
Funding: SUSI / Self-funded
Academic Background: BA in Social Care (Athlone Institute of Technology) 2018, MA in Writing (University of Galway) 2021, PgDip in Library and Information Management (Ulster University)
Research keywords: Memoir, Generational Abuse, Memory and Identity, Life Writing, Trauma, Narrative Perspective.
Name: Kristen Poli
Email: polik@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr. Kevin Power & Dr. Una Mannion
Thesis Title: Anorexic Realism: What Happened to Our Dream of Wholeness?
Background: M.Phil in Creative Writing, Trinity College Dublin (2023). M.S. Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University (2014
Name: Liz MacBride Email: emacbrid@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Kevin Power & Philip Coleman
Thesis Title: My Psychogeographical Romance: Mapping Dublin’s nightlife within the short story cycle
Projected Completion: 2025
Background: BA English Studies, TCD (2019); MA Creative Writing, Royal Holloway, University of London (2020)
Research keywords: short fiction; creative writing; literary mapping; psychogeography; story cycles; urban writing
Name: Maija Makela Molloy
Email: makelamm@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Professor Philip Coleman
Thesis Title: Fanny Howe's Poetics of Bewilderment
Projected Completion: 2028
Funding: Research Ireland Grant
Academic Background: BA English Studies, Trinity College Dublin (2020)
Research keywords: Fanny Howe, Simone Weil, Poetry, Poetics, Negative Theology, Marxism, Negative Dialectics
Name: Matthew Hodgson
Email: hodgsonm@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr. Sam Slote
Thesis Title: Maternity, Reproductive Discourse, & Bodily Transformation in the Work of James Joyce
Projected Completion: 2028
Funding: Self-funded
Background: M.Phil in Irish Writing, Trinity College Dublin (2023); M.A., University of Chicago (2020); B.A. Montana State University: Bozeman (2019)
Research keywords: James Joyce, reproduction, maternity, transformation
Name: Michael Roderick
Email: rodericm@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr. Sam Slote
Thesis Title: '(Stoop) if you are abcedminded': James Joyce as Epicist of Print
Funding: Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship (RI)
Background: BA Classics (Lit Hum) Oxford; MA Comparative Literature UCL; Teacher and Tutor
Research keywords: Joyce Studies, Literature and Technology, Classical Reception
Name: Molly Box
Email: boxm@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Professor Darryl Jones
Thesis Title: Eating Children: Fetishization of the Child Corpse in Victorian Comfort Books and Ghost Stories
Projected Completion: May 2028
Background: Bachelor of Journalism, Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles (2022); Master of Philosophy in Modern and Contemporary Literature Studies
Research keywords: Victorian mourning, Victorian spiritualism, Victorian consolatory literature, death customs, M.R. James, Henry James, Elizabeth Gaskell, Society of Psychical Research
Name: Rían Boyle
Email: boyleri@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr Mark Faulkner
Thesis Title: Counting Correctness: A Corpus Approach to Normativity in Old English Literature
Projected Completion: August 2026
Funding: Research Ireland
Background: B.A. in English Studies (Trinity College Dublin 2016-20), M.Phil. in Medieval Language and Literature (Trinity College Dublin, 2020-21)
Research keywords: Old English, Old English Literature, Social Norms, Corpora, Corpus Linguistics, Digital Humanities
Name: Rosemary Hennigan
Email: hennigr@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr Una Mannion and Dr Paul Delaney
Thesis Title: Precarity, dispossession, and the ‘Big House’ genre in Irish contemporary literature
Projected Completion: 2029
Background: LL.B (Trinity College Dublin, 2011); LLM (University of Pennsylvania 2017); Solicitor (Law Society of Ireland, 2015)
Research keywords: Dispossession; Precarity; Housing Crisis in Contemporary Irish Fiction
Name: Shey Pope-Mayell
Email: popemays@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Professor Jarlath Killeen
Thesis Title: Lord Alfred Douglas: The Uranian Years 1884-1911
Projected Completion: September 2028
Funding: Privately Funded
Background: BA in English Literature and French - Victoria University of Wellington (2015-17). BA Hons in English Literature - Victoria University of Wellington (2018-19). MA in English Literature - Victoria University of Wellington (2019-20)
Research keywords: Lord Alfred Douglas, Uranian Poetry, Decadence, Aestheticism, Fin-de-Siécle, Hellenism, Greek Love, Pederasty
Name: Tess Burchmore
Email: burchmot@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr Björn Quiring and Dr Tom Walker
Thesis Title: Namelessness and Neurosis in the Novels of Flann O'Brien
Projected Completion: 2028
Funding: Self-Funded
Background: BA in History, Anthropology, and Writing from Washington University; Masters in Library and Information Studies from University College Dublin
Research keywords: Jacques Lacan; Flann O'Brien; Myles na gCopaleen; Irish literature; namelessness; psychoanalysis
Name: Victoria Dickerson
Email: dickersv@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr Seán Hewitt
Thesis Title: A Crumbling Foundation: Coming of Age in a Big House
Projected Completion: Spring 2028
Background: B.A. Journalism and Creative Writing, W&L University (2012); MPhil Creative Writing, Trinity College Dublin (2019-2020)
Research keywords: Irish Big House Literature, Estate Novels, Bildungsroman, National Identity, Irish Women's Fiction
Name: Yuqi Li
Email: liy39@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Professor Philip Coleman
Thesis Title: Description in Formal Poetry: Anthony Hecht, Donald Justice, and Elizabeth Bishop
Projected Completion: September 2028
Funding: TCD-CSC (China Scholarship Council) Joint Scholarship Programme
Background: BA English Language and Literature, Zhejiang University (2022); MA English: Issues in Modern Culture, University College London (2023)
Research keywords: modernism; US American poetry; lyricism
Name: Ziyun Liu
Email: liuz1@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Professor Andy Murphy
Thesis Title: The Dissemination and Reception of Works from the Irish Literary Revival in Republican China
Projected Completion: September 2024
Funding:
Academic Background: BA in Editing and Publishing, BIGC (Beijing), MPhil in Textual and Visual Studies, TCD (Dublin)
Research keywords: Nationalism, Publishing History, Cultural Communication
Name: Zoe Patterson
Email: pattersz@tcd.ie
Supervisor: Dr Sam Slote
Thesis Title: Yes We Will Yes: Communal readership of James Joyce
Projected Completion: 2026
Funding: 1252 Postgraduate Studentship
Background: Bachelor of Arts (Literature and Creative Writing), Sarah Lawrence College (2020); MPhil in Irish Writing, Trinity College Dublin (2022)
Research keywords: James Joyce, literary communities, reading groups, book clubs, reception, Bloomsday