Prof Caroline Magennis
School of Arts, Media and Creative Technologies
Current positions
Professor
Biography
Caroline Magennis is Professor of Contemporary Irish Literature at the º£½ÇÂÒÂ×, where she has been based since 2014. Her research focuses on Northern Irish literature, culture, and the body, with particular attention to how intimacy, pleasure, and trauma intersect in the post-Agreement period. She completed her PhD, MA, and BA at Queen's University Belfast.
Her academic monograph Northern Irish Writing After the Troubles: Intimacies, Bodies, Pleasures (Bloomsbury, 2021) was joint winner of the British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies Monograph Prize. Her earlier monograph, Sons of Ulster: Masculinities in the Contemporary Northern Irish Novel (Peter Lang, 2010), established her as a leading scholar of gender and Northern Irish fiction. She has published widely in journals including Irish Studies Review, Irish University Review, Études Irlandaises, and Etudes Anglaises, and contributed chapters to major collections published by Routledge, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Palgrave.
Beyond academic publication, Caroline writes across forms. Her creative non-fiction book Harpy: A Manifesto for Childfree Women (Icon Books, 2024) was published internationally and received widespread media coverage, including features in Vogue, Stylist, and The Irish Times, and broadcast interviews on BBC Radio Ulster, Times Radio, France24, and ABC Australia. She has hosted literary events at the Manchester Literature Festival and the Irish World Heritage Centre, and writes regularly for The Irish Times, The Conversation, and Prospect Magazine, among other outlets.
Caroline is currently School Impact Lead for REF 2029 at º£½ÇÂÒÂ× and serves as Section Editor for Contemporary Literature at the Open Library of the Humanities, with editorial board roles at Irish Studies Review and Irish Studies in Europe. She was formerly Chair of Council of the British Association for Irish Studies (2018–2023) and has held executive committee roles with the English Association, EFACIS, and BACLS.
Areas of Research
Northern Irish literature, post-Agreement culture, bodies and embodiment, trauma and conflict, gender and feminist critique, intimacy and affect, masculinities, contemporary Irish fiction, peacebuilding and cultural memory, public engagement and impact in literary studies
Areas of Supervision
Contemporary British and Irish Fiction, Women's Writing, Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Irish Culture
Caroline teaches across all undergraduate and postgraduate levels, with a particular focus on contemporary literature, Irish and Northern Irish writing, and literary theory.
Level 4: Critical Skills in the 21st Century, Discovering Literature
Level 5: 21st Century Women's Writing
Level 6: Modernism, Alternative Ulster
MA: Bestsellers and Prize Winners, Theory Text Writing, Professional Practice, Final Project
Qualifications
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PhD in Northern Irish Literature
2007 - 2004
Recognitions
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BACLS Monograph Prize