Kathryn Conrad
About the Author
I joined the faculty of the Department of English at the University of Kansas in the fall of 1997 as an assistant professor. Prior to coming to KU, I spent a year as a full-time lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania, from which I received my PhD.
Research Interests
My dissertation dealt with the intersections of nationality, sexuality, and gender in the construction of the Irish subject. I have published articles on James Joyce (James Joyce Quarterly; with Darryl Wadsworth) and contemporary Irish feminist and lesbian writing (Eire-Ireland). Several articles are forthcoming in the next year: "Queering the Nation," on Irish nationalism and homosexuality (Cultural Studies); "Passing/Out," with Julie Crawford, on queer-positive pedagogy (MLS); and "Woman Troubles, Queer Troubles," on gender, sexuality, information, and the state in Northern Ireland (Reclaiming Gender, St. Martin's Press).
My first book, Locked in the Family Cell: Gender, Sexuality, and Political Agency in Irish National Discourse(2004), addresses the centrality of gender and sexuality to national identity and nationalist discourses in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. My recent research has dealt with surveillance, space, technology, and visual culture. My current book project examines science and technology in late-19th- and early-20th- century British and Irish literature.
1998 Presentations
Hall Center panel, KU, February 9, 1998; Hall Center Gender Seminar, KU, March 18, 1998; American Conference for Irish Studies Annual Meeting, Ft. Lauderdale, April 18, 1998; Mid-Atlantic ACIS, New York City, October 31, 1998.
Selected Recent Publications
- "Framing 'Araby'," with Mark Osteen, Collaborative Dubliners: Joyce in Dialogue, ed Vicki Mahaffey, Syracuse University Press, 2012.
- "Surveillance, Gender, and the Virtual Body in the Information Age," Surveillance and Society 6.4 (2009): 380-7.
- "Keening the Nation: The Bean Chaointe, the Sean Bhean Bhocht, and Women's Lament in Irish Nationalist Narrative," Irish Literature, Feminist Perspectives, ed Patricia Coughlan and Tina O'Toole. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2008.
- "Widening the Frame: The Politics of Mural Photography in Northern Ireland," Irish Postmodernisms and Popular Culture, ed. Wanda Balzano, Moynagh Sullivan, and Anne Mulhall, London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Teaching Interests
19th- and 20th-century British and American literature; Irish and Northern Irish literature and culture; technology and literature.