After obtaining her B.A. at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, Valerie Fehlbaum moved to Switzerland where she taught English as a Foreign Language for a few years before joining the English Department at the University of Geneva. She then went on to obtain an M.A. in Gender Studies and a Ph.D. on the New Woman at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Her subsequent monograph on Ella Hepworth Dixon was initially published by Ashgate in 2005 and republished in paperback by Taylor & Francis in 2019. She has also lectured at the University of Neuchâtel and tutored with the Open University.
Irish writers have often occupied a liminal space in what is generally referred to as English Literature. Are they insiders or outsiders? Or both? Is there a specifically Irish Literature? In this cercle de lecture, through close analysis of some recent, highly-acclaimed fiction by Irish writers, we shall attempt to answer such questions.
Chosen authors and texts:
Sept. 24: Colm Tóibín (Brooklyn; Long Island)
Oct. 8: Sally Rooney (Normal People; Intermezzo)
Nov. 12: Claire Keegan (Foster; Small Things Like These)
Dec. 17: Anne Enright (The Wren, the Wren; Actress)
In English.
