My research interests are mostly in the area of environmental humanities, including animal studies, ideas of ecological aesthetics, and postcolonial responses to the climate and biodiversity crises. I am also interested in discussions of comparative literature and world literature more broadly; debates around translation, multilingualism, and identity; and the intersection between literature and philosophy. Many of the German-language authors I'm especially drawn to are Austrian, including Ingeborg Bachmann, (arguably!) Franz Kafka, Christoph Ransmayr, Thomas Bernhard, and Marlen Haushofer.
On the comparative side, I've worked on authors such as Richard Flanagan, Olga Tokarczuk, Han Kang, and Marina Carr. As an Irish speaker, I've recently begun to focus more on the role of minoritised languages within world literature and their relationship to specific local habitats and ecologies.
Teaching
My teaching in 2025-26 includes a Master's module on Posthuman Subjectivities, which I co-teach with Prof. Barry Murnane. For undergrads, I teach an author paper on Ingeborg Bachmann and provide supervision for undergraduate dissertations on various topics – one current example is Afro-German identity in the works of May Ayim and Sharon Dodua Otoo.
Before taking up my current post as a postdoctoral researcher at St John's, I was a college lecturer in German at St John's from 2023-2024 and a departmental lecturer based at Jesus and Oriel from 2024-2025. My teaching at Oxford to date covers German literature from 1770 to the present; special authors Kafka, Bachmann, Rilke, Bernhard and Brecht; German-English translation; and first-year literature and textual commentary. I have also provided lecture courses on Kafka, German literature since 1945, and writing after Auschwitz, as well as a special seminar on Ingeborg Bachmann’s 'Malina'.
Education
My first degree was in English Literature and German at Trinity College Dublin, followed by an MSt in German at Oxford (Distinction) and a PhD in Comparative Literature at TCD, where I also taught courses on German literature and film and German-English translation. I grew up in Donegal in the northwest of Ireland, attending Irish-speaking state schools (Gaelscoileanna). I have spent various periods of time along the way researching and studying in Freiburg, Innsbruck, and Vienna.
Publications
‘Letters in the Web of Life: Towards an Ecological Philology’, co-authored with Caitríona Ní Dhúill, German Life and Letters 78.3 (2025)
‘From Todesarten to Artensterben: Re-reading Bachmann through an ecocritical lens’, Austrian Studies 32 (2024)
‘Fallmeister Franza: Journeys of Mastery in Ransmayr and Bachmann’, Austrian Studies 31 (2023)
‘An axe for the rising sea: Kafka’s Anthropocene afterlives’, Oxford German Studies 51 (2022)
‘In Echo’s Cave: Gendered Guilt and Anthropocene Repercussions in Texts by Christoph Ransmayr and Valerie Fritsch’, Austrian Studies 30 (2022)
‘Talking About Trees: The Paradox of the Environmental Humanities’, in Humanities Forward: Opportunity, Innovation, Policy in the 21st Century, ed. Stephan Nitu and Arlene Holmes-Henderson (Liverpool UP, forthcoming 2025)
‘“History will dub it the Day of the Water”: The Aswan High Dam and its legacy in Bachmann's The Book of Franza’, Journal of European Studies (in preparation for 2025)
Podcast episodes
Oxford Reads Kafka, 'Kafka and Ecology'
Oxford German Network, 'Ecocritical Perspectives on Rilke'
What's the Point podcast, 'Why science alone can't solve the climate crisis'
Behind the Headlines series, 'Waste Lands: Imagining Climate Catastrophe' (panel discussion; video recording here)
Hublic Sphere podcast, 'Looking East, Looking West: Should we change how we talk about Eastern Europe?'
Awards and distinctions
Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship, 2018-23
Ertegun Postgraduate Scholarship in the Humanities, 2017-18
TCD Foundation Scholarship, 2014-21
TCD Gold Medal, 2017
Carr-Jackson Dissertation Prize (German), 2017
Undergraduate Awards Global Winner in category Music, Film & Theatre, 2017
DAAD Jahresstipendium, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 2014-15
DAAD Sommerstipendium, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2013
Robert Wallace Henry Exhibition (English), 2013
Ernst Scheyer Prize I (German), 2013