English Department Faculty
James Smith
Associate Professor of English & Irish Studies
Director, Lowell Humanities Series
James Smith
Ph.D.
Contact
Stokes Hall S489
Telephone: 617-552-1596
Email: smithbt@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., English & History, University College Dublin, Ireland
- M.A., English, Clark University
- M.A., Anglo-Irish Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland
- Ph.D., English, Boston College
Department
Biography
Specializes in Irish literature and culture, especially contemporary narrative, and cultural studies. His graduate seminars include "Contemporary Irish Fiction," "Twentieth Century Irish Fiction," and "Ireland: The Colonial Context." His undergraduate electives include "Reading Irish Childhood," "Family and Kinship: Reading the Adopted Child," "Major Irish Writers," and both 19th and 20th century surveys of Irish literature. His book, Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment, focusing on representations of institutional care in post-independence Ireland, won the Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book awarded by the American Conference for Irish Studies in 2007. He is currently engaged in a project examining the place of the child in Irish society and how the meaning of childhood in Ireland has changed over time. He continues to be interested in recent scandals in the Irish Catholic Church and the manner in which these affect relations between Church, state and society.
Publications
Book
- Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment (Southbend, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). 312 pp. European Edition published by Manchester University Press, 2008.
Editor
- Co-Editor with Maria Luddy. Children, Childhood and Irish Society: 1500 to the present. (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2014). 448 pgs.
- Co-Editor with Maria Luddy. Éire-Ireland: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Irish Studies. Special Double Issue, "Children, Childhood and Irish Society." 44: 1 & 2 (2009): 296 pp.
- Two Irish National Tales: Maria Edgeworth’sCastle Rackrent and Sydney Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl. Editor. New Riverside Editions. British Series Editor, Alan Richardson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. 447 pp.
Research Submissions
- “State Involvement in the Magdalene Laundries: JFM’s Principal Submission to the Inter-departmental Committee to establish the facts of State Involvement with the Magdalene Laundries,” compiled with Claire McGettrick, Raymond Hill and Maeve O’Rourke, with additional contributions from Mari Steed and Katherine O’Donnell.
- 14 August 2012. 145 pages, plus 30-page index of materials, and 795 pages of survivor testimony and 3707 pages of archival and legislative documentation.
- “Justice for Magdalenes: State Complicity and Constitutional Rights.” Submitted to the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC)*, June 10, 2010 [22 page, 6,055 words, plus 120 pages of supporting appendices].
*Irish Human Rights Commission, Assessment of the Human Rights Issues Arising inrelation to the ‘Magdalen Laundries’ (Dublin: IHRC, 2010). Published on November 9, 2010.
Journal Articles
- "Editors' Introduction," with Maria Luddy. Éire-Ireland: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Irish Studies. Special Double Issue, "Children, Childhood and Irish Society." 44: 1 & 2 (2009): 5-8.
- “The Magdalene Sisters: Evidence, Testimony … Action?” Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society 32, 2 (Winter, 2007): 431-58.
- “The Politics of Sexual Knowledge: The Origins of Ireland’s Containment Culture and ‘The Carrigan Report’ (1931).” Journal of the History of Sexuality. 13, 2 (2004): 208-233.
- “Remembering Ireland’s Architecture of Containment: ‘Telling’ Stories in The Butcher Boy and States of Fear.” Éire-Ireland: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Irish Studies 36, 3&4 (2001): 111-130.
- “Effaced History: Facing the Colonial Contexts of Ben Jonson’s Irish Masque at Court.” ELH 65 (1998): 297-321.
Essays
- “Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries: Confronting a history not yet in the past.” With Maeve O’Rourke. A Century of Progress? Irish Women Reflect. Eds. Alan Hayes and Máire Meagher. Dublin: Arlen House, 2016. 107-34.
- “Introduction,” with Maria Luddy. Co-Editor with Maria Luddy. Children, Childhood and Irish Society: 1500 to the present. (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2014). 15-28.
- “The Justice for Magdalenes Campaign.” In Plain Sight: Responding to the Ferns, Ryan, Murphy and Cloyne Reports by Carole Holohan. Commissioned by Amnesty International Ireland. Dublin: Amnesty International Ireland, 2011. 372-77.
- “Re-Imagining Ireland, Britain and Europe.” Traversing the Imaginary. Eds. Peter Gratton and John P. Manoussakis. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2007.
- “Sexual Abuse and the Irish Church: Crisis and Responses” (with Robert Savage). Occasional Papers, 2003. The Church in the 21st Century. Boston College Online Publication.
- “Retelling Stories: Exposing Mother Ireland in Kathy Prendergast’s Body Map Series and Mary Leland’s The Killeen.” Re/Dressing Cathleen: Contemporary Works From Irish Women Artists. Ed. Jennifer Grinnell and Alston Conley. Boston: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 1997. 42-51.
Miscellaneous
- “Dublin Honours Magdalenes too late for Catherine but she would have liked it,” Opinion Editorial. The Irish Times 6 June 2018. 888 Words.
- “Two cathartic days for 200 dignified Magdalene survivors.” Opinion Editorial. The Irish Examiner 5 June 2018. 1, 023 Words.
- “In Ireland, Recalling ‘a Very Dark Time’,” Letter to the Editor. New York Times 5 November 2017.
- “Tuam dead babies scandal is only the tip of the iceberg.” Opinon Editorial. Irish Central 31 October 2017. 1,016 Words.
- “Ireland’s Forgotten Diaspora—banished unwed mothers and adopted babies.” Opinion Editorial. Irish Central 23 March 2017. 755 Words.
- “Archdiocese of Tuam failed these children.” Opinion Editorial. The Irish Examiner 9 March 2017. 1,159 words.
- “Will Mother and Baby Homes Commission advertise to the hidden Irish diaspora?” Opinion Editorial. The Irish Times Online. 9 November 2016. 1,100 words.
- Rite and Reason: Brave Magdalene survivor leaves inspirational trail.” Opinion Editorial. The Irish Times 29 March 2016:16. 730 words.
- “Magdalene survivors are still waiting for restorative justice.” With Maeve O’Rouke. Opinion-Editorial, The Irish Times. Wednesday, 5 February, 2014.
- “Magdalene need inquiry with legal and political clout.” Opinion-Editorial, The Irish Times. Wednesday, 24 July 2013: 935 words.
- “Fair compensation must follow Magdalene apology,” Opinion-Editorial, Irish Times. Tuesday, 19 February 2013: 1090 words.
- “Abused in the past and abandoned in the present,” Opinion-Editorial, Irish Times. Tuesday, 5 February 2013: 1086 words.
- “Magdalene survivors still held hostage to politics,” Opinion-Editorial, Irish Times. Wednesday, 26 September 2012: 957 words.
- “Irish Society Colluded in Betrayal of Magdalen Women.” Opinion-Editorial. The Irish Times 1 Sept. 2003: 12.
- “The Magdalene Sisters in America.” Commentary. The Alliance for the Study of Adoption, Identity & Kinship Newsletter 5 (Fall, 2003): 1 & 3-4.
- “Re-Imagining Ireland, Britain and Europe.” Rev. of Postnationalist Ireland: Politics, Culture, Philosophy by Richard Kearney. The Irish Literary Supplement 16, 2 (1997): 23-4.
Resources for teaching and studying Ireland's Magdalene Laundries
Download these educational resources in PDF format. These resources are representative and not meant to be comprehensive. Inclusion of materials does not imply an endorsement of opinions contained therein. You are welcome to contact me smithbt@bc.edu to report errors or to suggest titles for inclusion. Thank you.