James Smith

Associate Professor of English & Irish Studies

Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences

Director, Lowell Humanities Series

Profile

Specializes in Irish literature and culture, especially contemporary narrative, and cultural studies. He has published articles in Signs, The Journal of the History of Sexuality, Éire-Ireland, and ELH. His book, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment (Notre Dame UP/Manchester UP), was published in 2007 and was awarded the Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book by the American Conference for Irish Studies. With Maria Luddy, he coedited a double special issue of  Éire-Ireland (Spring/Summer 2009) and the collection Children, Childhood, and Irish Society: 1500 to the Present (Four Courts Press, 2014). He recently coedited a double special issue of Éire-Ireland (Spring/Summer 2020) and the essay collection REDRESS: Ireland and Justice in Transition (forthcoming) on Transitional Justice and the ongoing legacies of institutional abuse in Ireland.  He is a member of the advocacy group Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) and co-author of Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (Bloomsbury, 2021).