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Paige Reynolds

Paige Reynolds stands in front of her desk

English Department

Ph.D., University of Chicago

Fields: Modern and Contemporary Irish Literature and Culture; Modernism; 20th Century British Literature and Culture; Modern Drama and Performance.

•  CV (PDF)»

Email: preynold@holycross.edu
Office Phone: 508-793-2695
Office: Fenwick 228
PO Box: 58A
Office Hours: T/R 10-12 pm and by appt.

Biography

I primarily teach courses in modern and contemporary Irish literature, modernism, drama and performance, and academic writing. In these classes, we develop the skills to read and analyze challenging texts such as Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) or Claire-Louise Bennett’s Pond (2015). I ask students to say something new and interesting about our readings, and to use “the words on the page” to prove their claims in discussion and in papers. In our lively and provocative class discussions, you’ll learn to take intellectual risks and to embrace the fun of thinking critically about literature and the arts.

We also work together to produce clear and persuasive writing that conveys original insights about literature and performance. To help in this endeavor, I demonstrate for students the pleasures and challenges of being a “teacher-scholar,” a professor who integrates her classroom practice and scholarly research. In my “Modernist Afterlives” seminar, for example, we examine how and why the innovative tactics of high modernism, an early twentieth-century cultural movement, continue to appear in contemporary drama, poetry, and fiction – a concern that inspired my recent monograph, Modernism in Irish Women's Contemporary Writing: The Stubborn Mode, as well as my edited collection, Modernist Afterlives in Irish Literature and Culture. My research and teaching have informed opinion pieces I’ve published in venues including the Irish Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and ARINS (Royal Irish Academy), as well as in podcasts for New Books Network and Novel Dialogue.

Thanks to the Edward Callahan Support Fund for Irish Studies, students have the opportunity to meet and talk with Irish writers whom we read in class, such as Kevin Barry, Anne Enright, Eimear McBride, Mary Morrissy, Paul Muldoon, and Colm Tóibín, and to discuss Irish literature and culture with visiting scholars in Irish Studies. We also support the Writers Room at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) in Dublin, where we are building rich partnerships with Irish cultural institutions and contemporary writers to enable exciting cross-cultural opportunities for the Holy Cross community.  My classes have travelled to Boston, Providence, New Haven, and New York to see productions of plays, and you might just find us at a local pub discussing poetry or at my house screening a film relevant to our class.

Courses Taught

Introductory Courses

  • Critical Reading and Writing: Drama
  • Critical Reading and Writing: Fiction
  • Critical Reading and Writing: Poetry
  • Critical Reading and Writing: Multi-genre
  • Introduction to Academic Writing

Touchstones, Readings, Masterpieces, and Seminars

  • Touchstones II: British Romanticism to the Present
  • Readings in Twentieth-Century British Literature
  • Masterpieces of British Literature: Audiences and Actors
  • Seminar: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Things (with Sarah Stanbury)
  • Seminar: Modernist Afterlives

Irish Studies Courses

  • Modernism and the Irish Literary Revival
  • Contemporary Irish Literature
  • Irish Sex
  • Irish Drama
  •  Irish Literary Activism
  • The Irish Short Story
  • James Joyce
  • Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll in Irish Literature (non-majors)
  • Modern Irish Literature (non-majors)
  • Seminar: Joyce's Ulysses and Critical Theory
  • Seminar: Irish Women's Writing
  • Seminar: Catholicism in Irish Literature and Culture
  • Tutorial: Gender in Contemporary Irish Literature and Culture
  • College Honors: Irish Experience (with Suzanne Kirschner)

Selected publications

Book

Modernism in Irish Women's Contemporary Writing: The Stubborn Mode  (Oxford University Press, 2024)

Modernism, Drama, and the Audience for Irish Spectacle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Paperback, 2010. Honorable Mention, Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book, American Conference for Irish Studies, 2007

Edited Volumes

Recent Articles and Book Chapters

  • “Bird Girls: Modernism and Sexual Ethics in Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing.” Modernism and Close Reading.  Ed. David James.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
  • “Theatrical Ireland: New Routes from the Abbey Theatre to the Gate Theatre.”  Irish Literature in Transition, vol. 4 (1880-1940). Ed. Marjorie Howes.  Series eds. Claire Connolly and Marjorie Howes.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 55-72.
  • “Contemporary Irish Drama and Media.” Irish Literature in Transition vol. 6 (1980-2020). Eds. Eric Falci and Paige Reynolds. Series eds. Claire Connolly and Marjorie Howes.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 81-95.
  • “The Irish Times and Tramp Press.” Irish Literature in Transition, vol. 6 (1980-2020). Eds. Eric Falci and Paige Reynolds. Series eds. Claire Connolly and Marjorie Howes.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 392-400.
  • “Sean O’Casey’s Late Modernism: Gender, Race, and Disabled Bodies on the Irish Expressionist Stage.” Cambridge History of Irish Modernism.  Eds. Patrick Bixby and Gregory Castle.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.  227-242.
  • “Prose, Drama, and Poetry, 1891-1920,” A History of Modern Irish Women’s Literature.  Eds. Heather Ingman and Clíona Ó Gallchoir.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 131-148.
  • “Spectacular Nostalgia: Modernism and Dramatic Form in Kate O’Brien’s Pray for the Wanderer,” Irish University Review 48:1 (Summer 2018). 54-67.
  • “’Publish Little, and Publish Well’: An Interview with the Founders of Tramp Press.” Éire-Ireland 52:1 & 2 (Spring/Summer 2017). 372-390.
  • “The Avant-Garde Doyenne: Mary Manning, the Poets’ Theatre, and the Staging of Finnegans Wake” Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 39:2 (Winter 2017). 109-133.
  • “Direction and Design to 1960.” Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre. Eds. Nicholas Grene and Christopher Morash.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. 201-216.
  • “Modernist Periodicals.” A History of Modernist Poetry.  Eds. Alex Davis and Lee Jenkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 118-138.
  • “’A Theatre of the Head’: Material Culture, Severed Heads, and the Late Drama of W. B. Yeats.” Modern Drama 58:4 (Winter 2015). 437-460.