New Faculty
Dr. Danine Farquharson
Department of English
Returning to Memorial is like coming home for Dr. Danine Farquharson of the Department of English. She got her start in academics at the University of Alberta but pursued her master's and doctoral degrees at Memorial University. Her love affair with Irish literature began at the University of Alberta after reading Translations by Brian Friel in a fourth-year course on contemporary drama. But it was the combination of Newfoundland literature and Irish drama at Memorial that built upon this curiosity and created a deep and abiding interest that kept her going throughout graduate school.
After completing her doctoral dissertation on Representations of the Gunman in 20th Century Irish Literature and Film, Dr. Farquharson took a position at St. Jerome's University at Waterloo. For four years she taught 20th century British and Irish literature and developed new courses to expand the Irish literature curriculum. When the posting for a professor in Irish literature came up at Memorial it was difficult to resist.
"I had a feeling of destiny about the whole thing," she recalled. "Getting to teach in your area is a wonderful thing for any professor and there is no better place to do it than right here in Newfoundland."
The focus of Dr. Farquharson's research is on literary representations of the Easter Rising of 1916. She sees a lot of potential for further study in the literature, poetry and film devoted to this period. "A lot of contemporary artists are radically re-envisioning this period," she said. "It is not all about grand patriotism and glorious death for Ireland." She is co-editing a collection of essays with a colleague at Northern Illinois University on violence and how it becomes written into national narratives. She expects the book, Shadows of the Gunman: Violence in the Modern Irish Experience, to be out next year.