Dr Simon Workman is the Programme Director for the B.A. (Honours) in English & History and lectures across several different modules of English Literature at Carlow College including: Introduction to Literary Forms, Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry, Creative Writing, 19th Century American Writing, Victorian Poetry and Postmodern Fiction. He recently co-organised a conference at Carlow College and VISUAL entitled ‘Encircling Worlds: Imagining Irish Suburbia’. As part of the conference he spoke to the RTE Book Show, which is accessible [here].
Dr Workman’s research interests include: British and Irish radio drama, Irish modernist writing, suburban Irish culture and literature, and contemporary British and Irish poetry.
Books:
- Imagining Irish Suburbia in Literature and Culture. Eoghan Smith and Simon Workman, eds. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017 (forthcoming).
Peer-Review Articles:
- ‘An Ancient Celtic world had filled the air”: the Celtic turn in Louis MacNeice’s midcentury radio writing’, Irish Studies Review 25.2., (2017) Pp 357-371.
Book Chapters:
- ‘Imagining Irish Suburbia’ (with Eoghan Smith), Imagining Irish Suburbia in Literature and Culture, Eoghan Smith and Simon Workman, eds. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017
(forthcoming). - ‘A Life of One’s own’, Introduction, Maeve Kelly, Orange Horses (Dublin: Tramp Press, 2016)
- “Poised on the edge of absence”: Kavanagh and MacNeice in the shadows of War’ in Irish culture and wartime Europe, 1938–48, ed. by Dorothea Depner & Guy Woodward, (Dublin:
Four Courts Press, 2015) - “To be Tired of this is to Tire of Life”: Louis MacNeice’s London’ in Irish Writing London: Volume 1 Revival to the Second World War ed. by Tom Herron (London: Bloomsbury, 2013)
- “Of them but not of them”: MacNeice and the Thirties poets.’ in Voicing Dissent: New Voices in Irish Criticism, ed. by Sandrine Brisset and Dr. Noreen Doody (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2012)
Invited Essays
- ‘Maeve Kelly: fighting for women and writing about them’, Irish Times 15th November, 2016
- ‘Pure Sound’, Poetry Ireland Review (93), 2008.
Reviews:
- ‘Tom Walker, Louis MacNeice and the Irish Poetry of His Time’ The Review of English Studies, Advanced Access published March 31, 2016, doi:10.1093/res/hgw037
- ‘David Fitzpatrick,’Solitary and Wild”: Frederick MacNeice and the Salvation of Ireland’. Irish Literary Supplement 32.2 (2013), 12-13
- ‘Selected Letters of Louis MacNeice ed. Johnathan Allison’ Irish Literary Supplement 32.1
Selected Conference Presentations:
- “You’re a nice little thing, even if you are Irish”: Maeve Kelly, constructions of Irish identity and migrant female experience in Post-War Britain.’ Conflict, Migration & Identity in Modern Ireland: Global and transnational perspectives (2016), Trinity College, Dublin, VISUAL Centre & Carlow College.
- ‘Valerie Anex, “Ghost Estates”’ Encircling Worlds: Imagining Irish Suburbia (2014), Conference, Carlow College and VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art .
- “Poised on the edge of absence”: Place and placelessness in the poetry of Louis MacNeice and Patrick Kavanagh’ Writing Home: Irish culture and wartime Europe 1938-48 (2013) Trinity College, Dublin.
- “This chain of simple notes”: Louis MacNeice, Radio, Poetry and the Auditory Imagination’ Louis MacNeice, Radio Writer and Producer (2013), Oxford University.
- ‘Beckett and Radio’, Explaining Beckett (2013), Carlow Public Library.
- ‘A mint of golden intonations’: Louis MacNeice and the BBC, Voices in the Ether (2012), Royal Irish Academy.
- “Speaking of lost illusions”: MacNeice, London and the Second World War’. Literary London Conference (2009). Queen Mary, University of London.
- “Not matching pictures but inventing sound”, MacNeice and the Auditory Imagination.’ Louis MacNeice Centenary Conference (2007) Queens University, Belfast.
Conferences Organised
- ‘Conflict, Migration and Identity: Global and Transnational Perspectives’ (2016), TCD, Carlow College and VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow
- ‘Encircling Worlds: Imagining Irish Suburbia’ (2014). Carlow College and VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow (Co-organiser)
Media Work
- Contribution to discussion on the writing of Maeve Kelly, RTE Bookshow, 5th November 2016. http://www.rte.ie/radio1/the-book-show/programmes/2016/1105/829440-thebook-show-saturday-5-november-2016/?clipid=2324432
- Contribution to programme on Irish Suburbia, RTE Bookshow, 25th October 2014.
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/the-book-show/programmes/2014/1024/654626-the-bookshow-saturday-25th-october-2014/?clipid=1714057
B.A., Ph.D. (Trinity College Dublin)