91破解版

John and Rebecca Moores Professor of English Literature 

Margot Gayle Backus is John and Rebecca Moores Professor of English at the 91破解版. Her first book, The Gothic Family Romance: Heterosexuality, Child Sacrifice, and the Anglo-Irish Colonial Order (Duke University Press, Post-Contemporary Interventions, 1999, traced the origins of the obsessive depictions of child sacrifice in the Anglo-Irish gothic to the operations of nuclearization and heteronormativity through which English familial and sex/gender norms reshaped the Irish social order. The Gothic Family Romance won the American Conference for Irish Studies Prize for a Distinguished First Book, and was recognized as a Choice Outstanding Title.   

In 2007-8, Backus was the Irish American Cultural Institute-National University of Ireland-Galway Fellow in Residence at the NUI-Galway Martha Fox Centre for Irish Studies, where she conducted research on the Irish culture of sex scandal. Her 2013 study, Scandal Work: James Joyce, the New Journalism, and the Home Rule Newspaper Wars (University of Notre Dame Press, 2013) describes the extensive impact of the New Journalist sex scandal on the Irish Home Rule Movement, and James Joyce鈥檚 extensive and complex engagements with the form.  

Backus was 2014-15 Queens University Fulbright Scholar of Anglophone Irish Writing, and 2015 James Joyce Scholar in residence at the University of Buffalo.  

In 2015-17, with Department of English colleague Maria Gonzalez, Backus co-edited three edited volumes of creative and nonfiction writing and artwork titles&苍产蝉辫;鈥�Borderlines鈥� for the Houston transnational arts organization, Voices Breaking Boundaries. 

In 2020, with Joseph Valente, Backus co-authored The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature: Writing the Unspeakable (Indiana University Press, 2020). 

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Education

• Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, English Literature
• M.A., University of Texas at Austin, English Literature
• B.A., University of Massachusetts/Boston, English Literature

Selected Publications

(2022)&苍产蝉辫;鈥�鈥橪ove鈥檚 Poison Mystery鈥�: Food, Sex, and the New Journalist Sex Scandal in Lestrygonians,鈥� invited submission for Ulysses centenary issue, Joyce Studies Annual. 

(2021) 鈥�鈥橝 Fairy Boy of Eleven, a Changeling, Kidnapped, Dressed in an Eton 厂耻颈迟鈥�: Precarious, Lost, and  Recovered Children in Anglophone Irish Modernism.鈥� In press, Irish Modernism, ed. Maud Ellmann, 厂卯补苍 White and Vicki Mahaffey. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), 131-146. 

(2020) 鈥�Abused Ireland: Psychoanalyzing the Enigma of Sexualized Innocence,鈥� with Joseph Valente,      in Routledge International Handbook of Irish Studies, ed. Renee Fox, Michael Cronin, and                    Brian 翱鈥机辞苍肠丑耻产补颈谤 (London: Routledge). 

(2020) 鈥�鈥橮ortals of Discovery鈥� or 鈥榓n Immorality in Three Orgasms鈥�: How James Joyce鈥檚 Ulysses Stopped Being  Too Queer to Queer,鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Intertexts: A Journal of Comparative and Theoretical Reflection. 24:1-2, 97-132. 

(2018) 鈥�鈥橶ar upon War鈥�: The Anti-War Militancy of James Connolly and the Irish Citizens Army鈥� (with    Spurgeon Thompson), Ireland and World War I special issue, ed. Mark S. Quigley, Modernist              Cultures 12:3, 365-81. 

(2017) 鈥�鈥橳he Only Human Person in that Whole Neighborhood鈥�: James Joyce, Edna O鈥橞rien, and the Question of Originality,鈥� special issue on gender, sexuality and intersectionality, Breac: Digital Journal of Irish Studies, July 17, 1-17. 

(2014) 鈥�鈥橳hose Who Create Themselves Wits at the Expense of Feminine Delicacy鈥�: W.T. Stead, James Joyce,  and the Maiden Tribute Sex Scandal,鈥� in Ireland and the New Journalism, ed. Karen Steele and    Michael de Nie (NY: Palgrave MacMillan), 161-80. 

(2014) 鈥�鈥橳he Children of the Nation?鈥�: Representations of Poor Children in Mainstream Nationalist Journalism, 1882 and 1913,鈥� in Children and Childhood in Ireland: 1700-2010, ed. Maria Luddy and James Smith (Dublin: Four Courts Press), 357-77. 

(2013) 鈥淭he Woman Who Did: Maria鈥檚 Maternal Misdirection in James Joyce鈥檚 鈥楥lay,鈥欌�� with Martha            Stallman, Joyce Studies Annual 2013, 129-50. 

(2013) 鈥�Kate O鈥橞rien, The Land of Spices, and the Stylistic Invention of Lesbian (In)visibility,鈥� with Joe    Valente, Irish University Review 43:1, 55-73. 

(2012) 鈥溾�橝n Encounter鈥�: James Joyce鈥檚 Humiliation Nation,鈥� with Joe Valente, in Collaborative Dubliners: Joyce in Dialogue, ed. Vicki Mahaffey (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press), 48-68. 

(2009) 鈥�鈥橳hings That Have the Potential to Go Terribly Wrong鈥�: Homosexuality, Paedophelia, and the Kincora Boys Home Scandal,鈥� in The Ashgate Research Companion to Queer Theory, ed. Noreen Giffney and Michael O'Rourke (Aldershot: Ashgate), 237-56. 

(2009) 鈥�鈥橳he Children of the Nation?鈥�: Representations of Poor Children in Mainstream Nationalist Journalism, 1882 and 1913,鈥� special issue on children, childhood, and Irish society, ed. Maria Luddy and James Smith, Eire/Ireland 44: 1&2,118-46. 

(2009) 鈥�鈥橝n Iridescence Difficult to Account For鈥�: Sexual Initiation in Joyce鈥檚 Fiction of Development,鈥� with Joe Valente, ELH: Journal of English Literary History 76:2, 523-45. 

(2008) 鈥�鈥橭dd Jobs鈥�: James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and the Scandal Fragment,鈥� Joyce Studies Annual 2008,105-45. 

(2008) 鈥�鈥橫ore Useful Washed and Dead鈥�: James Connolly, W.B. Yeats, and  the Sexual Politics of Easter 1916,鈥� special issue on James Connolly,  Interventions: International  Journal of Postcolonial Studies 10:1, 67-85 

(2008) 鈥�鈥椭惫别谤测产辞诲测 Knew, Nobody 厂补颈诲鈥�: Transnational  Laundries and Transnational Trauma across the   Irish/Northern Irish Border,鈥� in Irish Studies: Geographies and Genders, ed. Marti Lee and Ed                Madden (Cambridge: Cambridge Publishing, 21-37). 

(2001) 鈥�鈥業鈥檓 Your Mother; She Was a Carrying Case鈥�: Gender, Sexuality, and the Symbolics of Adoption   in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,鈥� in Imagining Adoption: Essays on Literature and Culture, ed.           Marianne Novy (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press), 133-49. 

(2001) 鈥�Sexual Figures of National Identity in 鈥楾he Dead,鈥欌��&苍产蝉辫;European Joyce Studies 11: James Joyce and the Fabrication of an Irish Identity, 111-31. 

(2001) 鈥�Riverine Crossings: Gender, Identity and the Reconstruction of National Mythic Narrative             in The Crying Game,鈥� with James Doan, Cultural Studies 15:1, 173-91. 

(2001) 鈥�鈥楢 Most Curious State of Affairs鈥�: Eamonn McCann on the Good Friday Agreement,鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Rethinking    Marxism 13:1, 83-97. 

(2001) 鈥�鈥業t鈥檚 Not Quite Philadelphia, Is It?鈥� Interview with Eamonn McCann,鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Eire/Ireland, December, 174-89. 

(1996) 鈥�Discourse and Silence in the Victorian Family Cell: Problems of Subjectivity in The History of       Sexuality: Vol. I,鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Victorian Literature and Culture 24, 159-74. 

(1996) 鈥�Sexual Orientation in the (Post)Imperial Nation: Celticism and Inversion Theory in The Well of    Loneliness,鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 15:2, 45-58. 

(1994) 鈥�With His Pistol in Her Hand: Re-Articulating the Corrido Narrative in Helena 惭补谤铆补 Viramontes鈥�     鈥楴eighbors,鈥欌�� with JoAnn Pavletich, Cultural Critique 27,  127-52. 

(1994) 鈥�鈥楲ooking for that Dead Girl鈥�: Incest, Pornography, and the Capitalist Family Romance                 in Nightwood, The Years, and Tarbaby,鈥�&苍产蝉辫;American Imago 51:4, 421-45. 

(1993) 鈥�Judy Grahn and the Lesbian Invocational Elegy: Testimonial and Prophetic Responses to Social Death in 鈥楢 Woman is Talking to Death,鈥欌��&苍产蝉辫;Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 18:4, 815-37. 

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Honors, Awards, and Grants Received

• 2020-25         91破解版 John and Rebecca Moores Professorship             
• 2020-21         CLASS NEH grant writing workshop participant 
• 2019               91破解版 Provost鈥檚 Travel Fund                                       
• 2019               Department of English Houstoun Research Grant                          
• 2018               91破解版 CLASS Research Progress Grant                       
• 2017               Department of English Houstoun Research Grant          
• 2017               91破解版 CLASS Research Progress Grant        
• 2017               91破解版 Provost鈥檚 Travel Grant                        
• 2015               University of Buffalo James Joyce Fellowship Grant               
• 2015              Fulbright Distinguished Scholar of Anglophone Irish Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre
• 2015               WGSS Summer Stipend                                                
• 2014               CLASS Outreach Grant                                                      
• 2012               91破解版 Grant-in-Aid                                      
• 2008鈥�10         Dept. of English Houstoun Research Professorship                 
• 2008               Undergraduate Mentorship Award 
• 2007鈥�08         Visiting Fellowship in Irish Studies, Irish American Cultural Institute, National University                          of Ireland-Galway Centre for Irish Studies 
• 2007               NEH Summer Seminar, Ulysses, Trinity College Dublin
• 2007               Ross Lence Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities 
• 2005               91破解版 WGSS Summer Stipend                     
• 2001               NEH Summer Seminar, 鈥淭he Anglo-Irish, 1600-1800,鈥� Univ. of Notre Dame 
• 1994               NEH Summer Seminar, 鈥淪ocial Change in Early Modern Britain and the Rise of the                                   Novel,鈥� University of Pennsylvania 
• 1991               British Universities Summer School Fellowship, 鈥淏ritish Literature and Culture, 1945-                               present,鈥� University of London 
• 1991               Synge Summer School Scholarship, Synge Summer School, Wicklow, Ireland 
• 1989               Yeats Summer School Scholarship, Sligo, Ireland 

Classes Taught

Undergraduate 

• Introduction to Fiction: 鈥淢ourning and Melancholia鈥�&苍产蝉辫; 
• Senior Experience Research Seminar: 鈥淎rchival Ulysses鈥�&苍产蝉辫; 
• Queer Theory   
• The History of Literary Criticism and Theory  
• Modern Irish Literature  
• Contemporary Irish Literature 
• Introduction to Literary Studies: Middlemarch  
• Introduction to Literary Studies: James Joyce鈥檚 Dubliners and Affect Theory   
• Modern British Literature   
• Gay and Lesbian Literature  
• Introduction to Literary Studies: Reading Ulysses  
• Postcolonial Literature  
• The Contemporary Novel  

Graduate  

• 鈥淎 New and Complex Sensation鈥�: Sexual Subjectivity in the Writing of James Joyce  
• British Empire: The Pedagogy of Empire  
• Preseminar in British Modernism: the Roots of Irish and British Modernism  
• Preseminar in British Modernism: Children of Empire   
• Topics in Postcolonial Studies: Ireland  
• The British Novel from 1832: Literary Critical Pedagogy   
• Introduction to Doctoral Studies (2011)  
• Ulysses  
• Queer Closures: The Sexual Politics of Literary Form  
• The British Women鈥檚 Novel from 1832   
• Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Irish Literature  
• Literary Modernism: The Aesthetics and Politics of Empire 

Research Interests

• British and Irish modernisms 
• Modern and contemporary Irish studies 
• Critical sexuality studies, queer theory, lgbtq literatures 
• Empire studies, critical race studies 

Current Book Project

• Keeping James Joyce Out of Oscar Wilde鈥檚 Purple Trousers: the Joycean Anecdote and the North American Joyce Industry 

Affiliations and Links

• Joyce Studies Annual 
• Texas Irish Working Group  
• Queering Ireland 
• Irish Statement in Support of Black Lives Matter 

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