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Michael Kenneally, PhD

  • Professor, School of Irish Studies
  • Co-Founder, School of Irish Studies, Concordia University
  • Honorary Consul General for Quebec, Government of Ireland, 2002-2022
  • Principal, School of Irish Studies, 2009 - 2021
  • Co-Founder, Canadian Irish Studies Foundation
  • Trustee, Canadian Irish Studies Foundation, 2022-
  • Concordia University Chair in Canadian Irish Studies, 2002-2017
  • Recipient, Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad, 2019
  • Recipient, Honorary Doctorate, National University of Ireland, 2014
  • Recipient, Honorary Doctorate, University of Innsbruck, 2012
  • Academic Leadership Award, Concordia University, 2012
  • Recipient, Montreal Community Award, St. Patrick's Society of Montreal, 2009
  • Named to the Global Irish 100 list by Irish America Magazine, 2009
  • Grand Marshall, St Patrick’s Day Parade, Montreal, 2002
  • Editor, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 2000-2003
  • Irishman of the Year, United Irish Societies of Montreal, 1997
  • Chair, International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures, 1994-2000
  • President, St. Patrick’s Society, 1993-1996
  • President, Canadian Association for Irish Studies, 1987-1990

Contact information

Biography

Michael Kenneally, Ph.D. (University of Toronto) is a specialist in modern and contemporary Irish literature, as well as nineteenth-century writing by Irish-Canadian immigrants. He is particularly interested in fictional forms including Irish novels, short stories, and life-writing texts such as memoirs, diaries and letters. He is the author of Sean O’Casey and the Art of Autobiography, and has published articles on autobiographical dimensions of writers such as W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, and George Moore. He has edited several collections of essays, including Irish Literature and Culture: Cultural Contexts; Literary Idioms in Contemporary Irish Literature; Poetry in Contemporary Irish Literature, and, co-edited with Margaret Kelleher, Ireland and Quebec: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on History, Culture and SocietyHe is also interested in the new literatures in English and has co-hosted several conferences and co-edited three volumes of essays on this subject. He is the co-editor, with Wolfgang Zach of Studies in English and Comparative Literature, (24 titles to date) and is a former editor of the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies. He holds honorary doctorates from the National University of Ireland and the University of Innsbruck (Austria), and in 2019, along with his wife Professor Rhona Richman Kenneally, received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad for their roles in establishing Irish Studies at Concordia University

Teaching activities

Courses

Professor Kenneally has taught courses on Contemporary Irish Literature; The Irish Short Story Tradition; Exile, Memory and Irish Writing; Introduction to Irish Studies; The Irish Literary Revival; and James Joyce. 

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