MAHER, Eamon

PERSONAL: Male. Education: Earned Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—c/o Institute of Technology Tallaght, Tallaght, Dublin 24, Ireland.

CAREER: Institute of Technology Tallaght, Dublin, Ireland, lecturer in humanities, director of National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies. Writer and translator. Lecturer at scholarly conferences in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

AWARDS, HONORS: Prix de l'Ambassade, French Embassy in Ireland Cultural Services, 1996, for translation of Jean Sulivan's Anticipate Every Goodbye.

WRITINGS:

Crosscurrents and Confluences: Echoes of Religion in Twentieth-Century Fiction, Veritas (Dublin, Ireland), 2000.

(Translator) Jean Sulivan, Anticipate Every Goodbye, Veritas (Dublin, Ireland), 2000.

(With Nathalie Cazaux) Faisons Affaires, Oak Tress Press (Cork, Ireland), 2002.

John McGahern: From the Local to the Universal (part of "Contemporary Irish Writers" series), Liffey Press (Dublin, Ireland), 2003.

(Editor, with Michael Böss; and contributor) Engaging Modernity: Readings of Irish Politics, Culture, and Literature at the Turn of the Century, Veritas (Dublin, Ireland), 2003.

(Editor, with Grace Neville) France-Ireland: Anatomy of a Relationship: Studies in History, Literature and Politics, Peter Lang (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor of scholarly articles on Irish and French literature to journals and magazines.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Editor, with Eugene O'Brien, of La France face à la mondialisation/France in the Struggle against Globalization, for "Irish Studies" series of Edwin Mellen Press; research on the priest/writer Jean Sulivan (1913-1980); The Life and Works of John McGahern.

SIDELIGHTS: Eamon Maher is a teacher and scholar of French and Anglo-Irish literature who specializes in writers who deal with the interface between religious traditions and the modern world. Maher developed this theme in his first published book, Crosscurrents and Confluences: Echoes of Religion in Twentieth-Century Fiction, and has addressed it in several articles. In particular, he has written for literary and religious publications and submitted conference papers on the French priest and writer Jean Sulivan. His translation of Sulivan's memoir written on the death of the priest's mother, Anticipate Every Goodbye, received the Prix de l'Ambassade in 1996.

Contemporary religion—specifically the role of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland—is among the topics dealt with by several contributors to Engaging Modernity: Readings of Irish Politics, Culture, and Literature at the Turn of the Century, which Maher edited with Michael Böss. According to Rudiger Imhof in Irish University Review, the editors display "a perceptively balanced reading of typical responses to Irish modernization, in order to demonstrate that the conflict between tradition and modernity still informs social debate in Ireland." They also hold that, in Imhof's words, "it is possible to enjoy the benefits of modernity without losing a sense of continuity, history, and tradition." John McDonagh, in Studies, wrote that the book shows "a challenging and fresh approach to the hoary old nut of modernity." The essays include one by Maher himself on the novels of John McGahern, which McDonagh praised as "balanced and sensitive." The book can be seen as part of the "ongoing debate as to the nature of the forces of modernization and modernity in Ireland over the last two hundreds years and more," according to Mary Shine Thompson in the Irish Literary Supplement. Thompson noted that several of its essays deal with the issue as it was treated in earlier periods, when "discursive self-consciousness" was also "a key feature of engagement with modernity."

The same year, Maher published his full-length study titled John McGahern: From the Local to the Universal. The book, according to William D. Walsh in Library Journal, "fills the void of studies on McGahern" because it "thoroughly documents the recurring themes in McGahern's work—namely, failed relationships, family tension, and social commentary." Walsh approvingly quoted Maher's conclusion that McGahern "manages to capture for eternity the rituals and customs of a rural Ireland that may not survive another few decades of globalization."

Maher's continued interest in France led to the publication of France-Ireland: Anatomy of a Relationship, a collection of two dozen articles examining the relationship between the two countries and their citizens from literary, political, and historical points of view. He was also coauthor of a French language book, Faisons Affaires, designed as a textbook in business French.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Irish Literary Supplement, fall, 2004, Mary Shine Thompson, review of Engaging Modernity: Readings of Irish Politics, Culture, and Literature at the Turn of the Century, p. 20.

Irish University Review; A Journal of Irish Studies, autumn, 2003, Rudiger Imhof, review of Engaging Modernity, p. 450.

Library Journal, May 1, 2004, William D. Walsh, review of John McGahern: From the Local to the Universal, p. 106.

New Hibernia Review, summer, 2004, Eamonn Wall, review of John McGahern, pp. 152-55.

Studies, summer, 2004, John McDonagh, review of Engaging Modernity.