Since our last interview with him, Keelan Harkin was hired as the Assistant Professor of Irish Literature at Concordia University’s School of Irish Studies. This interview was done by GMK in late 2022, so a few of the answers are a bit out of date. Our apologies to Dr Harkin for the delay in posting this on the website.

What first inspired you to go into academia?  What inspires you still?

I didn’t even know that grad school was an option until the third year of my undergrad.  I had a great professor for a course on modernism and they encouraged me to pursue a master’s; you could say I tumbled into it more than having any specific inspirations or aspirations.  What inspires me still is teaching, particularly when it becomes entwined with research in terms of trying out new ideas via course design.  I always feel energized when students become part of the process.

[GMK: I took the opportunity to ask Professor Harkin about the kinds of research topics he was particularly keen to engage with as a supervisor. He is interested in supervising graduate work which focuses on Irish writers and an intersection of various disciplinary approaches, including law and literature, narrative theory and how it applies to imagining political/legal life via literature, and formalist studies of literature…take note, prospective grad students!]

Do you work best in the morning, the afternoon, or at night?

I used to always work at night, but that’s slowly changing—I think I do most of my best work in the afternoon.  During grad school, I worked all the time, and I’m trying to move away from that.  My mornings are slower now, I like to sit and drink coffee.  Of course, I end up doing some work in the morning, because there are only so many hours in the day.  There is still something about nighttime that is particularly conducive to writing, though.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

I had to train myself not to do this, to detach myself from words in which I was invested.  Come to think of it, “invested” might be one of them…  I used to overuse coordinating conjunctions.  They pop up when I’m thinking through writing, making connections in the page, but now I mostly edit those out of my writing at later stages.  Other than that, “interrogates,” “structures.” “Precincts” is one I was recently really into.  What strikes me more than repeated phrases is actually vague writing, which maybe shows a lack of confidence in the ideas, and when language suggests the obviousness of an argument (e.g., “evident,” “clearly shows”); if it is obvious, why would I be writing about it?

What’s your guilty pleasure while you write/research/prepare material/go to conferences?

It is not so much a guilty pleasure, but I really love writing syllabi.  When I get ideas during research work, I often find myself jumping to course design to find ways to test those ideas out with students.  At conferences (again, not a guilty pleasure), I don’t go to every single panel and event.  I allow myself to see the place where the conference is taking place.

Best conference of your career so far?

The last two IASILs that I attended (this past summer in Limerick and the summer of 2016 in Cork) were great, as are the host campuses and cities.  I’ve also always enjoyed going to CAIS.  My first conference was the convening at the The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.  CAIS is really welcoming to grad students.

Do you use Twitter?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

Yes, but not so much recently.  It is still useful for finding CFPs and for connecting with people who work in similar areas.

[GMK: This interview took place on November 17, 2022 – who knows what the state of Twitter will be when this interview goes live!]

What are you looking forward to most in the next twelve months?

I’m going to MLA in San Francisco in January, which should be fun; I’m participating in a round table discussion on the future of Irish Studies (organized by ACIS).  I’m talking about contingency, which (fortunately) does not frame my professional life anymore, but I think I can still speak to this topic.  I’m going to Austin, Texas for a month in May to finally complete research for which I was granted a Fellowship by the Harry Ransom Centre at the University of Texas, Austin before the pandemic.  Other than research travel, I’m looking forward to settling into my new job over the next twelve months.

You can invite any six people (living or dead, real or fictitious) for a meal.  Who’s coming to dinner?

Brendan Behan, Dolly Parton, and Oscar Wilde.

Given the past few years, what makes you happiest, in or out of the classroom?

Good conversation.  I spent most of the pandemic alone, so good conversation—academic or not—is really valuable.

What’s the strangest question anyone has ever asked you in an academic context?

None come to mind in my personal experience, but I always find questions that come from someone who clearly was not listening for the entire presentation awkward.  I also find questions that seek to tie the topic of the talk to the questioner’s own research work in such a way that prompts the speaker to comment on the research (which is often unrelated) awkward.  Actually, when you find yourself on a panel with people who are working on topics that have nothing in common with your own work (an occasion comes to mind during which my talk on narrative reliability in Roddy Doyle’s work had to be rescheduled and thus shared a time slot with talks on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the X-Files respectively), that can be strange, too, in terms of the questions you might receive.

You were recently hired as Assistant Professor in Irish Literature, so I have to ask…

What are you reading right now?

Donal Ryan’s The Thing About December, Molly Keane’s Treasure Hunt, and Celeste Orr’s Cripping Intersex.

What are your favourite reads from 2022? 

Jan Carson’s The Raptures and Séan Hewitt’s All Down Darkness Wide: A Memoir.