Biography
Educated at NUI-Galway (BA, MA) and at the University of Oxford, Balliol College (D.Phil.). Assistant Professor of English, Southern Illinois University (2000-2001), National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, Keough Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame (2002-2003). Teaching at University of Limerick from 2003 to the present. Teaching and research interests include literary and cultural cultural criticism and theory; literature and enlightenment; literature and science; poetry and music; Irish studies; and utopian/dystopian satire. Has published widely on eighteenth-century studies, utopian studies, and Irish writing in English, in journals such as The Review of English Studies, the Field Day Review, Utopian Studies, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, and History Ireland. Has contributed essays on eighteenth-century Ireland to collections of essays on colonial discourse, Clare history, and Edmund Burke. Has also co-edited (with Tom Moylan), Exploring the Utopian Impulse (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007) and (with Breandán MacSuibhne) a special edition of Éire-Ireland on Irish Catholicism. Has contributed biographical essays on John Aikin and Charles Burney to the Gale Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Historians. A collection of essays on Irish visual culture, co-edited with Eoin Flannery, was published by Syracuse University Press in 2009. His edition of The Selected Writings of Thomas Dermody was published by Field Day Press in 2012; a monograph, Enlightenment in Ruins: The Geographies of Oliver Goldsmith, was published in July of 2013 by Bucknell University Press (paperback 2015). An edition of the poetry of Laurence Whyte was published by Bucknell UP in 2016. A new Cambridge edition of the letters of Oliver Goldsmith, co-edited with David O'Shaughnessy of Trinity College Dublin, was published in 2018. Awarded an Augustin Hamilton Parker Fellowship at Harvard University's Houghton Library November-December 2018. Currently editing a volume of Goldsmith's poetry, as part of a multi-volume Cambridge UP edition of Goldsmith's works.
Head of English, 2011-2014; Assistant Dean of Faculty (Academic Affairs), 2014-2017. Currently Head of School of English, Irish, and Communication.
Research Interests
Irish Studies, Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Studies, Poetry, Poetics, Criticism and Theory; The History of the Magazine.
Teaching Interests
Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature; Irish Studies; Poetry, Poetics, and Rhetoric. Literary Theory and Criticism.
Professional Activities
Committee
- 2012 Academic Regulations Committee (ARC),
- 2012 Academic Programmes Review Committee,
- 2005 Cumann Merriman,
Award
- 2012 - NDLR people's Choice Award Winner 2012: National (LiNC) projects.
- 2008 - Mayers Fellowship, Huntington Library, San Marino California
- 2002 - National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships
Education
- 2002 University of Oxford - Doctor of Philosophy
- 1997 University of Oxford - M.Sc.
- 1995 NUI - Master of Arts
- 1994 NUI - B.A.
Association
- ordinary member, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
- Ordinary Member, Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society
- ordinary member, Utopian Studies Society
- ordinary member, American Conference for Irish Studies
Language
- Irish
- French
Publications
Book
The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith
Michael Griffin, David O'Shaughnessy, Oliver Goldsmith
The Collected Poems of Laurence Whyte
Michael Griffin, Laurence Whyte
Enlightenment in Ruins: The Geographies of Oliver Goldsmith
Michael Griffin
The Selected Writings of Thomas Dermody
Michael Griffin, Thomas Dermody
Book Chapter
Oliver Goldsmith
Michael Griffin
The Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets
What d'ye call him, Tierconneldrago: Oliver Goldsmith and the Seven Years' War'
Michael Griffin
The Culture of the Seven Years' War: Empire, Identity and the Arts in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World
The Two Enlightenments of Merriman's Clare
Michael Griffin
Brian Merriman's Midnight Court
Arcades Ambo: Robert Burns and Thomas Dermody
Michael Griffin
Burns and the Poets
Our Native Tongue Most Shamefully Rejected': Education, Print Culture and English Literature in Eighteenth-Century Ennis
Michael Griffin
Clare: History and Society
Hy-Brazil Hybridized: Utopian Colonies and Colonial Utopias in Ireland, 1641-1760
Michael Griffin
Enemies of Empire
Across Time and Space: The Utopian Impulses of Andrey Tarkovsky's Stalker
Michael Griffin and Dara Waldron
Exploring the Utopian Impulse: Essays on Utopian Thought and Practice
Burke, Goldsmith and the Irish Absentees
Griffin, MJ
Edmund Burke's Irish Identities
Conference Contribution
American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies
Michael John Griffin
Storytelling in the Spectator Magazines Conference
Michael John Griffin
The Atlantic Archipelagos Research Consortium
Michael John Griffin
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference
Michael Griffin
American Conference for Irish Studies
Michael Griffin
Irish Association for American Studies Conference
Michael Griffin
Strokestown Poetry Festival
Michael Griffin
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference
Michael Griffin
Conference Publication
The 21st Annual Gilbert Lecture
Michael John Griffin
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Michael Griffin
Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society Conference
Michael Griffin
The First Ralahine Centre Conference on Utopian Studies: Exploring the Utopian Impulse
Michael Griffin and Breandan MacSuibhne
American Conference for Irish Studies
Michael Griffin
Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society Conference
Michael Griffin
Utopian Studies Conference
Michael Griffin
American Conference for Irish Studies
Michael Griffin
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Michael Griffin
Enemies of Empire: An Interdisciplinary Conference, , June 2004
Michael Griffin
American Conference for Irish Studies, National Meeting, ;
Michael Griffin
American Conference for Irish Studies, Midwest Section
Michael Griffin
Edited Book
Other Journal
Crossing LInes with John Williams
Michael Griffin
The John McGahern Yearbook
Da's Boat, or Can the Submarine Speak?: The Ulster Miscellany (1752) and Other Glimpses of the Irish Atlantis
Michael Griffin and Breandán MacSuibhne
Field Day Review
Oliver Goldsmith and François-Ignace Espiard de la Borde: An Instance of Plagiarism
Michael Griffin
The Review of English Studies
Other Publication
Oliver Goldsmith, Oxford Bibliographies, OUP.
Michael Griffin
Oxford Bibliographies
Digitisation of an 18th Century Limerick Periodical, The Magazine of Magazines
Geraldine Sheridan, Michael Griffin, Yvonne Diggins
West47Online Literary Review
Michael Griffin
'Charles Burney'
Michael Griffin
Eighteenth-Century British Historians, volume of The Dictionary of Literary Biography
John Aikin'
Michael Griffin
Eighteenth-Century British Historians, volume of The Dictionary of Literary Biography
Peer Reviewed Journal
Between Pope and Merriman: The Poetics and Politics of R Buggin's The Inchanted Garden (1716)
Michael Griffin
Eighteenth Century Ireland
Affiliated to the Future: Culture, the Celt, and Matthew Arnold's Utopia
Michael Griffin
Utopian Studies
Infatuated to his Ruin: The Fate of Tom Dermody
Griffin, MJ
History Ireland
Editors' Introduction
Griffin, MJ; MacSuibhne, B
Eire/Ireland Journal Of The Irish American Cultural Ins
Utopian Music and the Problem of Luxury
Griffin, MJ
Utopian Studies
Irish Catholics: Special Issue, edited
Michael Griffin, Breandán MacSuibhne
Eire-Ireland
Delicate Allegories, Deceitful Mazes: Goldsmith's Landscapes
Griffin, MJ
Eighteenth Century Ireland