The American Conference for Irish Studies is pleased to introduce the recipients of the 2015 Larkin and Krause graduate research fellowships. These fellowships, awarded annually in support of doctoral research on topics relating to Ireland and the Irish Diaspora, were announced at the March 2015 annual general meeting of ACIS.

Krause Fellowship
The Krause Fellowship is awarded to a doctoral student pursuing research on topics related to Irish literature. ACIS is pleased to introduce this year’s recipient, Marion Quirici of the University at Buffalo. Quirici’s dissertation, “Fitness for Freedom: Disability and Irish Modernism,” examines the responses of twentieth-century Irish writers to national stereotypes of disability and degeneracy. Giving voice to disabled and debilitated storytellers and writers in their narratives, modernists like James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Edna O’Brien show that disability is a natural component of the human experience regardless of race or nation, and assert disability as a basis for inclusion in, rather than exclusion from, civil society. With the support of the Krause research fellowship, Quirici will visit the National Library of Ireland to consult the newly expanded Christy Brown Papers.

Larkin Fellowship
The Larkin Fellowship, established in support of research in history or the social sciences, has been awarded this year to R. Seth Torpin of the University of Missouri-Columbia. Torpin’s dissertation project examines social changes underway in Ulster during the 1830s with particular focus on the period of the Whig administration of Lord Melbourne (1835-41). Based upon a close examination of the “Outrage Reports” for the region, his research traces the reactions of the people of Ulster to ongoing economic shifts as well as to important political changes and reforms. By placing these events into their wider context, he hopes to illuminate what has been a relatively neglected period of Ireland’s history. Torpin plans to use the fellowship to extend a trip to archives in Dublin and Belfast this summer.

Best of luck to both of these researchers with their ongoing projects, and we’ll look forward to seeing the results of their hard work in the near future!