James Smith

professor, English, Boston College

James Smith is currently employed as an Associate Professor of English at Boston College, where he specializes in modern and contemporary Irish literature and culture, and cultural studies. His book,* Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment *(2007), focusing on cultural representations of institutional care, reflects his interest in twentieth-century Irish narrative from a post-colonial perspective. Similar interests inform Smith's recent graduate seminars, "Twentieth Century Irish Fiction," "Contemporary Irish Fiction," and "Ireland: The Colonial Context." He have taught undergraduate electives on contemporary British Isles fiction, American realism and naturalism, major Irish writers, and both 19th and 20th century Irish literature surveys. Smith am also interested in recent scandals in Ireland's Catholic Church and the manner in which these affect relations between church, state, and society.