New English Professor Dr. Mary Mullen

The English department is happy to report the hiring of a new professor of Victorian literature, Dr. Mary Mullen.  Dr. Mullen’s areas of interest include not only Victorian literature, but also Irish Studies, Ethnic/Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Studies, Women and Gender Studies and Narrative Theory.  Her research examines the relationship between history, literature, and politics with a particular emphasis on nineteenth-century English and Irish writing. Her current book project considers anachronisms in nineteenth-century English and Irish novels.

Dr. Mullen will join the department in the fall.  She will be teaching a sophomore seminar on “Coming of Age in Ireland” and a graduate seminar on “Iron Cages and Imperial Prudes: Rethinking Victorian Modernity.”

The hiring of Dr. Mullen concludes a lengthy and painstaking process.  The department received over two hundred applications for the position and the department search committee (Professors Michael Berthold, Megan Quigley and Evan Radcliffe) interviewed twelve candidates at the MLA (Modern Language Association) convention in Vancouver in early January.  Three finalists were then invited for campus visits and presented their research to the entire department and taught sample classes made up of student volunteers.

Vancouver, site of this year's MLA convention, January 2015