Daemen College : Academics & Research : Division of Arts & Sciences : English : Faculty : Shirley Peterson

Shirley Peterson

Associate Professor

speterso@daemen.edu

I have been a faculty member in the Daemen College English Department since 1990, arriving fresh from University of Delaware where I completed my Ph.D.  In addition to Freshman Composition and our introductory literature course, Approaches to Literature, I teach a survey course in British Literature (the Romantics to Contemporary writers) and courses in Modern/Contemporary Irish Literature and Trauma and Literature. Irish Literature has become my primary area of interest;  so, when I offer the Film Seminar,  taught alternately with Dr. Morace, I focus on Irish films.  Likewise, my version of the English Majors Seminar, a program requirement with rotating topics, spotlights major writings of Irish novelist James Joyce.  For the general education requirement in the college core, I periodically offer courses in Literature and Gender, American Literature of the 1960s, and Literature and Trauma. 

My major research interests have been in the area of gender studies, film studies and postcolonial Irish literature.  I co-edited a collection of essays entitled Unmanning Modernism:  Gendered Re-Readings (University of Tennessee Press, 1997) and have published separate articles on film, women's suffrage literature, popular culture, and Irish novelists Edna O'Brien and Patrick McCabe.  I am currently working on Irish novelists' depictions of home and homeland.  My interest in this topic stems from Ireland's long and traumatic history of colonialism, famine, and poverty, which I examine in the context of Irish novels and contemporary trauma theory.  With the support of Daemen College, I have had the privilege of traveling to Ireland several times to attend conferences and to conduct research, a particularly enjoyable part of my job.

In collaboration with the English Department's Dr. Marck-Cantwell, I have coordinated several student trips abroad to England and Ireland.  These trips have typically involved around a dozen students who traveled over spring break in conjunction with a class on English/Irish literature or, if they were not part of a class, just went for fun.  Each trip has been uniquely rewarding and has helped broaden the students' horizons both culturally and academically.  The college does offer more extensive study abroad options, but these trips offer a condensed, if rather intense, experience for those who cannot go away for an entire semester. 

Besides traveling, my (limited) leisure time is often spent at the movies (the Dipson Theaters offer great alternatives to the local cineplex) or enjoying live theater, especially the Irish Classical Theatre in downtown Buffalo.  During the summer months, the Shakespeare in the Park productions are hard to beat--unless it's the Shaw Festival productions in Niagara-on-the-Lake.  I enjoy the access to cultural and artistic events that this area provides as well as many opportunities for hiking and biking in western New York.