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Dr. Amy Prendergast

Assistant Professor (English)
      
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Dr. Amy Prendergast

Assistant Professor (English)

 PRENDEA1@tcd.ie

 


Amy Prendergast is Assistant Professor in Eighteenth-Century Studies in the School of English. She previously held the positions of Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow at Queen's University Belfast, and Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow and Teaching Fellow at TCD. Her research expertise in the long eighteenth century centres on women's writing, life writing, writing from Ireland, and Franco-Irish connections and cultural transfers. Her most recent monograph, Mere Bagatelles: Women's Diaries from Ireland, 1760-1810 was published in October 2024 by Liverpool University Press and is fully open access. Mere Bagatelles opens new avenues concerning authorship and female agency, transforming our understanding of women"s contributions to literature and cultural movements. The entirely new corpus allows for the emergence of new perspectives on the self during the period and prompts a re-evaluation of the contours of Irish writing. Prendergast's first monograph, Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland in the Long Eighteenth Century (Palgrave, 2015) offered the first detailed examination of the literary salon in Ireland, considered in the wider contexts of contemporary salon culture in Britain and France. With Lucy Cogan (UCD), Prendergast is co-editor of a special issue of the fully refereed international journal, Women's Writing. This will be the journal's first special issue dedicated to Irish writers. Prendergast is committed to public engagement, and particularly seeks to incorporate gender dimensions into her research and to celebrate the achievements of women writers.
  Eighteenth-century literature   Literary History
Details Date
Peer reviewer for Cultural and Social History, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Review of Irish Studies in Europe (RISE), Renaissance Studies. 2012
Expert reader for proposed titles for Oxford University Press and Boydell & Brewer. 2023
Secretary of Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society 2021
Member of review committee for ECIS Postgraduate and Early Career Scholar Bursary
External Examiner for Doctoral thesis, University of Melbourne. March 2025
Editorial board member for the Élie Bouhéreau Diary project, Marsh's Library, Dublin. 2015
Member of Prize Jury for ASECS Elias Irish-American Fellowship
Details Date From Date To
Committee member of Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society 2014 Present
The Envoy's Wife: Diplomatic Sociability, Family, and Loss in the Diary (1689-1719) of Élie Bouhéreau in, editor(s)Amy Boylan and Janée Allsman , Élie Bouhéreau The collections and communities of a Huguenot refugee, 2025, [Amy Prendergast], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS  URL
Amy Prendergast, Mere Bagatelles: Women's Diaries from Ireland, 1760-1810, UK, Liverpool University Press, 2024, 1 - 256pp, Book, PUBLISHED  DOI  URL
France and French Writing in, editor(s)Michael Griffin and David O'Shaughnessy , Oliver Goldsmith in Context, 2024, [Amy Prendergast], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
Prendergast, Amy, Glossing the Diary: Women Writing for Posterity, the Case of Elizabeth Edgeworth (1781-1800), Life Writing, 19, (2), 2022, p277-294 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Prendergast, Amy, A Winter in Bath, 1796-97: Life Writing and the Irish Adolescent Self, European Journal of Life Writing, 10, 2021, p18-40 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Transnational Influence and Exchange: The Intersections between Irish and French Sentimental Novels in, Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp189-206 , [Prendergast, Amy], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI
Prendergast, Amy, "Open[ing] the Flood-gate of literature to her own Sex": Elizabeth Griffith, translation, transmission, and cultural transfer, Women's Writing, 27, (2), 2020, p184-202 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
The diary (1689-1719) and accounts (1704-1717) of Élie Bouhéreau, Marie Léoutre, Jane McKee, Jean-Paul Pittion & Amy Prendergast, Dublin:, IMC, 2019, -, Critical Edition (Book), PUBLISHED  URL
PRENDERGAST, AMY, `Members of the republick of letters": Maria Edgeworth, literary sociability, and intellectual pursuits in the Irish midlands, c.1780-1820, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 31, (1), 2016, p29-46 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Amy Prendergast, Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland in the Long Eighteenth Century, 2015, Book, PUBLISHED  DOI
  

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Amy Prendergast, Rational Creatures, Dublin Review of Books, 2024, Review Article, PUBLISHED
Dr Brandon Yen and Amy Prendergast, 'Ireland and the English Lake Poets', 2019, -, Exhibition, EXHIBITED
Amy Prendergast, Maria Edgeworth at 250, Books Ireland, (377), 2018, p23-, Review Article, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Honorable Mention for Robert Rhodes Prize for Books on Literature (ACIS) for Mere Bagatlles 2025
Marie Sklodowska Curie (MSCA) Individual Fellowship 2021
American Society Eighteenth-Century Studies, Elias Irish-American Fellowship 2017
Moore Institute Visiting Research Fellowship (NUIG) 2017
International Society Eighteenth-Century Studies, International Seminar 2017
Huntington Library Fellowship [respectfully declined] 2017
Royal Irish Academy Charlemont Travel Award 2015
Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship 2013
PRTLI Government of Ireland Doctoral Scholarship 2008
Irish Embassy to Britain Bursary for travel to Warwick University 2012
Department for Employment and Learning Studentship (respectfully declined) 2008
French Government Medal and NUI prize for proficiency in French 2007
University Scholar (NUIG) 2005
Dr H. H. Stewart Literary Prize for French 2004
NUI Entrance Scholarship 2003
My research expertise in the long eighteenth century centres on the areas of women's writing, life writing, writing from Ireland, and Franco-Irish connections and cultural transfers. My second monograph, Mere Bagatelles: Women's Diaries from Ireland 1760-1810, was published in Liverpool University Press in October 2024. It is a fully open access work, available to download from the publisher website and from the OAPEN library. Engaging with overlooked archival diaries by women across Ireland, it opens new avenues concerning authorship and female agency, transforming our understanding of women's contributions to literature and cultural movements. The entirely new corpus allows for the emergence of new perspectives on the self during the period and prompts a re-evaluation of the contours of Irish writing. Amy Culley (University of Lincoln) described it as being 'meticulously researched and the extensive archival material is sensitively and skilfully interpreted to provide rare insights regarding women"s lives and writing My first monograph was completed during an IRC Postdoctoral Fellowship held at TCD. Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland in the Long Eighteenth Century(Palgrave, 2015) offered the first detailed examination of the literary salon in Ireland, considered in the wider contexts of contemporary salon culture in Britain and France. It was positively reviewed in European Romantic Review; The British Association for Romantic Studies Review; Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies; New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century; Reviews in History; Eighteenth-Century Ireland. Eric Gidal, European Romantic Review, wrote, `Prendergast brings an impressive amount of archival research to bear upon the story she tells, and anyone seeking to understand how salon culture crossed the Irish Sea will need to consult this work', and Rebecca Bar, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, that `In its sensitive recuperation of a past that is neglected and, at times, seemingly deliberately obliterated, Literary Salons Across Britain and Ireland will be of interest to Irish historians and literary scholars alike.' I am currently co-editor, with Lucy Cogan (UCD) of a special issue of the journal, Women's Writing. This will be the first special issue of Women's Writing dedicated to Irish writers, and we have curated submissions on innovative topics from the early modern period to the early-twentieth century. I was co-editor of The Diary and Accounts of Élie Bouhéreau (Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2019), which I worked on during my time as a Research Associate at Marsh's Library. It has been described as 'an impressively translated and edited edition which is also handsomely produced' wherein 'Readers will appreciate the high quality of the translation, editing, annotation and indexing.' (Martin Greene, Dublin Review of Books). Recent articles have appeared in The European Journal for Life Writing (2021); Life Writing (2020); and Women's Writing (2020). In addition to my large-scale research projects, I have contributed to various edited collections, including several from Cambridge University Press, and one from Four Courts Press.