Staff Profiles

Miriam’s research interests include contemporary theatre and performance, the politics of performance, feminism, and the interdisciplinary field of trauma and memory studies. Miriam's monograph in this field, Staging Trauma: Bodies in Shadow, which queries the political and performative contexts for staging trauma in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain, is forthcoming with the 'Contemporary Performance InterActions' Series, Palgrave. Her article in the international peer-reviewed journal Modern Drama "From Laundries to Labour Camps: Staging Ireland's "Rule of Silence" in Anu Productions' Laundry" received the 'Honourable Mention' in their Outstanding Article Awards in 2014. With Maria Kurdi, Miriam co-edited the collection Radical Contemporary Theatre Practices by Women in Ireland (Carysfort, 2015). This collection has received critical praise in leading international peer-reviewed journals, including Theatre Journal, ‘compulsory reading’, Modern Drama ‘a tremendous resource’, Contemporary Theatre Review ‘ground-breaking’, and New Theatre Quarterly ‘timely confirmation of the unassailable contributions by women’. She has an article forthcoming in Contemporary Theatre Review's special issue on feminist theatre and performance, and is co-editing the special issue of international journal Ilha do Desterro on 'Artistic Collaborations' with Drs Maria Rita Drumond Viana and Alinne Balduino Pires Fernandes.

Miriam maintains a strong interest in the business of theatre and the creative arts, drawing from her postdoctoral research project, the Creative Exchange Northern Ireland (CXNI), an AHRC creative knowledge exchange initiative led by the University of Ulster with Queen’s University Belfast (2013-14). Miriam completed her Ph.D. at UCD in 2012, where she has previously lectured. Miriam has been awarded research support from NUI Galway, as well as organisations including the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR), the Irish Society for Theatre Research (ISTR), The Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame, and UCD.

Miriam has worked  in theatre, television and film in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and as a television journalist specializing in the Middle East and North Africa. Project Director and co-Chair for the academic and artistic centenary initiative ‘1916: Home: 2016’, this project coordinated and supported critical and creative explorations of the lesser-known histories of twentieth-century Ireland, throughout Ireland, the UK, US, Canada and Brazil. The project website was selected to be included in the National Library of Ireland's 'Remembering 1916, Recording 2016' archive. Miriam is a supporting member of the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI),  elected to the Executive Committee of ISTR, and a member of the Feminist Working Group of IFTR.

Miriam currently supervises two doctoral projects investigating contemporary performance practices funded by the Irish Research Council and the Galway Doctoral Fellowship. She welcomes thesis proposals in any areas relating to theatre and performance studies, particularly regarding its interdisciplinary relationships with identity politics, trauma and memory studies, space and place, feminisms, and the creative industries.