Current and developing research strands within the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies include:
Ecology, Architecture and Utopia:
- Cloughjordan Ecovillage Community
- SAUL Adaptive Governance Project
- Ecocriticism
Ireland, Europe and Utopia:
- Europe as Utopia
- Cognitive Mapping in Contemporary European Culture
- Ethics and Ethical Practice in Contemporary Irish and European Society
The Utopian Imagination:
- Eighteenth Century Utopian Imagination
- Utopia and Irish Modernity
- Irish Science Fiction
Performing Utopia:
- Music and the Utopian Impulse
- Soundscapes and Critical Citizenship
- Utopia and Poetry
Utopian Theory and Method:
- Comparative Utopian Studies
- Utopia and Political Agency
- Utopia and Spirituality
Faculty associated with the Ralahine Centre supervise doctoral research on utopia-related topics. Interested students should send their proposals and queries in the first instance to Dr Michael G. Kelly (michael.g.kelly@ul.ie).
Recently completed PhD projects (2024)
May 2024: Dr Anaïs Guittonny (MLAL), ‘Fragiles Amazones. Analyse d’une défaite littéraire et historique au XVIIIe siècle en France’. (Supervisor: Dr Michael G. Kelly)
January 2024: Dr Claire Downey (MLAL & Architecture), Dark Potential: Navigating Spatial Possibility in the Paris Night . (Supervisors: Dr Michael G. Kelly & Dr Anna Ryan Moloney)
Completed PhD projects
Dr Sara Buggy, ‘Disciplining Dystopia: Power and the Body in Contemporary Young Adult Dystopian Fiction’. Completion Spring 2015. (Supervisor: Dr Michael J. Griffin)
Dr Jack Fennell (IRCHSS Fellow), 'The Irelands That We Dreamed Of: Irish Science Fiction, 1850 to the Present Day.’ Completion February 2013. (Joint supervisors: Dr Michael J. Griffin & Prof Tom Moylan)
Dr Deirdre Ní Chuanacháin, ‘Utopianism and the Irish Cultural Imagination 1720-1820’. Completion June 2013. (Co-supervisors: Dr Joachim Fischer, Dr Michael J. Griffin & Prof Tom Moylan)
Dr Mary Lou O’Donnell, ‘Utopian Dimensions of the Irish Harp’. Completion January 2009. (Joint supervisors: Prof Tom Moylan & Prof Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin)
Faculty in the Ralahine Centre teach the MA Seminar on “Utopian Theory and Texts” (CU6012) offered each spring semester in the Master of Arts in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, and the Master of Arts in English.
Publications by Centre Members
Tom Moylan Becoming Utopian. The Culture and Politics of Radical Transformation. Bloomsbury, 2020 (hb) / 2022 (pb)
Roundtable on Becoming Utopian (January 2021).
Carla Almanza-Gálvez
Form and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Spain. Utopian Narratives and Socio-Political Debate.
Legenda, 2019 (hb) / 2021 (pb & JSTOR)
Deirdre Ní Chuanacháin.
Utopianism in Eighteenth-Century Ireland.
Cork University Press, 2016.
Michael G. Kelly.
Strands of Utopia. Spaces of Poetic Work in Twentieth-Century France.
Legenda, 2008 (hb) / Routledge, 2020 (pb)
Michael J. Griffin. Enlightenment in Ruins.
The Geographies of Oliver Goldsmith.
Bucknell University Press, 2013.
Jack Fennell.
Irish Science Fiction.
Liverpool University Press, 2014.
Carmen Kuhling.
The New-Age Ethic and the Spirit of Postmodernity.
Hampton Press, 2004.
Eóin Flannery.
Ireland and Postcolonial Studies. Theory, Discourse, Utopia
(Palgrave/MacMillan, 2009)
Raffaella Baccolini and Tom Moylan (eds.)
Dark Horizons. Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination. Routledge, 2004.
Jamie Owen Daniel and Tom Moylan (eds.)
Not Yet. Reconsidering Ernst Bloch. Verso, 1997.
Hugues Azérad and Michael G. Kelly (eds.) 'La poésie à l’oeuvre: Poetry, Philosophy, Politics'
L’Esprit Créateur 55(1), 2015 (available here)
Michael J. Griffin and Tom Moylan (eds.) Exploring the Utopian Impulse. Peter Lang, 2007.
Tom Moylan and Raffaella Baccolini (eds.) Utopia, Method, Vision. The Use Value of Social Dreaming. Peter Lang, 2007.
Tom Moylan (ed.) 'Irish Utopias' [thematic issue]. Utopian Studies Vol.18 No.3, 2007. (available here)
Tom Moylan. Scraps of the Untainted Sky. Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia. Westview Press, 2000.
Tom Moylan. Demand the Impossible. Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. Methuen, 1986. (original edition)