Gender Studies welcomes Abigail L. Palko as our first Director of Undergraduate Studies
Dr. Palko studies the colonial and postcolonial predicaments of Caribbean and Irish women writers, showing how their fiction wrestles with themes of oppression. Her research focuses on Anglophone and Francophone literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, specializing in modernism and postcolonialism; maternity studies; gender and sexuality in literature; and the intersection of theological, human rights, and feminist discourse in literature. She has published articles on Maeve Brennan (New Hibernia Review)and Dorothy Macardle (Frontiers: a Journal of Women Studies); she also has articles on Irish and British women’s WWII-era fiction and Mary Shelley and Irishness under review. She is currently revising her dissertation, entitled “Motherhood, Declined: Negotiating Maternal Subjectivities in Irish and Caribbean novels, 1934-2007” for publication. She is also working on an article that teases out literary connections between Ireland and the Caribbean. She teaches Introduction to Gender Studies and Gender Studies electives (thematic explorations of literature).
Gender Studies Program apalko@nd.edu, 574/631-8635