Rate My Professor Emer Lyons

Emer Lyons serves as the Irish Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Otago's Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies within the Division of Humanities. She earned her PhD in 2021 from the English and Linguistics Programme in the School of Arts at the University of Otago, completing a creative/critical thesis entitled PART(S)(W)HOLE: Manifestations of Shame in Lesbian Poetry from Ireland and New Zealand. Prior to this, she obtained an MA in Sociology in 2010 and a BA Joint Honours in Sociology and Archaeology in 2009, both from University College Cork, National University of Ireland. Her academic trajectory reflects a strong foundation in social sciences transitioned into literary and cultural studies focused on Irish and queer contexts.

Lyons' research interests include poetry by women and queer writers, second-wave feminism, affect theory, diasporic studies, Irish studies, language extinction, queer theory, and lyric theory. She has taught several courses at the University of Otago, such as GEND 402 Sexual Politics in Modern Ireland, HIST 430 Special Topic: Commemorating Irish History, ENGL 220 Creative Writing: Reading for Writers, and SOCI 102 Cultural and Social Identities. Her scholarly and creative output features poems including 'What gets us through' and 'My mother says my poems make her sound like a right bitch' published in The Stinging Fly (2022), as well as a book review 'Three seas' in Landfall Review Online (2022). Additional creative and critical writing appears in esteemed journals worldwide, such as Meridians, College Literature, The Journal of New Zealand Literature, and Poetry Ireland Review. Lyons has also engaged in public scholarship through radio interviews, literary festival discussions, and contributions to events like the West Cork Literary Festival.