Dr Stephen O'Neill
Associate Professor
Undergraduate Programme Co-ordinator
Biography
ORCID ID
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4674-9127
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=L6qeVkIAAAAJ&hl=en
Dr Stephen O’Neill is Associate Professor in English and Shakespeare Studies, and was Head of Department for 2019-2020. Stephen previously lectured in University College Dublin, where he completed his PhD, before joining English at Maynooth University.
His research is currently focused on eco-critical approaches to literature, with a project on the literary life of trees, and he is PI on an IRC New Foundations funded project, "Literature and Ireland's Trees" in partnership with Crann: Trees for Ireland.
He is the author of two monographs, Shakespeare and YouTube (London and New York: Arden Shakespeare / Bloomsbury 2014), which explores digital productions of Shakespeare on the social media platform through a variety of critical lenses including gender and race; and Staging Ireland: Representations in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama (Dublin: Four Courts, 2007), the defining study of Ireland as a recurrent text and context in early modern drama. Dr O'Neill has also edited the collection Broadcast Your Shakespeare: Continuity and Change Across Media (London and New York: Arden Shakespeare / Bloomsbury 2018); and co-edited The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation (Arden Shakespeare 2022), a special issue of the Shakespearean International Yearbook on "Shakespeare and Refugees" (2021), and Shakespeare and the Irish Writer (Dublin: UCD Press 2010). He has also contributed to the broadening of Shakespeare studies into fan studies, through work on Coriolanus fanfic in The Shakespeare Geek; and TV culture and adaptation through articles on HBO’s Westworld and Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning novel Hamnet.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4674-9127
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=L6qeVkIAAAAJ&hl=en
Dr Stephen O’Neill is Associate Professor in English and Shakespeare Studies, and was Head of Department for 2019-2020. Stephen previously lectured in University College Dublin, where he completed his PhD, before joining English at Maynooth University.
His research is currently focused on eco-critical approaches to literature, with a project on the literary life of trees, and he is PI on an IRC New Foundations funded project, "Literature and Ireland's Trees" in partnership with Crann: Trees for Ireland.
He is the author of two monographs, Shakespeare and YouTube (London and New York: Arden Shakespeare / Bloomsbury 2014), which explores digital productions of Shakespeare on the social media platform through a variety of critical lenses including gender and race; and Staging Ireland: Representations in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama (Dublin: Four Courts, 2007), the defining study of Ireland as a recurrent text and context in early modern drama. Dr O'Neill has also edited the collection Broadcast Your Shakespeare: Continuity and Change Across Media (London and New York: Arden Shakespeare / Bloomsbury 2018); and co-edited The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation (Arden Shakespeare 2022), a special issue of the Shakespearean International Yearbook on "Shakespeare and Refugees" (2021), and Shakespeare and the Irish Writer (Dublin: UCD Press 2010). He has also contributed to the broadening of Shakespeare studies into fan studies, through work on Coriolanus fanfic in The Shakespeare Geek; and TV culture and adaptation through articles on HBO’s Westworld and Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning novel Hamnet.
He is also co-editing with Maria Pramaggiore a volume of esays Kylie Minogue: Criticial Insights into Music and Media Celebrity (under contract with Bloomsbury Academic), for which he is writing a chapter on Minogue's affective fandoms.
In 2022, he was part of a team that received a Maynooth University CTL Teaching Fellowship for the project “Eco-Journaling: Climate-Engaged Learning through Literature” as part of EN342. A key aim for the project team (which includes Dr Evan Bourke, Prof Pat Palmer, Dr Kevin Tracey, and Alan Waldron) is to involve students through direct participation in-class, through a campus tree-trail, and workshops with visual artist Susan Leen. The project will go beyond the timeframe of the module itself through a creative exhibition featuring class work and the launch of student-leadership roles as “MU Climate Heroes”.
He is a regular contributor to the conferences of the Shakespeare Association of America and the European Shakespeare Research Association. He's also a member of the Irish Renaissance Seminar.
He supervises research theses on adaptations of Shakespeare and very much welcomes applications from PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers in the following areas: Shakespeare studies, especially adaptation and digital cultures; early modern literature; early modern Ireland; and eco-criticism. In 2022, he was part of a team that received a Maynooth University CTL Teaching Fellowship for the project “Eco-Journaling: Climate-Engaged Learning through Literature” as part of EN342. A key aim for the project team (which includes Dr Evan Bourke, Prof Pat Palmer, Dr Kevin Tracey, and Alan Waldron) is to involve students through direct participation in-class, through a campus tree-trail, and workshops with visual artist Susan Leen. The project will go beyond the timeframe of the module itself through a creative exhibition featuring class work and the launch of student-leadership roles as “MU Climate Heroes”.
He is a regular contributor to the conferences of the Shakespeare Association of America and the European Shakespeare Research Association. He's also a member of the Irish Renaissance Seminar.
Research Interests
Shakespeare studies, especially Shakespeare’s afterlives; contemporary Shakespeare adaptation studies and digital cultures; early modern literature, especially drama and theatre; early modern Ireland.
Research Projects
Edited Book
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | O'Neill, S and Diana Henderson (Ed.). (2022) The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Adaptation. London and New York: Arden Bloomsbury, [Link] | |
| 2021 | Stephen O’Neill and Ton Hoenselaars (Ed.). (2021) The Shakespearean International Yearbook 19: Special Section, Shakespeare and Refugees. London: Routledge, [Link] | |
| 2018 | O'Neill, Stephen (Ed.). (2018) Broadcast Your Shakespeare: Continuity and Change Across Media. London: Bloomsbury / Arden Shakespeare, [Link] | |
| 2010 | Stephen O'Neill and Janet Clare (Ed.). (2010) Shakespeare and the Irish Writer. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, [Link] |
Book Chapter
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | O'Neill, Stephen (2022) '‘The time invites you’, or Making Hamlet your Digital Contemporary: Online Adaptation and Community' In: Agrégation anglais 2023. William Shakespeare. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Paris : Ellipses. | |
| 2022 | O'Neill, Stephen (2022) '“Quoting Machines: Shakespearean things in and beyond HBO’s Westworld”' In: Performing Shakespearean Appropriations Essays in Honor of Christy DesmetPerforming Shakespearean Appropriations Essays in Honor of Christy Desmet. Lanham : Rowman and Littlefield. [Link] | |
| 2020 | O'Neill, Stephen (2020) 'Hiddleston–Shakespeare–-Coriolanus, or Rhizomatic Crossings in Fanfic' In: Shakespeare and Geek Culture. London : Arden Bloomsbury. [Link] | |
| 2016 | O’Neill S. (2016) 'Beyond MacMorris: Shakespeare, Ireland and critical contexts' In: Celtic Shakespeare: The Bard and the Borderers. [DOI] | |
| 2018 | O'Neill, Stephen (2018) 'Quoting Shakespeare in Digital Cultures' In: Shakespeare and Quotation. Cambridge : Cambridge UP. [Link] | |
| 2017 | O'Neill, Stephen (2017) 'Theorizing User Agency in YouTube Shakespeare' In: The Shakespeare User: Critical and Creative Appropriations in a Networked Culture. New York : Palgrave Macmillan. [Link] | |
| 2017 | O'Neill, Stephen (2017) '“In fair [Europe], where we lay our scene” Romeo and Juliet, Europe and digital cultures' In: Romeo and Juliet in European Culture. Amsterdam : John Benjamins. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
| 2014 | O'Neill, Stephen (2014) '“YouTube, Shakespeare and the Sonnets: Textual Forms, Queer Erasures”' In: Digital Shakespeares: Innovations, Interventions, Mediations, special issue of The Shakespearean International Yearbook. London : Ashgate. | |
| 2013 | O'Neill, Stephen (2013) 'Beyond MacMorris: Shakespeare, Ireland and critical contexts' In: Celtic Shakespeare: The Bard and the Borderers. London : Ashgate. | |
| 2007 | O'Neill, Stephen (2007) '1599: Sir John Oldcastle, the Irish Wars and the Elizabethan Stage' In: Ireland in the Renaissance, c. 1540-1660. Dublin : Four Courts Press. |
Peer Reviewed Journal
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | O’Neill S. (2021) '“And Who Will Write Me?”: Maternalizing Networks of Remembrance in Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet'. Shakespeare, 17 (2):210-229. [DOI] | |
| 2021 | O’Neill S. (2021) 'Bring yourself back online, Old Bill: Westworld’s media histories, or six degrees of separation from Shakespeare'. Cahiers Elisabethains, . [DOI] | |
| 2020 | O'Neill, Stephen (2020) 'Shakespeare's Hand, or the strangers' case: Remediating Sir Thomas More in the context of the Refugee Crisis'. BORROWERS AND LENDERS: THE JOURNAL OF SHAKESPEARE AND APPROPRIATION, . [Link] | |
| 2019 | O'Neill, Stephen (2019) 'Finding Refuge in King Lear: From Brexit to Shakespeare's European Value'. Multicultural Shakespeare, 19 (34). [Link] [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
| 2018 | O'Neill, Stephen (2018) 'Shakespeare’s Digital Flow: Humans, Technologies and the Possibilities of Intercultural Exchange'. Shakespeare Studies, 46 :120-133. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
| 2018 | O'Neill, Stephen (2018) 'Beyond Shakespeare's land of ire: Revisiting Ireland in English Renaissance drama'. Literature Compass, 15 (10). https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12491 | |
| 2016 | O'Neill, Stephen, and Maurizio Calbi (2016) 'Introduction: #SocialMediaShakespeares'. BORROWERS AND LENDERS: THE JOURNAL OF SHAKESPEARE AND APPROPRIATION, X (1). [Link] [Full-Text] | |
| 2016 | O'Neill, Stephen (2016) '‘It's William Back from the Dead’: Commemoration, Representation, and Race in Akala's Hip-Hop Shakespeare'. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 16 (2):246-256. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.jproxy.nuim.ie/doi/10.1111/sena.12192/full [Full-Text] | |
| 2015 | O'Neill, S (2015) 'Shakespeare and Social Media'. Literature Compass, 12 :274-285. [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
| 2015 | O'Neill, Stephen (2015) 'Teaching and Learning Guide for: “Shakespeare and Social Media”'. Literature Compass, 12 (7). [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2014 | O'Neill, Stephen (2014) 'Ophelian Negotiations: Remediating the Girl on YouTube'. BORROWERS AND LENDERS: THE JOURNAL OF SHAKESPEARE AND APPROPRIATION, IX (1). [Link] http://www.borrowers.uga.edu/1281/show [Full-Text] | |
| 2011 | Stephen O'Neill (2011) 'Uploading Hamlet: Agency, Convergence and YouTube Shakespeare'. ANGLISTICA, 15 :63-75. [Link] [Full-Text] |
Other Journal
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Stephen O'Neill (2021) 'On the ‘Spenser Dispenser’' Spenser Forum, 51 (3) . [Link] |
Magazine Article
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | O'Neill, Stephen (2022) What's your favourite reference to trees in Irish literature?. [Magazine Article] [Link] |
Conference Contribution
Webinar
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Stephen O'Neill (2023) 'The book that gave us Shakespeare: Four hundred years of the First Folio, Inspiring Ideas at Trinity, TCD. [Webinar] [Link] | |
| 2022 | O'Neill, Stephen (2022) “Writing with Trees: in conversation with Lynn Buckle. [Webinar] [Link] | |
| 2022 | O'Neill, Stephen (2022) Texts and Trees: Forays into Ireland's Arboreal Cultures in conversation with Dr Anna PIlz and Dr Brandon Yen. [Webinar] [Link] |
Radio Presentation
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | O'Neill, Stephen (2022) Literature and Ireland’s Trees, Mooney Goes Wild. Dublin: [Radio Presentation] [Link] |
Conference Publication
Book Review
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | O'Neill, Stephen (2022) Studying Shakespeare Adaptation: From Restoration Theatre to YouTube By Pamela Bickley and Jenny Stevens (2021). Shakespeare Studies. [Book Review] [Link] | |
| 2010 | Dr Stephen O'Neill (2010) Review of J.B Lethbridge (Ed.). Shakespeare and Spenser: Attractive Opposites (Manchester University Press, 2008). [Book Review] | |
| 2008 | Stephen O'Neill (2008) The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street by Charles Nichol, The Arts Show, RTE Radio One. [Book Review] | |
| 2006 | Dr Stephen O'Neill (2006) Review of Deana Rankin, Between Spenser and Swift: English Writing in Seventeenth Century Ireland (Cambridge University Press, 2005). [Book Review] | |
| 2004 | Dr Stephen O'Neill (2004) Review of Clare Carroll, Circe’s Cup: Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Ireland (Notre Dame University Press, 2001). [Book Review] | |
| 1999 | Dr Stephen O'Neill (1999) Review of Curtis Perry, The Making of Jacobean Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1999). [Book Review] http:/www.hull.ac.uk/renforum/v3no2/oneill.htm |
Reviews
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Stephen O'Neill (2016) Review: Reason in Madness, Draíocht Theatre. [Reviews] [Link] | |
| 2015 | Stephen O'Neill (2015) “Of Crowns, Nations and Memory Machines: Druid reimagines Shakespeare’s Histories.”. [Reviews] [Link] | |
| 2014 | Stephen O'Neill (2014) Review of Brigit by Tom Murphy for Exuent. [Reviews] [Link] |
Certain data included herein are derived from the © Web of Science (2023) of Clarivate. All rights reserved.
Teaching Interests
Dr O'Neill's main teaching interests and responsibilities are in Shakespeare and early modern literature studies but he also contributes more broadly to teaching across the MU English degree. Current teaching includes EN106: "Cli-Fi: Climate Crisis and the Literary Imagination", which is available to double major and single honours students; EN202: "Literature and History"; EN244: "Imagined Worlds"; and EN342: "Lost Worlds: Reading a Fragile Planet". He also offers an elective module in Third Year, "Shakespeare Across Media", which explores adaptations of Shakespeare in literary and popular cultures. He has previously taught modules on Shakespeare, Feminism and Popular Culture, and on thee fiction of Don DeLillo. At postgraduate level, he co-teaches the module Afterlives on the Department's new MA programme, Literatures of Engagement. He also supervises PhD projects on Shakespeare and also in digital media.
In 2022, he received a Maynooth University CTL Teaching Fellowship for the project “Eco-Journaling: Climate-Engaged Learning through Literature” as part of EN342. A key aim for the project team (which includes Dr Evan Bourke, Prof Pat Palmer, Dr Kevin Tracey, and Alan Waldron) is to involve students through direct participation in class, through a campus tree-trail and workshops with visual artist Susan Leen. But we want to go beyond the timeframe of the module itself through a creative exhibition featuring the group’s work and also launch student-leadership roles as “MU Climate Heroes”. By developing greater learner partnerships, we can together explore how the study of literature helps us as global citizens to apprehend, process, and identify actions as we face the climate crisis.
Digital Badges:
All Aboard digital badge for “Flipped Classroom”. All Aboard Digital Skills in Higher Education. The National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
All Aboard digital badge for "Design Thinking”. All Aboard Digital Skills in Higher Education. The National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
In 2022, he received a Maynooth University CTL Teaching Fellowship for the project “Eco-Journaling: Climate-Engaged Learning through Literature” as part of EN342. A key aim for the project team (which includes Dr Evan Bourke, Prof Pat Palmer, Dr Kevin Tracey, and Alan Waldron) is to involve students through direct participation in class, through a campus tree-trail and workshops with visual artist Susan Leen. But we want to go beyond the timeframe of the module itself through a creative exhibition featuring the group’s work and also launch student-leadership roles as “MU Climate Heroes”. By developing greater learner partnerships, we can together explore how the study of literature helps us as global citizens to apprehend, process, and identify actions as we face the climate crisis.
Digital Badges:
All Aboard digital badge for “Flipped Classroom”. All Aboard Digital Skills in Higher Education. The National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
All Aboard digital badge for "Design Thinking”. All Aboard Digital Skills in Higher Education. The National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.