The AHI is home to world-leading research on medieval Irish culture and language, complex experiences and practices of motherhood and the cultural politics of creative labour in Ireland. We are very proud of our competitively funded research on decolonial histories, intersectional humanities, the politics of language acquisition, Irish philosophy, research creation and creative practice, all of which are held in significant national and global esteem. The institute has a strong history of excellence in digital humanities, which is carried on through the methodological approaches of our current large grants and the work of our PhD scholars. We are equipped to support research of this nature and welcome applications from students and academics to undertake work in the digital humanities.
We combine innovative, interdisciplinary research agendas in our research training and development events that run throughout the academic year, including grant development workshops, reading groups, seminars and research creation laboratories. Our intersectional humanities research strength runs an annual international summer school, fostering global collaboration and training emerging scholars. Additionally, each of our key research areas regularly hosts public seminars and workshops, creating vital spaces for knowledge exchange and societal engagement. Our research has a commitment to addressing pressing global challenges while innovating methodologies and undertaking academic outreach.
We have a close relationship with the University’s Futures Research Institute on Climate Change and Sustainability, as arts-based approaches to climate change forms an interdisciplinary focus of our research landscape. Strategically, we aim to lead European research efforts by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, pursuing competitive funding opportunities, and producing impactful scholarship that responds to societal challenges. Our researchers take leadership roles in European research spaces on cultural heritage, the politics of history, sustainable futures and the politics of creativity and research creation.
Maynooth University Arts and Humanities Institute
ToggleColliding forces and discourses: Language(s), politics and multilingual communities
We seek to normalise, support and promote equitable, diverse and inclusive bi- and multilingual ecologies and ideologies across all societal levels, from the local to the global, by conducting empirical research which integrates existing and develops new theoretical propositions to advance the current state of knowledge, stimulate further debate and offer solutions to language challenges in multilingual societies. By bringing together our specialisms in Cross-Linguistic Influence, Language Policy and Planning and Second Language Acquisition with a dual teaching and learning focus, our research engages with the critical issues of access, diversity and identity in multilingual contexts.
Contested Histories
‘History is the fruit of power, but power itself is never so transparent that its analysis becomes superfluous’. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past, (1995)
Bringing together scholars from across a wide range of disciplines, the Contested Histories group is committed to fostering new and innovative research on the construction and mobilisation of competing narratives of the past. Whether it is in struggles over political, cultural, or epistemic authority, we consider historical narratives as a key site for the construction and contestation of power. For this reason, we are interested in exploring how canons and archives are constituted, how hegemonic visions of the past are articulated and propagated, and how counter-narratives emerge to challenge them.
Our research group aims to:
Foster collaboration with colleagues within and beyond the university on the topic of ‘Contested Histories’.
Provide a safe and supportive space for members to workshop concepts for grants and publications.
Build a research culture and profile that can form the bedrock for international collaborative research projects.
Intervene in academic and public discourse on questions of contested pasts and their presents.
Promote and disseminate the work of members and associates as widely as possible so that our research gets the international recognition it deserves.
Creative Practice and Embodied Knowledges
This cluster builds support for and values practice-based research and research-creation. We seek to lead innovative thinking and methods in creative making across disciplines and practices, envisioning new ways of knowing and engaging with the world while challenging existing conventions and epistemic models. We position the arts at the centre of research inquiry with a view to acknowledging the creative work critically, across and beyond the academic, industry-led and community sectors. While critically posing questions about gender, race, disability, inclusivity, equity and intersectionality, we hope to develop new sensibilities to address the work of underrepresented groups, such as mother-artists and refugees’ creatives.
Critical Anthropocenes
This cross-disciplinary group, encompassing researchers from the humanities and sciences, focuses on exploring and critiquing traditions of thought about the natural environment in a broad range of socio-historical contexts in order to deepen understanding of the urgent ecological issues facing the earth and its inhabitants today. We are leading experts in ecocritical and ecofeminist theories, the ethical traditions of ancient and modern philosophies, critical toponymy, language endangerment, petrocultures, and the energy humanities. We bring these diverse approaches into conversation to enquire into narratives of nature and the human, to uncover the long history of human transformations of the natural world, and to lay bare the ideologies that underwrite extractivism and exploitation. At the same time, we aim to challenge the simplicities of the culture / nature divide by restoring agency to non-human actors and marginalised others and by emphasising the ‘natural’ in the ‘human’ and the sociocultural forces shaping the more-than-human. We seek to combine the urgency of a decisive geopolitical context with a cultural legacy of haunted ‘pastoral’ imaginings.
Critical Medical Humanities
This cluster advances research in Critical Medical Humanities, leveraging strengths in narrative medicine, nursing studies, and social change to address pressing issues in healthcare and society. Rooted in Maynooth University's expertise across disciplines—from early Irish scholarship to modern languages, literatures, and cultures—we examine the intersections of health, storytelling, and cultural expression. Our objectives include fostering innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to health and well-being, amplifying underrepresented voices in scholarship and practice, and exploring the transformative potential of artistic practice in patient care and social advocacy. By critically engaging with themes of equity, care, and lived experience, we aim to create new frameworks for understanding and addressing complex challenges in health and culture. Through this work, we position the arts and humanities as vital contributors to health research, community empowerment, and social change.
Intersectional Humanities
Intersectionality helps understand the complex outcomes “when multiple axes of differentiation- economic, political, cultural, psychic, subjective and experiential- intersect in historically specific contexts” (Brah and Phoenix 2004).
As one of the first decolonized countries in the world (1922), the Republic of Ireland brings a specific context to intersectional identity politics. Intersectional Humanities is an interdisciplinary field of study that examines the connections between various social identities and experiences, such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and disability, and how they shape individuals’ opportunities. It seeks to understand how different forms of oppression and privilege intersect and interact with one another, and how they influence social structures, power dynamics, and cultural productions. Intersectional humanities often draws on theories and methodologies from disciplines such as media studies, history, literature, philosophy, and cultural studies to analyse and critique systems of inequality and to promote social justice.
The Intersectional Humanities Research Strength in AHI at Maynooth University brings together leading European scholars whose research addresses key contemporary issues of intersectional experience, politics, and justice from contemporary and historical perspectives. Jeneen Naji’s practice-based research focuses on the cultural politics of gender, race and identity in creative digital media, examining how these are negotiated and represented in the public sphere. Gavan Titley’s acclaimed research explores media, multiculturalism, and the politics of racism, with a particular emphasis on how public debates around racism and migration shape understandings of diversity in the public sphere. Rita Sakr’s research investigates refugee language, displacement, and postcolonialism, looking at how literature and culture respond to global crises and humanitarian issues. Anne O’Brien analyses gender and labour dynamics in media production, uncovering how systemic inequalities are perpetuated within media industries. Jennifer Redmond’s historical studies focus on Irish women’s experiences with migration, education, and labour in the 20th century. Liam Mac Amhlaigh brings contemporary Irish-language literature to the fore, exploring the intersections of politics and language in Irish writing, especially poetry of the 20th century. Anna Hickey-Moody’s research adds an interdisciplinary approach to this mix, focusing on memory, migration, religion, diaspora and the environmental politics of community, particularly through her ethnographic work in Australia and England. Together, these scholars contribute to a dynamic and multifaceted exploration of intersectionality, examining how race, gender, language, and media intersect to shape contemporary global and local challenges.
In 2023, Maynooth hosted the first series of public lectures exploring Intersectional Humanities from various disciplinary perspectives. Distinguished speakers included Avtar Brah, Ghassan Hage, Kimberly Campanello, Marissa Willcox, Rachel McArdle, Tapasya Narang and others. In 2024, it hosted an international conference on Intersectional Materialisms. The Strength is home to the Senior Academic Leadership Ireland named chair in Intersectional Humanities, and is known for global leadership in this conceptual space. The Intersectional Humanities Strength runs an annual international summer school, to find out more or to enrol email: [email protected]
Mind and Material in the Middle Ages
This research cluster aims to foster interdisciplinary research on the Middle Ages. The interests and work of its members encompass history, archaeology and material culture, literature, languages, music and manuscript studies. In addition to its own intrinsic interest, the medieval period provides a valuable perspective on modern Ireland, Europe and the wider world, both in terms of the presence of medieval elements in popular culture and the exploitation of the medieval past in contemporary political discourse and identity building. The group seeks to harness expertise in various aspects of the Middle Ages across multiple disciplines and to support collaborative initiatives in this area across the Faculty and University, with a particular focus on Irish cultural heritage and digital humanities. It will support initiatives for research projects and funding to strengthen the medievalist profile of Maynooth University and it can provide expertise and advice for teaching and programme initiatives in Medieval Studies.