• Naomi Okubo, Living with Greens, 2017

    Disruptive Representations: Women Reading in Contemporary Women's Writing

    This research was funded by a 2 year grant from the Irish Research Council. It asks how the effects of reading can be communicated in written form: more specifically, how women’s writing forges innovative ways of inscribing the act of reading and the experience of women readers.

    This project developed to focus more specifically on queer women's reading, thanks in part to a 2023 Travel Fellowship from Smith College Library Special Collections, and on the ways we categorise types of (critical/uncritical) reading.

    This work led to two journal articles (Textual Practice, Irish Studies Review) and an essay (Too Little/ Too Hard).

    It also informs a nascent research project on connective reading, focused on queer reading and community building.

  • Ulysses, Random House, 1934

    The Reader's Joyce: Ulysses, Authorship, and the Authority of the Reader

    In The Reader’s Joyce I explore critical authority and the construction of ‘the author’, rethinking accepted literary, critical, and theoretical notions of the relationships between author, reader, and text. This study approaches issues of reading by marrying close textual analysis with critical and literary reception studies: from Homeric scholars’ ideations of an unknown author to Joyceans’ critical ideations of Joyce.

    The Reader’s Joyce established my interest in how literature and criticism can communicate acts of reading - which led to my current work on reading in contemporary women’s writing.

  • Creative-criticism

    I am exploring creative-critical responses to issues of reading, both through my own work and by bringing together creative-critical practitioners in a 2023 event series, Possible Forms.

    This work informs a non-fiction book project: a series of interlinked essays tracing reading connections and communities.

  • Audiobook work

    In a freelance writing consultancy role for the audiobook app Audrey, I’ve written listening guides to accompany audiobooks. This work provides me with new ways to understand and consider the activity of reading, finding innovative modes to encourage deep engagement with fiction and non-fiction.

    I’ve written, recorded, and curated multimedia guides for James Joyce’s Dubliners and Katherine Mansfield’s Bliss and Other Stories. My latest guide is for Joyce's Ulysses.