Louise Harrington, PhD and MA SOAS, University of London, BA Trinity College Dublin
Pronouns: she, her, hers
Contact
Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts - English & Film Studies Dept
- lmharrin@ualberta.ca
- Availability
- I am on sabbatical for the academic year 2026-27
Overview
Area of Study / Keywords
Conflict Peace Borders Partition Culture
About
My research interests lie at the intersections of literary & cultural studies, peace & conflict studies, and critical border studies. I focus mainly on postcolonial, decolonial and contemporary literatures from the region of South Asia, Ireland and Northern Ireland, and Palestine and Israel.
My current book manuscript takes up aspects of critical border studies and geocriticism to examine how literary and cinematic mediations of 20th century partitions map spaces of conflict and their legacies. Another project examines the role of narrative and storytelling in the aftermath of violent conflict. I have recently concluded a SSHRC-funded multidisciplinary research project that studies how a variety of cultural forms serve an essential function in mobilizing creative modes of peacebuilding in "post-conflict" Northern Ireland.
Research
Supervisory and Research Interests
Postcolonial, decolonial and contemporary literatures; critical border studies; war, (post-)conflict and partition studies; South Asian literatures and cultures; Irish and Northern Irish literatures and cultures; the Arab-Israeli conflict; literature and religion; spatial literary studies.
Teaching
Recent and upcoming courses include:
- ENGL 103 Case Studies in Research: Language Politics in Irish Literature
- ENGL 150 Intro to English Studies: Narratives of Migration
- ENGL 222 Reading Race and Ethnicity
- ENGL 305 Topics in Literature and Religion
- ENGL 315 South Asian Literatures in English
- ENGL 367 Contemporary Literature and Culture
- ENGL 426 The Short Story in South Asia
- ENGL 465 Women Writing War
- ENGL 481 Borders, Lines and Walls
- ENGL 569 Borders as Methodologies
- ENGL 680 Border Aesthetics
Featured Publications
Louise Harrington
Media, War & Conflict. 2026 May; 10.1177/17506352261440449
Louise Harrington
The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial and Decolonial Literature. 2024 September; 10.4324/9781003190233-18
Louise Harrington and Dana Waissi
Resisting the Dehumanization of Refugees eds. Yasmeen Abu-Laban, Michael Frishkopf, Reza Hasmath, and Anna Kirova. 2024 May; 10.15215/aupress/9781771994101.0
Louise Harrington
Journal of War & Culture Studies. 2024 March; 17 (4):450-465 10.1080/17526272.2024.2327759
Louise Harrington
Partitions and Their Afterlives: Violence, Memories, Living eds. Radhika Mohanram and Anindya Raychaudhuri. 2019 April;
Louise Harrington
TEXT special issue: 'Writing and Illustrating Interdisciplinary Research'. 2016 January; 34 10.52086/001c.27105
Louise Harrington
Postcolonial Text. 2016 January; 11 (2):1-16
Louise Harrington
South Asian Diaspora. 2014 January; 6 (1):19-32 10.1080/19438192.2013.828499
Louise Harrington
Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies. 2013 January; 4 (2):47-79