Born in Dublin where he attended the O’Connell Schools in North Richmond
Street, Kieran Quinlan is Professor of English at the University of Alabama at
Birmingham, specializing in modern American and Irish literature with an
emphasis on writers from the American South.
He is the author of three books: John Crowe Ransom’s Secular Faith (1989), Walker Percy, The Last Catholic Novelist (1996), and Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South (2005), which won the Landry Award for the best book in Southern studies from LSU Press.
In reviewing Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South, James Flannery, the Winship Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Emory University, wrote “As it unfolds, Quinlan’s story of the strange kinship between Ireland and the American South begins to take on increasing layers of paradox and contradiction combined with heroic strength and moments of moral revelation. . . . As Quinlan observes in the final sentence of his wonderfully wise meditation on the peculiar connectedness of those two remarkably distinctive peoples of the earth: ‘The past does not fade gently into the present, and the future remains largely unknown.’ But, as our great artists have tried to show us, a better future may lie in accepting.”
Dr. Quinlan has also published essays on W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, and Donald Davie in such journals as The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, and World Literature Today. His current interests include a memoir on his time in Ireland, England, and the American South, and a study of Seamus Heaney and religion. He teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in 20th-century literature, and also a course on Literature and Religion. He directs the Haddin Humanities Forum and has given numerous talks to a variety of public and academic groups.
He is the author of three books: John Crowe Ransom’s Secular Faith (1989), Walker Percy, The Last Catholic Novelist (1996), and Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South (2005), which won the Landry Award for the best book in Southern studies from LSU Press.
In reviewing Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South, James Flannery, the Winship Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Emory University, wrote “As it unfolds, Quinlan’s story of the strange kinship between Ireland and the American South begins to take on increasing layers of paradox and contradiction combined with heroic strength and moments of moral revelation. . . . As Quinlan observes in the final sentence of his wonderfully wise meditation on the peculiar connectedness of those two remarkably distinctive peoples of the earth: ‘The past does not fade gently into the present, and the future remains largely unknown.’ But, as our great artists have tried to show us, a better future may lie in accepting.”
Dr. Quinlan has also published essays on W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, and Donald Davie in such journals as The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, and World Literature Today. His current interests include a memoir on his time in Ireland, England, and the American South, and a study of Seamus Heaney and religion. He teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in 20th-century literature, and also a course on Literature and Religion. He directs the Haddin Humanities Forum and has given numerous talks to a variety of public and academic groups.